Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 18-2. - Swami Krishnananda.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2022. 20:00.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).
Chapter 18: Reconciling Knowledge and Action - 2.
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Yet, the more subtle is the sacrifice, the better it is in the production of permanent result, or effect.
"Shreyan dravya-mayad yajnaj jnana-yajnah parantapa
sarvam karmakhilam partha jnane parisamapyate." (BG 4.33)
O subduer of enemies, sacrifice performed in knowledge is superior to any mechanical material sacrifice. After all, O Parth, all sacrifices of work culminate in knowledge.
Knowledge is superior to material possession, a thing which we have yet to learn in our modern culture. We do not pay much respect to knowledge. There is respect only to material property, house, wife, land, husband, money, status and social position. All these are materially oriented values which have preponderated to such an extent that there is today a threat of matter engulfing spirit, externality swallowing the subject, the winds of undivine forces threatening the very existence of the little spiritual voice of man. Such a state of affairs the world today is appearing to land itself in, and this is not a happy state of affairs.
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The world is not made up of material substance. We have discussed earlier in our previous session that the world is not made up of substances. Therefore, it is futile on the part of anyone to imagine that material relationship is the proper relationship. The world is constituted of subtle energy, subtle force – vibration, finally. We made reference to the properties of prakriti called sattva, rajas and tamas. We have to remember once again these properties are not conceivable, much less perceivable substances or things. They are subtler than even electric energy, which linguistically cannot be explained. It is a force that exerts some pressure, and therefore it cannot be located in a particular place. Electricity is not in one place because of the fact that it is not a substance, but a force. Physical substances can be located; energy cannot be located. It is coextensive with its environment. Today in modern physical science we have been told that the location of an atom or an electron can be determined not independent of the environment which it occupies, but in relation to the environment. The atmosphere of an electron is conditioning the very structure and the movement of the electron, so that we may say the electron is not an individual but a social unit in the sense that its environment conditions, determines and even decides its operation and existence.
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But what is the environment of an electron? It is not one inch outside it, not one foot, one kilometre. The whole universe is the environment of even a single electron, which means to say, a little particle cannot be considered independent of the operation of the environment, which is as vast as space and as long as time itself. This is the way in which we have to understand energy. An electron is not a particle. It has not a little sand-like location. The language is such that it somehow compels us to wrongly think of the location of something which is not a particle. The word ‘electron' is only a symbol for conceiving, inadequately, the pressure-point of a particular conceived location of universal energy. So, in this sense, the environment of a thing is as vast as the space-time complex itself.
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Thus, we cannot consider the universe as material. Energy is the substance of the cosmos. Whatever subtle, adequate and careful word we use to describe the substance or the reality of the universe, we will fail in understanding it properly, because even when we think of energy or force we are likely to think that it is some permeating substance. It is not like air that is moving. Even air is a material substance. We cannot humanly conceive of what energy is. It is only a symbol that we use for something that the mind cannot even think.
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