The Bhagavadgita's Message of Knowledge and Action -10. Swami Krishnananda

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18/12/2019.
(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1974)
POST-10.
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So the gospel of the Bhagavadgita clinches the matter by telling us in its clear-cut language that ignorance of the law is no excuse.

“Oh, I did not know it. I am sorry.” We should not say that.

If we are sorry, well, we have to bear the fruit of it. We touch the live wire and say, “I am sorry; I didn’t know it is a live wire.” Well, all right, if we didn’t know it is a live wire, now we know it.

To reiterate the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, knowledge, sankhya, should precede yoga, action. The reaction of good and bad does not impinge upon the individual when there is rootedness of the individual in buddhi marga, the yoga of understanding. But we do not want to understand because an understanding in the correct or proper manner goes against the pleasures of the ego and the senses. We are more slaves of the senses and the ego than devotees of God.

Though we are chanting through the lips, “O Lord, Thy kingdom come,” how will it come?

Nothing will come. Only our sorrow will come. Why?

Because what we have sown, that alone can we reap. We sow the seed of thistles and expect a beautiful mango to come out of the plant. Nothing will come.

"Sreyas ca preyas ca manushyam etah
tau samparitya vivinakti dhirah,"

(Katha - Ch-1. Sec-2. Mantram-2, First two lines ) says the Katha Upanishad.

Sreyas and preyas are two different things altogether. The pleasures of the senses and the satisfactions of the ego are not always in consonance with the delight of divinity or the bliss of God.

The last slokam of the Bhagavadgita, which figuratively tells us that Bhagavan Sri Krishna and Arjuna jointly take up arms against the evil forces of the world, incidentally points out that the individual should be united with the universal. In every one of its actions, in every stage of its evolution, at any given moment of time, we are always in a state of yoga. Yoga is not only in the temple or in the meditation hall. It is also in the marketplace, in the shop, and in the bathroom because we may die in the bathroom itself.

Do we think we will die only in the meditation hall?

That is a very good thing if it happens, but we may die in the marketplace.

 What will happen then?

We are thinking of stupid things in the shop and at that time our prana goes.

What will happen?

They say the last thought determines the future life of a person.

To be continued ....


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