The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action-3. : Swami Krishnananda

13/01/2019
(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)
A Synthesis of Thought and Action-3

3.1
In the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna we have a pictorial representation of what the Bhagavadgita ideal of life should be, ought to be. We have in the glorious life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna a representation of the doctrines of the Bhagavadgita in practical life. The understanding of the nature of life is a presupposition of understanding the meaning of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita. It is very difficult to make out what is actually the sense that the Gita ultimately conveys to man, on account of which hundreds of commentaries on it have cropped up like mushrooms – not one giving the entire meaning of it, and not any one of the commentaries being capable of being regarded as redundant. Every commentary gives an aspect of the truth of it, but not the whole of it.

The Bhagavadgita is such a totality of approach that even Bhagavan Sri Krishna declined to tell it a second time when Arjuna requested him to speak it once again after the war was over. That comprehensive approach cannot be summoned into consciousness constantly in human life. Very rarely do we rise to such heights of human understanding. For Sri Krishna himself to say that he could not speak it a second time would give us an idea as to the meaning hidden behind the whole gospel.

3.2
We may say it is God speaking to man. When God speaks to man, He speaks from every corner of the world. He does not speak only from the front or from behind or from any particular direction, because the existence of God is not a local, objective station. The presence of God is not like the presence of an object. It is not here or there or somewhere. It is everywhere. And therefore, the message of God should come from every direction. When it comes from every direction, it touches every aspect of life. It does not merely touch every aspect of life, but solves every question and every problem.

Thus we are told that the Bhagavadgita is sarva shastra mayi, which means to say the essence of every teaching is in the Upanishad and the Bhagavadgita. Whatever question may arise in one’s mind, that question can be answered in one way or the other in a word, in a phrase or a sloka of the Bhagavadgita. There is no mental trouble or psychological complex which is not touched in the Bhagavadgita, and there is no remedy for the psychological ills of man which cannot be unearthed from some place in the Gita gospel.

To be continued ..