The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 10.2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, March 18, 2021. 06:25. PM.
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Chapter - 10 : The Need for Sankhya -2.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti)
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Honest, dispassionate thinking is necessary here, and everyone has to be humble enough to realise the extent of one’s dependence on external factors. No one is the creator of the universe, and no one is so vastly occupied with power that one can be totally independent. Nothing can be independent in this world of interconnections, interrelations. 

Therefore, we have a duty, and what our duty is, is to be decided by the position we are occupying in the structure of the human society, our knowledge, and our capacity: guna karma vibhagasah (BG 4.13).

 Details of this guna karma vibhaga, the classification of human function and duty in the light of the gunas that constitute and operate in the human personality, will be explained in a little greater detail in the Eighteenth Chapter.

We have a social duty. It is simple common sense. It does not require much of a study and logical understanding. Any sensible person will realise that there is mutual give and take of assistance. So, from this point of view also, we cannot say we shall do nothing. That is not a possibility.

Secondly, there is a fear that the body will die. The argument from the physical point of view also is brought out in a simple, homely manner. There is no body which will not die : 

"jatasya hi dhruvo mrtyur dhruvam janma mrtasya ca, 

tasmdd apariharyerthe na tvam socitum arhasi" (BG 2.27). 

It is an unfounded imagination that by not doing anything we will be protecting our body, and that we will be endangering our physical existence by entering into the fray of human enterprise. There is no one who will not be subjected to death, physically speaking. If we accept that the body had a beginning, it shall also have an end, and no one knows when that end will come.

Matrasparsas (BG 2.14), 

or the contact of the senses with physical objects, is brought as an illustration of one of the conditioning factors of the duration of the physical existence in the world. This is a slightly complicated matter. How long can we live in this world? Humanly it is not possible to measure this duration, but there is a background for the duration or the span of life of each person in the world. It is not visible to the eyes and cannot be contemplated by the human mind, because these conditions are beyond ordinary individual comprehension.

To be continued ..

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