The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita - 1.Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday 23, January 2026, 06:30.
Article
Scriptures
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita - 1.
Swami Krishnananda.

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I shall endeavour to touch upon a few salient points which will be of some meaning and utility in our day-to-day life. To apply knowledge to life is the most difficult aspect of knowledge. We have always been accustomed to bifurcate life from knowledge, and vice versa, so that a learned man is not necessarily a happy man nor even a rich man. The reason is that learning, knowledge, has been isolated from the facts of life. This is one of the conflicts that we observe in life. As they say humorously, Sarasvati and Lakshmi never live in the same house, meaning thereby that learning and wealth do not go together. There are many such conflicts, all which are supposed to be solved, in one way or the other, by means of the great teachings known as the Bhagavadgita.

Bhagavan Sri Krishna, when He spoke the Bhagavadgita, intended to resolve a conflict. What is a conflict, may be a question that raises itself before our minds. There are, actually, four types of conflicts, within which every other type or variation of disharmony can be subsumed. The occasion for the delivery of this Gospel was the battle of the Mahabharata, which means a field of conflict with other people. The first conflict one encounters in life is with other people. 'You do not like me,' and 'I do not like you'. When we wake up in the morning and look at the world, we are faced with a conflict with other people, the human society. This is a difficulty which saps the vitality of many in the world. We have to see faces with whom we cannot reconcile ourselves. It may be a boss, a subordinate or an equal, it makes no difference. When we cannot reconcile ourselves with another face, there is a conflict; and we see nothing but faces when we get up in the morning and look at the world outside. The battle of the Mahabharata is a large epic, describing this primary conflict of human nature – conflict of one person with another person, in which can be included conflicts of groups, communities and nations, because all these are nothing but personalities and individualities associating and clashing in certain manners and patterns. What we call a society, or a family, or a nation, or a community, is the way of human beings grouping themselves into patterns. Thus, conflict with other people includes every kind of conflict in the world.

We have the Mahabharata epic, in the middle of which the Bhagavadgita occurs. Where is the Bhagavadgita located? In the middle of the battle of the Mahabharata. What is this epic battle? A conflict between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, cousin brothers in a unitary family. It was a family feud. We may say it was a conflict between Yudhishthira and Duryodhana, which amounts to the same essential situation. So, again, to reiterate, the conflict which Bhagavan Sri Krishna tries to resolve has as its background the conflict enumerated in the long epic poem of the Mahabharata. What is this background? The conflict of personalities! That was the occasion for the war. Huge armies were arrayed on both sides. Thousands were about to fly at the throats of one another. That was the occasion for the giving of this Gospel. The Gospel was not delivered in a school, a college, or a university, a temple, a church, or an auditorium. This most interesting and indispensable Gospel which we try to enshrine in our hearts, in our memory, was given on that momentous occasion of a war that was about to break between large contending armies. Nobody would, normally, like to seek wisdom on such a tense occasion. That is not the time to speak at all; it is the time to act and do something immediately. Who would speak philosophy when there are large numbers of men emotionally worked up into such a heightened pitch of anxiety and wrath that they will hear no words spoken by anyone, and are bent upon a severe type of action! On that occasion who would speak a sublime Gospel or a scripture! But that was the occasion, and there could not be a better time.

Now, the very purpose of this war was primarily to resolve a social conflict. Well; it was agreed that the war was indispensable. The purpose behind the war was not to destroy people but to resolve a social conflict or a political tension. It was impossible to mend people, and so they thought it was necessary to end people. And they concluded that by the ending of the embodiments of conflict, the conflict would automatically vanish. If you cannot untie a knot, you cut the knot. And for memory's sake I may mention a few specimens who were involved in this conflict – the leaders, the generalissimos of the war. There were powerful veterans on the side of the Kauravas, almost invincible in battle, three of whom, the most prominent ones, were Bhishma, Drona and Karna. Nobody could face them with immunity to their lives. On the other side, that of the Pandavas, we have leaders like Bhima and Arjuna, the brothers of King Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandavas. While the most powerful from the Kaurava side was Bhishma, the most invincible on the side of the Pandavas was Arjuna. They knew every tactic of war, and people would shudder in their hearts by merely hearing the name of these people.

Now, on mutual acceptance, it was agreed that the war had to be waged to end a social conflict. But, when the hour of crisis came, when the iron was hot and it had to be struck, when that moment came, what happened? A most unexpected conflict arose within the mind of Arjuna. It was not a conflict with other people, but a conflict within one's one self. I told you that there are four types of conflicts. The first one is conflict with other people, and to end it they started or embarked upon this perilous adventure of war. But before it broke out or started, the most important of the leaders, the hero of one party, the most renowned warrior, had to pass through a muddle of conflict within himself – his own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and the various tantrums of his psychological organ. You know the situation. All action emanates from the individual, and to do or not to do is to be decided by the individual himself. A decision can be taken only when there is no conflict in one's mind. Either you do a thing or you do not do the thing. Either you want a thing or you do not want the thing. These are decisions that the mind takes. But if one begins to waver between the two horns of the dilemma, and one does not know which side to take and what steps to put forward, due to a conflict within one's one mind, there would be no solution at all. A most surprising attitude did Arjuna put on, to the wonder and marvel of everyone there. The most heroic of persons began to speak words of pusillanimity, feelings of pity which would be completely unexpected from a warrior girt up on the brink of a war. Instead of attempting to solve the social conflict for the sake of which the war was to be engaged in, another conflict was added on to it. So, instead of one conflict, we have two conflicts here. Arjuna, the leader, the great warrior, advanced specious arguments before Krishna, his colleague, his friend and guide, who was seated on the very same chariot, and clinched the whole matter by saying, “I am not for this.” It was a very difficult thing to swallow, and only a personality like Krishna could take it in the true spirit in which it arose.

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