The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 15.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Tuesday, 12 Dec 2023 07:00. 

Chapter 15: The Way and the Goal-3.

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A significant and meaningful point is made out here when we are told that we should live in such a way that neither should we shrink away from anything, nor should others shrink away from us. This is not an easy affair; only a Godman can live like that. But while all this is hard enough, it is up to us to aspire for this ideal, at least, and to entertain this wish as our goal, in our hearts. Pleasure and pain, censure and praise are equal to this great soul, for he is rooted in God-Being, and it is the responsibility of God to take care of him; he is the greatest devotee. With this gospel the Twelfth Chapter concludes. The teachings of the Gita that follow further on take a different trend of approach altogether and detail certain philosophical aspects, and psychological points, which one comes across in the way of the practice, along the lines described in the earlier chapters.

Often, exponents of the Bhagavadgita have held that the last six chapters are something like an appendix to the central gospel which, for all purposes, concludes with the Eleventh, or the Twelfth Chapter. There are others who think that the purely metaphysical or philosophical considerations are taken up for discussion in the last six chapters, while the more important practical side is emphasised in the earlier ones. Whatever it be, the last six are important enough in their own way, since they elucidate certain knotty issues which have been just touched upon here and there at different places in the earlier chapters.

The Thirteenth Chapter pinpoints its teaching on the principles known as purusha and prakriti—we may say, consciousness and matter, or we may still boil down these correlatives to what we know as subject and object. The relationship between these two is to be understood, and the whole of philosophical deliberation is nothing but this study of the relation between subject and object, seer and seen, consciousness and matter, purusha and prakriti. The purusha is the Soul of all beings, and God identifies Himself with this Soul, here in the form of the great Incarnation, Krishna. The Knower is the Subject. The Known is the Object, or the Field. The Field of the operation of consciousness is the whole of objective phenomena. The kshetra is this Field of operation; the operator upon this Field is the kshetrajna. The Knower of the Field is God Himself. The Atman, or the Self in all beings, which is present in all individuals, and is the subject in you and in me and in everything, is the Universal Subject at the same time.

“I am the Knower in all fields, and not merely in one field.” The Atman in my body is not confined to this body only; it is the Atman uniformly present in all other bodies, also. And, so, there is a necessity to understand the distinction between the Knower of the Field, the Field, the nature of Knowledge, and the Goal of Knowledge. These are the themes of the Thirteenth Chapter. The subject who is the individual percipient, or the conscious observer of things, is the conglomerate psychophysical complex. This body constituted of the five gross elements of earth, water, fire, air and ether, and animated by the mind inside, working with the instrument of the intellect, filled with desires, is the subject proper.

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To be continued

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