The Essence of the Gospel of the Bhagavadgita : 1. Swami Krishnananda

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19/07/2019
(Spoken at a conference in Delhi on December 27, 1973.)
1.


This metropolis of Bharatavarsha, today called Delhi, the headquarters of our country, was originally known as Indraprastha, the capital of King Yudhisthira of Mahabharata fame. This is the spot and the atmosphere wherein was enacted the drama of human life many centuries ago, an enactment which has been recorded for us by Sage Krishna Dvapayana Vyasa in the masterly epic known as the Mahabharata. Not very far from this place is Kurukshetra, the arena wherein were arrayed conflicting forces as the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Therefore, it would be worthwhile for us to contemplate for a few seconds in our own hearts a majesty which once reigned supreme in this very environment in which we are seated today. Righteousness ruled the world in the form of King Yudhisthira, and divinity backed it up as Bhagavan Sri Krishna.

Dharma, which was symbolised in the life and personality of Raja Yudhisthira, was founded upon the divinity of Bhagavan Sri Krishna. Such a masterly combination of virtue and divine glory, such a blending of righteousness and divine magnificence was manifest before one’s own physical eyes years back in this very atmosphere hallowed by the lives of those great ancestors of ours.



It is the fortune of the citizens of this sacred land that we have been bequeathed for posterity and eternity a gospel which we now know as the Bhagavadgita, which was spoken by the divinity of this universe through the mouthpiece Bhagavan Sri Krishna to the great warrior Arjuna, who represents human nature with all its foibles and with all its glories.

The Bhagavadgita as the message given by the master of yoga to humanity in general is going to be the subject of our contemplation these few minutes here, in this auspicious moment. The crest jewel of the Mahabharata epic is the Bhagavadgita, wherein we are given the quintessence in its philosophical form of the epic, which is an outer dramatic representation of the esoteric significance which is enshrined and embodied in the gospel of the Bhagavadgita.
 
To be continued ..


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