Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 17.7 & 18.1 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, March 17, 2022. 18:00.

Chapter 17. The Play of the Cosmic Powers-7.

Chapter-18 The Yoga of the Liberation of  Spirit.-1

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Chapter 17. The Play of the Cosmic Powers-7.

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Here, in this mystical significance of the well-known symbol of Om, we are given a further transcendence of both the transcendent aspect and the immanent aspect of the Absolute. It is, in the language of the Upanishad, the  Bhuma, or the Plenum, the completeness whereby we cannot look upon it either as something above us or as something within us. To that supreme completeness, there are no outward and inward differences. There is no such thing as going above and being within, because it is everywhere, at all times, without the limitations of space, time and objectivity. Such an incomprehensible significance is embedded in this mystical formula of  Om. Naturally, it is a holy expression, which is unutterable, beyond understanding but signifying everything that is blessed and supreme. Such is  Om, which grasps within itself all that is real everywhere, the transcendent and the immanent.

So, God is all, the Absolute is everything. The invocation of this Symbol, Om Tat Sat, in our experience, in our own consciousness, a remembrance of it at the sacred conclusion of any kind of performance, religious or otherwise, is regarded as a completion of that performance. God completes everything, and everything is incomplete where God is absent. The only thing that is full is God, and so He has to be invoked always.

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Next : Chapter-18 The Yoga of the Liberation of Spirit.

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The concluding chapter of the Bhagavadgita, which is the Eighteenth, is a sort of sequel to the whole of the message which has been delivered in the earlier sections. By way of a summing up of the teaching, the essentials are precisely stated in a classified manner. After everything has been said, it appears that point which the Gita is driving home into our minds is that we should not shirk duty. This seems to be the ringing tone of its message. And in the context of the description of the nature of duty, several other philosophical and ethical aspects also are touched upon incidentally.

The outlook of the Gita is wholly realistic. And inasmuch as the realism of life is rooted in a grand idealism of aspiration, the gospel becomes most comprehensive in its approach. When we touch one point, we begin to realise that it is connected with another, and the second one with the third, and so on, until the revelation comes that nothing can be explained unless everything is explained. Such is the organic structure of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita.

The Eighteenth Chapter starts by recounting the principle of action, Karma Yoga, which is many a time regarded as the establishment in a kind of knowledge free from action, and at other times as the performance of action free from clinging to the fruits thereof. Two significant terms are used at the very outset: sannyasa and tyaga. Though etymologically the two words mean almost one and the same thing, they are used here with a special meaning attached to each one of them. When all desireful actions are abandoned and we perform only actions free from desire, we are supposed to be in the state of sannyasa, a relinquishment of everything that is associated with personal motive or desire. But tyaga, which is also abandonment, is defined as the giving up of the desire for the fruit of the action and not the giving up of action itself. There is, thus, a difference between the giving up or relinquishment of action and the giving up of the consequence of the action. These are not easy things to understand, though it would appear that we have studied a lot on the subject throughout the course of the teaching.

To be continued ...

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