Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 18-7. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, February 24, 2022. 20:00. 
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).
Chapter 18: Reconciling Knowledge and Action - 7.

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Action cannot bind, because action is not anybody's action. It is an interrelated cooperative society, as it were, which this universe is. In a large democratic setup, we may say, which this cosmos is, no one is the owner of any particular property. The whole universe is a self-contained system where each one participates in the performance of this great duty of the purposiveness of creation, and we need not have any property. It is not necessary to possess anything. The idea of possession is a disease of the human mind. No possession is necessary. Why do we want to possess? Why is there so much greed? And what can we possess? It is not possible to possess anything here because nothing is outside us, and we are also not anything that is outside something else. Inasmuch as externality in space and time is a mistaken perception of reality, the idea of possession also is mistaken. Hence, we get detached automatically from the sense of involvement in the so-called externality of objects. That is called yoga, the art of non-attachment.

Non-attachment, or detachment, does not mean abrogating physical relationship with the objects. It is not a social kind of tyaga. It is an inward acceptance of the non-relation of oneself with anything because of the absence of externality itself. That is called jnana. Therefore, jnana and yoga go together. After some time we will be told that sankhya and yoga are one and the same thing, not two different things. Knowledge and action are not two different things. Yoga and jnana are the same.

Therefore, with this idea, with this thought, with this acceptance and conviction of an inward detachment consequent of the natural realisation of there being no such thing as externality in creation, and again consequently establishing oneself in the Self of all things in the world, we begin to see ourselves in the whole universe and we begin to see the universe in ourselves. This is to see God in man, and man in God. With this astounding message, the Fourth Chapter concludes.

But as human beings, we will again go on putting questions and more questions. Knowledge and action are impossible to reconcile. We cannot be reconciled even with our own brother and our neighbour. There is always a suspicion and an irreconcilability of attitude even with a partner in business, what to talk of God who is the biggest partner in this business of relationship. We cannot get on with Him, and we cannot get on with anything. There is always difficulty. We cannot get on with anything for a long time in this world. That is our problem. How can knowledge, which is supposed to be an awareness of something, be capable of reconciliation with that which it knows?

The whole of philosophy, whether in the East or the West, has been a harangue on this great question of the relation of knowledge to content, thought to action or idea to reality, the relationship of subject and object. We have systems of philosophy – realism, idealism, materialism, subjectivism, objectivism, metaphysical idealism, representationism, presentationism, and whatnot. All these are attempts of the mind of man to probe into the mystery of the relation between the knower and the known, which also, incidentally, is the relation between knowledge and action, which again, incidentally, would mean the relation between ourselves and anything.

To be continued ....

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