Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity :31.4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, January 17, 2023. 07:00.

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

Chapter 31: The Message of the Sixth Chapter-4.

POST ENDS. 

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Thus, the Lord says that there need be no fear in this regard. There shall be a rearrangement of the conditions of the life of a dying person in a new atmosphere in which that condition will find itself. Actually, the person is a condition rather than a thing. We, as human beings, for instance, are not to be regarded as solid bodies. We are certain circumstances prevailing, conditions operating, and certain forces ignited for the purpose of action in a particular manner. The world is made up of forces, conditions, events, energies, fluids rather than solids. Hence, our efforts are also a sort of participation in our maintenance of relationship with the cosmical environment. Hence, all that we do and all that we think and feel will be eternally known to the ruling principals of the universe and our good actions are not destroyed when we die. If death is the destruction of what we do, there is no point in doing anything in this world because death can overtake a person any day. It can be tomorrow. Knowing well that any moment can be the time of the passing of a person, who would like to lift a finger in this world if not for the fact that there is an internal and subtle belief of the continuance of the merit of the action performed? Who would like to be good and do good if that goodness in our nature and the goodness in our action is to be violated immediately and defiled by the hands of death taking possession of us the next moment? We have an unintelligible belief in the possibility of the continuance and the reward that we expect from the good deeds that we perform, irrespective of the fact that our life may be cut off the next moment.

“So Arjuna, what are you afraid of? There is the possibility of this yogin taking rebirth in glorious families where circumstances are conducive to the continuance of the effort.” It is not that once again we start at the beginning. The propulsion, the momentum and the cumulative force of all the good things that we did earlier will be mustered in and garnered into a concentrated harvest for utilisation in our present existence, or our future one, and so there is a continuous onward march of the soul in its spiritual evolution. There is a rise from level to level. The ascent of the soul to Godhead is a process of spiritual evolution. It is a reshuffling of the lower coil for entering into a newer and finer one so that the involvement of the soul becomes more and more intimate, friendly, ethereal, fine, shining and radiant like an angelic personality until it becomes all radiance, a flood of divinity. Hence, there is no loss of effort in this world. All good effort, all sincere motivation, all pious action shall be blessed by the Almighty's ordinance, which is a permanent sanction of the reward of justice for every little sincere participation in the purpose of God's creation.

Hence, there is no cause for anxiety that people who are denied the blessing of this realisation in this particular physical life for certain reasons are really lost souls. There are no lost souls. Every gain is a permanent gain. Even a little gain is a gain after all, and it shall be a spiritual benefit. So one should engage oneself in this yoga of communion with Reality with unremitting effort.

So goes the message of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. We could imagine the importance of this intricate theme of yoga meditation from the length of time that we had to take in making some sense of this message, because it is intensely practical. Very little theorisation is here. It is a down-to-earth engagement of the seeker in something that is to be done just now.

In the light of all the instructions provided in the earlier chapters, from the first onwards, the Bhagavadgita, as we have noticed, is a complete teaching. It takes us along the path of an involution of our spiritual involvement gradually. In a cosmological order, we may say, the manner of the ascent of the soul to the ultimate Godhead is almost a reverse of the process of the coming down of the soul in its descent from God. The Supreme Being willed the cosmos, created this universe, made this a whole picture which this whole being of God visualised as a totally beautiful substance. This wholeness of the picture of creation God willed out of His total will.

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