Study of the Bhagavadgita : Chapter-1 : Post- 10. Swami Krishnananda

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Friday, July 10, 2020. 9:01. AM.
Chapter-1. Introduction to the Bhagavadgita-10.

The Upanishads say there are realms of being that transcend human life, and modern evolutionary doctrine says there are species above the mineral, the plant and the animal, leading to the human species. The Upanishads say that there are realms of being, denizens occupying a different order of life altogether, larger than what can be comprehended by a human being. The Gandharvas, the Devas, the realm of Brihaspati, Narayana and Nara, up to Prajapati, Brahma, Virat, Hiranyagarbha, Ishvara, and the Absolute, are used to take your mind beyond the concept of human satisfaction and human limitation.

Life is not complete merely with bread and jam. Even with the best of comforts that you have in this world, you are still very poor in comparison with the great blessing that is ahead of you. That will be opened up in a series through the chapters of the Bhagavadgita, which are eighteen in number. There are also eighteen books of the Mahabharata. They seem to be designating a gradational ascent of teaching, the movement of the spirit of man in an advance in the direction of higher and higher dimensions of experience until God-experience becomes the fulfillment of life.


In the earliest of stages, which is the First Chapter, it is a tragic experience. It is a battlefield that is described there, with kettledrums of war, bands beating for the forthcoming neck-to-neck fight, and arms drawn for the eventuality. With that, the Bhagavadgita commences the First Chapter. And the greatest hero Arjuna, representing humanity itself we may say, cowed down. The best of men cannot face the forces of nature. The widest learning that you have will not give you even one piece of bread that is not earned and produced by somebody else.

To this condition of a possible descent of human nature into an utter helplessness of understanding of what is ahead, Arjuna was introduced. It is something that any one of us can expect. Perhaps some of us have an inkling of what the bitter side of life is. I do not think every one of you is the happiest of human beings. There is something pricking your back that you are trying to ignore by adding a cushion, but still it is pricking. Life tells you that it is not always very soft. With every beautiful rose flower, you will also find a little thorn on its stem. So for every pleasure that comes to human nature, there is also a little poisonous sting which may manifest itself one day or the other.

When you study a subject, you have to see the whole of it. Therefore, learning should not be merely a branch of learning such as physics, mathematics, history, or geography, because a historian does not know what geography is, and a geography student does not know what history is. Their knowledge is parochial, very limited. But the wisdom of life, the insight into things, is a total grasp of things and knowing all things at the same time by an intuitional sight. That it is which the Bhagavadgita will provide for us.

Chapter-1. Ends.
Next : Chapter-2. The Background of the Bhagavadgita
To be continued ....


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