Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 18.2 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, March 24, 2022. 06:00.

Chapter-18 The Yoga of the Liberation of  Spirit -2.

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It would be hard for us to make out what action is, situated as we are in a human complex working through the medium of social relationships and entertaining an outlook which is secretly motivated by some form of desire. We cannot imagine a state of affairs where we can be entirely free from all desires, whatever be the gospel, whatever be the teaching. This is a great handicap before us. And so it requires a Herculean effort on our part to rise to that level of understanding where it would be possible for us to live without motivated outlooks or desires which are directed to particular ends. It is not possible for anyone to live without doing some kind of action. This is one of the great points made out in the Bhagavadgita. It is futile on the part of anyone, whatever be his knowledge or wisdom, to imagine that he can be without any activity, because the world is nothing but action; it is a field of movement, enterprise and effort. It is Kurukshetra, an arena of activity; but it is also  Dharmakshetra, a field of action regulated by law, and not merely of some chaotic activity. Here is the problem before us: neither can we be free from action, nor can we perform action with any motive behind it. If this could enter our heads in its true significance, we would have understood the message of the Gita. As this is a difficult point to grasp, it is further explained in some detail for the purpose of the elucidation of its meaning.

There are certain actions which are unavoidable. Among the many types of action, three specific ones are pinpointed as inviolable and impossible of avoiding under any circumstance. These three types are designated as yajna, dana and tapas, terms which have a wealth of meaning behind them. Literally translated, yajna would mean sacrifice, dana would mean charity, and tapas would mean austerity. These are not injunctions of a religious type that are imposed upon us by the Gita. This is not a ritual that we are expected to perform by way of yajna, dana, or tapas. These are tremendously significant cosmic requirements on the part of every individual, whatever be his vocation. There is a universal meaning behind these great mandates.

In our relationship to the Supreme Being, God, the Absolute, we have to be perpetually performing a sacrifice on our part by ascending degrees of perfection and in increasing dimensions. God-Being is the greatest of sacrifices in the sense that it is the state of the abolition of all individuality and egoism. The state of God is the apotheosis of sacrifice. Often, in Indian scriptures, God is referred to as yajna, or sacrifice. ‘Yajno vai Vishnuh': ‘Narayana is yajna', or sacrifice himself. By this what is intended is that even the least of individuality is wiped out in that conflagration of universal knowledge or realisation.

To approach God would be to perform a sacrifice on the part of oneself, because the highest state of egolessness is God-Being. And to approximate this Great Being would be to sacrifice or surrender the ego, little by little, by degrees, which is the sacrifice that is intended. To surrender and sacrifice our own self is the principle of true abandonment or relinquishment—sannyasa or tyaga. From the point of view of our aspirations for God, our duty would be sacrifice, surrender, relinquishment of personality and egoism, the principle of the ‘I am' in us. We are bound to perform a duty in our relationship to God, and our duty towards God is sacrifice.

To be continued ....

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