Study of the Bhagavadgita : Chapter - 5.5. Post- 18. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, March 29, 2021. 10:43.AM.
Chapter 5: The Karma Yoga Principle of the Bhagavadgita-5.
Post-18.
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.In this call of duty, which is your participation, you should not connect your performance with any fruit or result that may follow from it. Here is a difficulty in understanding the gospel of the Bhagavadgita. We are always prone to think that everything we do should yield some result: “What shall I get if I do this?” The Bhagavadgita will not permit you to raise such a question. Can the legs ask what they will get by walking? If the hands raise a morsel of food and put it in the mouth, do they ask what they get by doing that? “Somebody is eating, and I lift the food.” Would you like to carry somebody’s luggage for nothing? And why should the hand lift the food for somebody else’s satisfaction? But does the hand put such a question? The spectacles are for the eyes, but the nose bears the burden. Why does the nose bear somebody’s luggage? Does the nose refuse? Why does each limb not demand satisfaction for itself and ask what it will get by doing this work? What does the nose get by smelling? The nose does not get anything by smelling. Something else gets it; and something else getting it is equal to the nose getting it, or much more than it expects.

The more you give, the more you receive. This is the philosophy of spirituality. But if you grab, always demand what you want, you will get nothing. The receiver gets nothing; only the giver gets. This is a difficulty in understanding the psychology of spiritual existence. It is not business mathematics, the striking of a balance sheet, or arithmetic of the commercial type. It is a non-commercial, super-mathematical arrangement. The more you give, the more you get. How is it possible? You will not understand such a thing. You never see that by giving more you get more. It looks as if you are losing by giving more and more. The more you give out of the abundance of your own personality, the less is the attachment that you will have for the personality and the more you will be able to participate in the universal setup.

The giving aspect – I am just digressing a little from the main subject – is emphasised because of the fact that in giving, you are not giving some object; you are giving your own self, giving your satisfaction. The charity is in giving a part of your own joy. If joy is not there in giving, you have given nothing. Suppose you give a useless old coin to a beggar; you have done no charity because even by giving, you have lost nothing. You are still a millionaire. The charity has not been done in the proper proportion.

Joy is shared in giving. Inasmuch as your joys are egoistic in nature, body-conditioned and not actually universally placed, it is good that you share your joy with other people. In sharing the joy, you are also sharing a little part of your ego, because joy and ego go together. The ego it is that is happy, for whatever reason. Let its happiness go a little bit. It pinches. Nobody likes to give anything. You feel sorry that something is going. The ego feels that at bit of it is also going, and feels great grief. Let it feel the grief so that the more you give as a sharing of your own joy, the more also is the ego part that goes with it. The less is the ego, the more is the universal aspect that will enter into you, the more spiritual you become, the more godly you become, and the less human, finite and drab your existence becomes.

To be continued ....

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