Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 5.4. - Swami Krishnananda

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Friday, September 25, 2020. 7:59.PM.

Discourse 5: The Second Chapter Concludes – The Establishment of the Soul in Universality -4.

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1.

Therefore, work is a must. We have to do; we have to act. But why is it that we do not get the result that we expect? 

The answer to this question is not in the Second Chapter. The answer is in a verse in the Eighteenth Chapter: 

BG-CH-18, SLO14.

"adhishthanam   tatha   karta   karanam   ca   prthagvidham,

vividhasca   pathak   ceshta  daivam    caivatra   pancamam."

When we do something, we have a very narrow notion of what result will follow from our action. The narrow notion arises on account of our limitation to our body and social conditions, and our completely ignoring our cosmical relation. The fruit accrues according to the sanction of the involvement of ourselves in the cosmic structure, notwithstanding the fact that we have individually, so-called, initiated the action. The action that we perform is not a stereotyped movement in a simple manner, as we think. Our action is very complicated. It involves many factors. When we take a morsel of food, how many organs in our body act? The entire organism rises up into action. Even if it is only one raisin that we are putting into our mouth, the entire mechanism starts acting. Similarly, any action that we perform sets in motion the whole rotation of prakriti, and it will act and react according to its laws.

2.

The physical body is the adhisthana that is spoken of. The limitations of the physical body are also the limitations of our action. We cannot work like elephants. We can work only to the extent that the frail human body permits. There are many weaknesses as far as our physical body is concerned, and those weaknesses diminish the effect of the action that we perform. Hence, the adhisthana, or the physical lodgement of our consciousness, limits the effect of the action to that extent.

3.

Karta is the ego principle. When we do an action, the ego asserts itself in a particular manner. The manner in which the ego acts at the time of the performance of an action is entirely dependent on the desire which it has on the subconscious level or the conscious level, and the direction of the action will be motivated by the implicit desires. The ego is nothing but a bundle of desires. It has latent desires as well as expressed desires. So when it acts, it will act either for the fulfilment of a very obvious desire, or it will have a thought of the possibility of fulfilling some latent desire in the future. This will be a restriction on the nature of the fruit that accrues, because the restriction is nothing but the limitation of our desire. We cannot desire everything. We have only petty desires. Our desires are so small and so weak that the limitation of the desires, which condition the action of the ego, is another limitation, apart from the limitation of the physical body.

To be continued ....


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