The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita - 6.1. Swami Krishnananda

Tuesday, July 07, 2020. 8:53. AM.

Chapter 6: The Meaning of Duty - 1.

1.

The reply of Sri Krishna to Arjuna’s questions comes from various levels—the social, the personal, the cosmical and, ultimately, the spiritual. A problem has to be tackled in every way, because our difficulties arise from the depths of our being. No difficulty belongs merely to one side of our life, just as a disease has a root in the layers which are beneath the mere physical. Interpreters of scriptures and students of philosophy are asked to take into consideration all the possible aspects of a particular situation, even if it be a commonplace event. A little event is a cosmic event, though it may be a very insignificant, meaningless something for common perception. But a thing is not so redundant as it may appear on the surface. The universe is awake at the birth of every event. That is why we are told that there is no such thing as a secret in this world; everything is public, open and common. An event has to be viewed from various angles of vision. Mostly, we are inclined to study things in a one-sided manner. We study themes, for example, from the political context, and interpret them only from that viewpoint, as if there is nothing else about things. Students of sociology and psychology, again, think only from their points of view. There are others, who are the religious people, who interpret everything theologically, and so on.

2.

There is an objective universe, no doubt. The world appears to be outside us, and the objectivity of the event is also something that has to be taken into consideration. But we, as subjects, take part in the event that appears to be objective. Inasmuch as we, as subjects, participate in the objectivity of the event, there is also a subjective aspect of the event. So, no event or circumstance is wholly objective, nor can it be said to be wholly subjective. There is an intermingling of the outer and the inner, the objective and the subjective in the occurrence of any event. There is also a transcendent meaning inherent in the occurrence of anything. It is not merely the world and the individual that react upon each other, there is a final deciding factor which requires the objective and the subjective aspects to react in that manner. Often, we call this transcendence the Will of God. There is also the social side of it, because an event occurs in a social atmosphere. By society we need not necessarily mean a group of human beings. Society, in general, is an organised order, whether it is human or otherwise. And an event that occurs in an organised atmosphere has the impact of this organisation, whatever that organisation be—it may be a family, an institution, or the entire mankind.

To be continued ...

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