Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 6.5. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Saturday,January  16, 2021. 03:08. PM.
Discourse 6: The Third Chapter Begins – The Relation Between Sankhya and Yoga -5.
Post-5.

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1.

Hence, Sankhya and yoga represent two aspects of the behaviour of the human individual whereby there is participation in the work of prakriti in the process of evolution on the one hand, and there is an understanding as to where we are moving on the other hand. As I mentioned, Sankhya and yoga go together like two wings of a bird, as it were, and the bird cannot fly with just one wing. Merely abstaining from physical action is not inaction, because the mind may be acting. Our intention is the action. Our thought is the action. Our feeling is the action. The movements of our hands and feet are not action. If a person is inactive physically but is very active through the mind, he is verily performing action. But if a person has withdrawn his consciousness from the clutches of the sense organs and is conscious of the world as existing in an interrelated fashion, though he is aware of the world, he is not doing any action. Therefore, the mind is the criterion behind the action or the non-action of the individual concerned.

2.

Another injunction that we have in the Third Chapter is that all action is binding unless it is performed as a sacrifice: yajñarthat karma?o’nyatra loko’ya? karmabandhana?, tadartha? karma kaunteya muktasa?ga? samacara (3.9). There is a very interesting anecdote from Bhagavan Sri Krishna in the Third Chapter, where he says: sahayajña? praja? s???va purovaca prajapati?, anena prasavi?yadhvam e?a vo’stvi??akamadhuk; devan bhavayatanena te deva bhavayantu va?, paraspara? bhavayanta? sreya? param avapsyatha (3.10-11). When we were created by God, He created us together with an impulsion to sacrifice. Sacrifice means the cooperation that has to come from us in respect of other beings in the world. We have to necessarily cooperate with the demands for an equal type of existence from other beings also, whether they are superhuman, human or subhuman. We have to be in harmony with the requirements of the gods in heaven. We have to be in harmony with the requirements of other people in this world. We also have to be in harmony with the requirements of animals in the jungle; we cannot ill-treat them. We cannot ill-treat human beings or even ignore their existence.

3.

Prajapati, the Creator, appears to have created individuals with an injunction that they will survive only by sacrifice. If we are not able to do any kind of sacrifice by way of cooperation with another, we will not be able to survive; our existence as persons will be annihilated. The survival instinct in every individual also implies the recognition of an equal survival instinct in other people. If we want to survive, others also want to survive; and if we want to survive in a qualitatively good manner, others also would like to be equally good qualitatively. We would not like to be servants of somebody, which is to say that we qualify our existence and we would not be satisfied if we are merely permitted to survive. Would we like to survive like pigs or like persons who are ostracised from society? Therefore, permission to survive is not enough. The quantity of survival has to be qualified by another thing, which is the satisfaction that we gain. Hence, we have to be considerate enough in respect of other beings, including subhuman beings, that whatever be the manner in which our survival instinct operates, we must have the capacity to appreciate that the survival instinct operates equally in them. That is, we cannot interfere with the life of another individual. That is the meaning of cooperation.

To be continued ....

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