Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 20-3. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday, April 22, 2022. 19: 00

Chapter 20: The Arising of the Concept of Unity-3.

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It has already been said in the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita that all contact is gunas moving among gunas:  guṇā guṇeṣu vartante (BG 3.28) 

The three gunas, sattva, rajas and tamas, in the form of the sense organs collide with the objects outside in space and time, which are also constituted of the very same three gunas. Then there is a final deciding factor in all operations in life. We have no particular, personal say in any manner. Therefore, no one can say, “Let me have this for some time.” Neither the one who says that has any permission to stay beyond a certain limit of temporal duration, nor the object which is so expected can endure in a similar manner. There is anxiety, there is tapa, sorrow, always; and, as was mentioned already, there is tapa, anxiety, in the beginning because it has not come, in the middle because of the anxiety that it may go, and sorrow in the end because it has gone. It if it has not come, it is sorrow. When it has come, it is sorrow because there is a fear it may go. When it goes, it is hell itself. So when is it a source of real joy free from anxiety? When are we free from anxiety in this world? Never, not for a moment. 

 Duḥkham eva sarvaṁ vivekinaḥ : For a person endowed with discrimination, this world is nothing but sorrow embodied. Anityam asukha? lokam (BG 9.33); 

duḥkhālayam aśāśvatam (BG 8.15) says Bhagavan Sri Krishna himself: 

This world is anitya: temporary, full of anxiety and heartburning and sorrow. It is the abode of grief:  asukhaṁ. It is impermanent: duḥkhālayam; it is aśāśvate.

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It has to be so. It cannot be but that because all experience in this world is a tentative juxtaposition of the nature of the subjective side and the objective side. Do you see waves in the ocean maintaining a steady position at any time? Rock-like, they never stand. They are all movement, all movement, all movement. It is continuous movement that seems to permit a tentative perception of a steadiness of the crest of a wave. Only movement and no steadiness is there. So is this body, so are the objects of the world, so is experience contacted by the senses in terms of objects.

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So, duḥkhālayam; it is aśāśvate : All bhoga – bhoga is enjoyment – all enjoyment born, engendered, by contact of any kind is a source of sorrow. Here is a very crucial statement before us. Any contact is undesirable, and we have nothing in this world but contact, if at all we have any sensation. 

All sensation which we call experience is born of contact, and all contact is like the coming together of logs of wood in the ocean, says the Mahabharata: 

yathā kāśṭaṁ ca kāśṭaṁ ca ca sameyātāṁ mahodadhau, sametya ca vyatIyātaṁ tadvad bhūtasamāgamaḥ (M.B. 12.28.36). 

“I am your friend, my dear friend,” we say. You are my friend, and I am your friend. How long we shall be friends? We shall be friends in the sea of life in the same way as longs of wood floating on the tempestuous ocean sometimes meet each other and become friends. One log may shake hands with another log. “My dear friend, I am happy to see you.” But the wind blows in another direction and the log is thrown somewhere else. We say, “Bereavement has taken place. Oh, my friend has gone.” Neither is that your friend, nor is that bereavement caused by any factor related to you. There is another, supernal operation which brings things together and separates them. Hence, it is futile on the part of any person to exult on the occasion of a temporary contact with a person or a thing. It is like logs of wood meeting. Fate brings them, and fate takes them away. We may call it fate, we may call it the law of karma, we may call it the purposiveness of the gunas of prakriti, or the will of God. We may call it by any name.

Hence, all contact is dangerous because it brings about attachment. Attachment is caused by a sensation of joy in contacts of senses with the objects. We lick a drop of honey which appears to ooze from the object which is contacted by the senses. But dangerous is life. The jaw of death is wide open like the crocodile's mouth. It shall swallow everybody. The whole world it can swallow. Kala, time, is called the world eater. It eats everything, and nobody can be spared.

To be continued ....

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