The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 2.3. : Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, December 13, 2022. 06:30.

Chapter 2: The Battlefield of Life - 3.

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But such occasions are rare; usually we are able to realise that there is justice in this universe, though in moments of intense suffering we are likely to complain against the system of things and find fault with the structure of the universe. But this we do not do always. There are moments of sobriety when we are able to think in a better manner and feel that there is a need for the resolution of conflict. That there should be an urge felt within us to resolve a conflict should be an indication of the possibility of the resolution of the conflict, as one cannot entertain merely a hopeless hope. A hope is hopeful, it is not negativity. When we assure ourselves that things will be better one day, in some way or the other, some insight is welling up from inside, and that is the inward status of integrality that speaks to us in the words of a superphysical language.

The epics of the great masters, whether of the East or of the West, are a depiction of the drama of life. It is a play of various circumstances, situations, colours, each looking independent of the others, but somehow collaborating to present the picture of completeness, as in a play. The dramatis personae, the people who enact the play, are independent and isolated in their performances. It does not mean that everyone taking part in the play will present the same picture and place before us an identical situation. Every individual enacting the play is different from the others, has a performance which is distinct from that of the others. But the whole drama is a completeness by itself. It is not a distracted chaos, it is a harmony, and we enjoy the play. When the whole enactment is over, we are delighted. “This is a wonderful performance.” Thus we go away with happiness. We do not say, “This man did this and that man did that; there is no connection between one and the other.” We realise the connection in spite of the variegated scenes presented in the drama which may run for hours together into the night. The pictures may be completely different if individually perceived, but the wholeness behind the acts is the delighting feature. So is life, and such is the intention of the writing of epics.

We are not always in a position to see the wholeness that is behind the pictures in the form of the drama of creation. We are the actors in this great field of activity called the cosmos. “The whole world is a stage,” said our Rishies, and we are all the people who are acting on this stage, but we are not always conscious that we are playing the drama. This consciousness is wrested out of us by some unfortunate occurrence in us. Look at the fate of a person who is performing one role in a dramatic enactment. Suppose he forgets his relationship with the other performer. He behaves as if he is absolutely independent, and has no connection with the entirety of the play. He does not know that there is a direction of the play. He does not know the intention behind the performance. 

He is acting absolutely independent, presenting an isolated picture. He would cut a sorry figure and spoil the whole game. This we are doing every day. We are disturbing the game of life, not knowing that we are items in the totality of the dramatic presentation in this grand enactment of the aims of life, of which the Supreme Being Himself is the Director. His vision is the totality of the picture of the drama. The Bhagavadgita takes up this point of view of the completeness that is behind this wonderful picture of creation, and the necessity that is to be there for recognising a harmony in the midst of forces which look like conflicting powers on account of their isolated individualities not related harmoniously one with the other. The difficulty is the excessive preponderance of one of the powers of prakriti, at some time, on which we lean due to the force exerted upon us by one or the other of them.

Apart from rajas and sattva, the externalising and stabilising powers, there is a third condition called tamas, inertia. In the language of physics you would have heard it said that there are two forces: stasis and kinetics, or dynamics. There is no such thing as sattva in science, which is not concerned with it, and perhaps it is not willing even to think of it. There are only two conditions of things: either they are in a state of inertia or they are dynamic and expressed in some form of activity. So we are, and everything is, in one of these conditions, and sometimes in both these conditions, working together in some sort of proportion.

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To be continued

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