The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 7.2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, September 24,  2020. 

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

Chapter 7: Can War Ever be Justified ? - 2.

(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)

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1.

There is a little sentence towards the end of the Mahabharata where the very same person who was told this Gita, Arjuna, wanted to hear it a second time. Sri Krishna was sitting near him in a garden, as it were. “I would like to hear once again, great Lord, what you told me in the beginning of the war.”

“Oh, no,” Krishna said. “It cannot be repeated.” The reply of Sri Krishna was in half a sentence, half a verse, in the Mahabharata. Paraṁ hi brahma kathitaṁ yogayuktena tan mayā (M.B. 14.16.12): “When I spoke that, I was in the state of the Absolute. It cannot be summoned a second time like that.” It is difficult to understand the meaning of this little half sentence. “I was in a state of unification with the Supreme Absolute. In that state it was spoken, and once again it cannot be summoned.”

Well, we cannot understand what it means. That it cannot be summoned frequently shows that we cannot be always friends with the Eternal. We cannot be walking with friendship, shaking hands with the Eternal on the streets. Maybe sometimes we can befriend it, but not every day. It is not possible. Why it is not possible, let each one of us understand for one’s own self.

2.

The point is, it was an unusual revelation which was necessitated by a usual occurrence in the circumstance of a social situation: how one should behave in a given condition. At that time, it was a simple question: how one should behave in the circumstance of that impending battle. It was a question that arose in the mind of one person, Sri Arjuna, in the environment of a battlefield where many were arrayed in the fray, and we may ask why this question arose. It was a simple thing. It was very clear what the matter was. What is the need for a question? Everyone knew what it was, and it was decided long before. To understand what a battle is, too much thinking is not necessary as to some extent it is clear to everyone’s mind. But what was it that was not clear to the mind of Arjuna? He puts his position in a few phrases, as we have it mentioned in the First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita itself. It is a long haranguing, but the point is simple, which is a point which every one of us also will raise in our day-to-day activities.

3.

We have some doubts in our mind, lurking at the back of our conscience, when we engage ourselves in any kind of action. Sometimes we suspiciously go ahead with our duties. What is the outcome of this action? We are not clear about it. It may be the proper thing; it may not be the proper thing. “I have been somehow pushed into this situation, and will I succeed in it?” We are not always sure of the success of our engagements. Nobody does something to get defeated in the adventure. Even when we go to war, our intention is not to get defeated, much less to die there. The intention is to win victory and return. Nobody says, “Let me go and die there.” We say, “I shall win victory, and come.” But there is a fear. “Is it certain that I shall win victory? Why should not the other side win victory? There is a possibility.” Where there is a doubt that the adventure may not end in success, is it worthwhile undertaking that adventure? Why not keep quiet? Why take the first step at all because no one can be sure of the consequences of one’s action, inasmuch as the conditions of the fructification of the result of an action do not seem to be all in one’s own hand. Even if we sow seed in the field, it is not one hundred percent certain that the expected crop will come because many other factors are there conditioning the growth and the maturing of the crop.

To be continued ...

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