The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 1.3. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, February 14, 2023. 07:00.

Chapter 1 : This Drama of Life - 3.

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This occasion arose at a moment when the Mahabharata war was to take place – a question that arose in the mind of Arjuna, who in a way represents mankind in general. That personality called 'Arjuna' represents man as such. He stands for me, you, and everybody else. As a member in a parliament may stand for a particular constituency and represent the voice of those people there from where he is elected, Arjuna may represent man as such, everybody included. The question that arose in his mind is the question that may arise in every one of our minds. What is this question? In the earlier stages, this so-called Arjuna representing man, thought like anybody else in the world – "I shall do this, and I shall see that I succeed in my endeavour." We are also saying the same thing, "I will do this; I have to go there." And, naturally you are not going to get defeated in your attempt. You don't embark upon a project to get repelled – you go there for a success in your enterprise. This is how we think, and like that Arjuna also thought. But, things were not so easy when he had to confront that which he could not avoid in the fulfilment of enterprise or the project he was engaging himself in. Even when you want to build a house, you are not going to think merely of brick, cement and iron; this is not the only thing that is involved in the construction of a house. There are larger things, such as the occupation of the land, the ownership, the title deed, the legal association, the architectural plan and the budget involved in it, and your financial status – hundreds of things come into the picture, apart from merely the question of their being the necessity for brick and mortar etc. Many other things also are there, other than what I mentioned as instances. The war in which a person like Arjuna was engaged was not a simple encounter. You do not start anything unless you know everything about it. Otherwise, as the poet said, you would be like a fool who tries to tread where even angels will not like to move.

Arjuna, the representative of man, who thought as any one of us thinks, found himself in a difficulty when he had to confront life's problems. The word 'confrontation' is very unpalatable. It implies a kind of opposition you are trying to face – which war is, battle is, and perhaps any encounter or enterprise is. Any enterprise in life is an opposition you are facing. Any activity of any kind is the effort on your part, to solve a question arisen on account of an opposition that is in front of you; if there is no opposition of any kind, no activity would be essential in life. You need not do anything – you can be just there, where you are – but life is a battle, inwardly as well as outwardly. It is a battle because there is conflict everywhere. You will never find a very smooth movement of anything without a rattling of conflicting elements, which movement of any kind is.

Our very personal existence as a human body is a phenomenon of battle going on in what you call the biological system, which is not a static, concrete, unmoving entity – it is a tremendous movement. You have grown into the stature of your present maturity of body due to a transmutation process which has been going on ever since your birth, and transmutation or transformation is nothing but a process of being born and dying at the same time. An earlier stage dies, and a new stage is born in every evolutionary process. That which 'was' has gone and that which 'is not' is to arrive. The arriving of a new thing is the birth, so-called, and the going away of that which is now, and giving way to that which is not, is the death of the earlier one. Birth and death, the coming and the going of things, is the drama of existence. A Nataka, a drama, a performance in a theatre is a terrible movement – it is not a static action, it is not the mere existing of people on a stage. There is a movement, which is involved in the coming and going of people – some role comes in and some role has an exit. Otherwise, you would have all the dramatis personae standing there before you and not saying anything; there will not be a play. A play involves the coming and going of various actors; and the coming and going of various actors is what you call the scenes in the drama or the enactment – the play. In this sense we may say the life of this world is a great enactment of many people, coming in and going and playing the role in some way, and then having their exit, not being seen again. "The world is a large stage." This is what Shakespeare mentions in a beautiful passage in his As You Like It, perhaps. We are all actors in the large play.

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To be continued

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