The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 13- 2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday,  September 11 2021. 10:00. PM.
Chapter -13. Cosmology and Eschatology- 2.
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The external world consists of the five elements, which rarely attract our attention in our daily existence. We do not bother much about the five elements, though they are there as a very important thing before us. The world also includes what we call human relationship and activity in the field of the social atmosphere (adhiyajna), and all agency in every enterprise. The world of physical Nature is what is known here as the adhibhuta, the world of the elements, Nature in its completeness.

But, to us, the world of experience is also something else, in addition to the physical elements only. There is a mysterious involvement of ours in our external affairs, and this involvement is something indescribable, which keeps us in anxiety, in a state which is occasioned not merely by the existence of the five elements but by the peculiar attitude of people everywhere, among themselves. If we are today cautious and are aware of world affairs, these concerns that are in our minds are not the products of the five elements. 

We are not thinking of what the earth will do tomorrow or the water or the fire or the air or the sky will be intending to do the next day. The world of activity and the world of concern is the world of human relationship, adhiyajna,  and this psychological world occasions activity in specialised directions. This is the world of action, the world of adhiyajna, where we sacrifice ourselves for a particular cause. The motive which drives us into activity of any kind and compels us to maintain relationships with other people is comprehended within this restless field of daily sacrifice and mutual adjustment in various ways.

So,in this world of external experience we have the physical elements, the world of nature, which stands supreme above all that we can think of as of being value in our external life. But we have not yet reached the state of understanding the relevance of the five elements to our personal lives. We are too human and too matter-of-fact in our evaluation of things and, for us, the world of experience is the world of human beings and human relationships, which is all that is important. But if we go a little deep into the details of what we have observed earlier on a different occasion, we may remember that any kind of experience by the subject, the individual, of any atmosphere outside, is not possible without the presence of a transcendental element intervening. This Mystery of life is the adhidaiva, the Divinity that shapes our ends, which controls our destinies, which decides every factor everywhere, and which has a say in every matter. It has something to do with every little bit of thing in the world. 

There is no event taking place anywhere, at any time, without the intervention of this transcendent principle which mysteriously planks itself between the subject and the object, so that, as the great hymn in the Atharva-Veda, addressed to Varuna, says, there is always a secret observer of what transpires between two persons everywhere. One may be in the highest heavens or in the nether regions, one may be in the farthest corner of the earth, it matters not where one is, one’s secret thoughts and transpirations and feelings will be observed by a subtle principle which is pursuing all things wherever anything be. That subtle being is the adhidaiva, God Himself observing all in His own mysterious manner, by the very fact of His being. This is the great Divinity which superintends over all things and all events that happen inwardly as well as outwardly.

To be continued ....

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