Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 6.10 - Swami Krishnananda.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday,February  21, 2021. 11:41. AM.
Discourse 6: The Third Chapter Begins – The Relation Between Sankhya and Yoga -10.
Post-11.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Prakrteh kriyamanani gunaih karmani sarvasah, 

ahaṅkaravimudhatma kartaham iti manyate (3.27). 

We again come back to the main subject. As prakriti is doing all things—the gunas of prakriti are mutating in a cyclic fashion—therefore, it becomes obligatory on our part to act. He who imagines that he is doing the action is really in the state of highest unwisdom. From where then comes the question of our individually participating in a work? We are actually participating cosmically, as an agent of the cosmos, as it were—like an ambassador of a government does not act independently, and only represents the government which has deputed him for a particular purpose. Similarly, we become instruments in God’s hand. We act like ambassadors of God. The ordinance of God is to be in our minds always, and we should never think that we are acting independently. Suppose the ambassador starts behaving as if he is an independent man, as if he is the government himself, then the whole purpose will be defeated. No individual has the right to project the ego to such an extent as to feel that he is doing or she is doing; and if anybody feels that way, that is the height of unwisdom. Prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ, ahaṅkāravimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate: This sense of agency, or doership, is our undoing.

We have learnt many scriptures, listened to many lectures, studied the Bhagavadgita and the Ramayana and the Bhagavata, but each one of us should get up in the morning and sit for a few minutes and feel: “How far has this teaching gone into my very blood and veins? How many times do I get angry?” The spiritual diary of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is a very, very important check that will keep us on track. “How much time have I idled away? How many minutes have I spent in unnecessary gossip and chat? How many minutes have been spent in undesirable company? How many minutes have I spent in telling non-truths, etc.?” These are the checkpoints in the diary that is to be maintained by us. Otherwise, the ego will again and again assert itself, and all our knowledge of the Gita will be buried underground because if whatever knowledge we have gained through our intelligence and through our understanding does not soak itself into our feeling, there will be no blending of our character.

Knowledge is the way in which we are living. Knowledge is not a theoretical book-learning. It is not a certificate from a college. It is the very way and behaviour in which we conduct ourselves in life—not only in respect of ourselves, but also in respect of other people, and perhaps even in respect of God Himself.

How difficult is this teaching! The comprehensiveness of the teaching is so profound that the fractional thinking that the mind is accustomed to will find it very hard to grasp. A total thinking is required of us in the understanding of the Bhagavadgita and the Upanishads, but we are always accustomed to fractional thinking. When we think of one thing, we do not think of another thing. It is necessary for us to think of one thing together with all other things, which are also related in a holistic fashion.

There is a modern system of psychology which has now discovered that the mind works in a holistic fashion. Though it looks as if we are thinking one or two thoughts at a time, the other thoughts which are buried or implicit, and which are not actually on the surface of the mind, have some impact on the present thought, and they condition us so that our actions are not entirely faultless. If our actions are motivated or directed only by one or two thoughts, and we completely ignore the presence of other aspects of our thought, our actions will not be faultless. Sarvārambhā hi doṣeṇa dhūmenāgnir ivāvṛtāḥ (18.48): Every action is subject to some mistake. As where there is fire there is smoke, there is some mistake involved in everything that we do because whenever we act, whenever we do anything, we use a part of our mind because of the fact that we work on the basis of a notion of like and dislike. We have partitioned the world into two blocks: the necessary and the unnecessary.

Hence, the Bhagavadgita teaching becomes necessary for such fractional thinkers. A high standard of purification of the mind is necessary by the yamas and niyamas, as Patanjali puts it, and the Sadhana Chatushtaya, as the Vedanta Shastra puts it. Suddenly jumping into the meditative techniques of the Bhagavadgita will not take us any further unless our mind is prepared for it and we are really asking for God.

End.

Next - Chapter-7. The Third Chapter Concludes: The Knower of Reality.

To be continued ...

=======================================================================