The Philosophy of the Karma Yoga of the Bhagavadgita -1. Swami Krishnananda

27/04/2019
(Spoken on July 15, 1979.)
1.

It is necessary to be very practical and realistic in our approach to sadhana. While we have to be idealistic ultimately, we have also to be realistic and accept the fact that we are still on the Earth and not in the heavens. Many a difficulty of the seeker is an over-estimation and an enthusiasm beyond the level of the Earth. Our feet are still on the ground. We live in a physical body, we live in human society, and we have the foibles of human nature in general.

It is very clear that we are not Godmen. We have not even a clear idea of what God is, let alone be established in the consciousness of God. We are intensely body-conscious. We are acutely hungry when it is lunchtime or dinnertime. We suffer from the pangs of thirst when the sun is hot. We get fatigued, due to which we fall into deep sleep. And we have anxieties caused by the operations human society. We have fears from inside, from outside, and from above, called the three tapas, or tapatreya. All these are staring at us as realities.

This is because we are in one level of what may be called evolution, and that has to be accepted. Call a spade a spade, as they say. We cannot deny that we are intensely conscious of a world outside, and also intensely conscious that we are a body, despite the fact that we assert the bodiless condition of our essential being from the point of view of the scriptures or in the light of what we have heard from teachers in satsangas, etc. We can be put out immediately in one second by the circumstances of life, whatever be the affirmation that we are trying to make in an idealistic fashion.

To be continued ..