Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse- 9.5. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thursday,  June 17, 2021.8:04. AM.
Chapter - 9. The Fourth Chapter Continues: The Performance of Action as a Sacrifice - 5.
Post-5.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.

An individual must have performed great punya, great merit in the previous birth or in several births, to be able to appreciate this great truth of the identity of ourselves with the atmosphere in which we are stationed. Therefore, unselfish action is itself a fruit thereof. If we become healthy, do we ask what we get if we become healthy? Health itself is the fruit thereof. Similarly, unselfishness is nothing but a healthy relationship that we maintain with the world, and perhaps with God. And what we call selfish action is an unhealthy relationship that we maintain with the world and with God—an alien relationship, as it were. We treat the world and God as foreigners, as if we have no connection with them. If that is the case, they will also treat us as foreigners. This is a tit-for-tat action that nature does unto us. But we can be free from this predicament of getting kicks from nature and from God if our actions are motivated by a consciousness that we are an agent, an instrument, a medium of action of cosmic powers, and that we do not do anything.

2.

Shakespeare wrote all the plays with his pen, but we cannot say the pen wrote the plays. Though it is true that the pen actually wrote the plays, we do not say that the pen wrote them; we say that Shakespeare wrote the plays. This is the manner in which we have to understand our position in this world. We are like a fountain pen in the hand of God, an instrument in His hand. We are a tool, as it were: nimitta matra.

3.

The brain will not accept these arguments on account of the turbid karmas that are lying latent in the unconscious and subconscious levels. So in the beginning stages, spiritual practice cannot rise to such heights of this kind of comprehension. It has to start with citta shuddhi—the practice of yamas, niyamas, viveka, vairagya, shad-sampat and mumukshutva—qualities which are mentioned in the Vedanta Shastras. We must be good persons before we become God-persons. We cannot suddenly become godly individuals unless we are good individuals first and foremost. There is very little of goodness in most of us. We are the same brutes when the time for it comes, and this is something that we can know through a little bit of investigation, instead of actually landing ourselves in the predicament where we have to behave like that. We need not fall sick in order to know what sickness is. A doctor can understand. A good physician can know what sickness is, how it acts, without actually falling sick himself.

4.

Hence, it is essential for us to educate ourselves in this art of spiritual living by a graduated ascending process of self-purification, before we go into the meditations of the Upani-shads and the Bhagavadgita. Even when we become students of Vedanta, for instance, we do not start with the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras, and so on, because they will look like a jungle, and we will not know where what is. Everything is found in a forest, but we will not know what is found in which place. This also applies to the Upanishads and the Brahma Sutras. Therefore, the Vedanta Shastra commences with introductory Prakarana Granthas like the Vedanta Sara, the Vedanta Paribhasha, the Laghu Vasudevamanana, and the Panchadasi. Then we study the Upanishads. Only after these, the Bhagavadgita and the Brahma Sutras should be studied. We should not suddenly jump into them unless we are already a prepared soul, by the grace of God.

To be continued .....

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