A Short History of Religious and Philosophic Thought in Bharatham.4.4&5.1. : The Bhagavadgita - Swami Krishnananda

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20/01/2020.
Chapter 4: The Bhagavadgita-4.
4. THE INCARNATIONS OF GOD
5. THE SECRET OF RIGHT ACTION -1
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1.

God incarnates himself in the world, whenever there is decline of righteousness and rise of unrighteousness, for the purpose of the protection of the good, the vanquishing of the wicked and establishment of justice in every age.
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2.

#The theory of divine incarnation has been a controversial issue in the philosophy of religion and has been one of the intriguing questions in theology. It is impossible metaphysically to interpret to the mind of man the divine secret of the movement of spiritual force in the world. When a solution is attempted, the Avatara reveals itself as the answer of God to the needs of man.

##There is an internal bond of inseparable relation between the relative and the Absolute, and the descent of God on earth is the pressure of the power of truth forcing itself into the realm of the relative when the harmony of this bond and relation gets dissipated by centrifugal psychic energies that seem to run counter to the integrating centripetal call of God to all manifestation.

###The descent of God as the Avatara is said to be for the ascent of man to his divine home. As the health-giving forces of harmony in the body perpetually wage a war with the disease-producing toxins, the universal balancing power of the Absolute introduces itself as a corrective element amidst the disturbing forces of darkness.

####The Avatara is a perpetual activity of God who manifests himself at every juncture or critical situation (Yuge, Yuge) in the life of the world. The Avatara is the recurring reminder of God to man that it is impossible for the undivine to triumph over the essential goodness and divinity immanent in creation.
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5. THE SECRET OF RIGHT ACTION-1.
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1.

#The Bhagavadgita is the classic treatise on the science of right activity, called karma yoga. Krishna exhorts Arjuna to engage himself in the performance of duty, by regarding pleasure and pain as well as success and failure as equal, for the purpose of rightly directed work is not the achieving of any result for oneself but discharging the duty of cooperation with the law of the Universe.

##The merit that a right action produces never perishes in time, however small it be, and even the least effort done in the direction of righteousness is capable of saving one from the danger of falling into the bondage of life. One should, for this purpose, go beyond the pairs of opposites like pleasure and pain, by centring oneself in purity of thought achieved through a care-free life of the establishment of consciousness in the Universal Self.
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2.

#One's duty is only to act and not covet the fruit of action.

##The secret of right action is in so conducting oneself that there is neither regard for the result of the action nor is there total abstinence from action.

But the non-regard to the fruit of action is not to be interpreted as callousness to the performance of duty and a carelessness towards its method and purpose - that would be another form of selfishness - for karma yoga is 'dexterity in execution' and 'balance of mind' in the performance of action. Lest this science of action should be mistaken for mere prudence of behaviour and shrewdness in conduct, Krishna adds that all action is to be done after fixing oneself in yoga and detaching oneself from any ulterior motive behind it.

###And yoga is the equanimous settling of oneself in the consciousness of God.
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