The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 3.2. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, March 23, 2023. 06:30.

Chapter 3: Samkhya – Right Understanding-2.

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You may have to remember what I told you last time; I need not repeat it once again. The individuality, the so-called 'me', is the subjective side that has arisen as a result of the split of the cosmic ahamkara – these terms you may remember for purpose of understanding what is going to follow further on. A cosmic self-consciousness is called ahamkara – not the ahamkara or the ego of man, but an impersonal metaphysical reality, which is the "I Am What I Am" of mysticism and religion that manifested itself, as it were, as the objective universe of perception and the subjective individuality which are the jivas, in the Sanskrit language. That which beholds the world as something outside is the jiva or the individual; it may be human or even superhuman, or otherwise. That which looks at the world as an external something is called the jiva. This jiva, this individual, is constituted of certain building bricks, which I narrated last time as the bodily structure of five elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether; and the internal components: the pranas, the senses, the mind, the intellect and the large reservoir of what we call the 'unconscious' in the English language, but something larger than what the psychologists call 'unconscious' – the potentiality of every future eventuality, and even rebirth, that is there at the root of our individuality. Transcendent to all these layers of our individuality is the 'Light Supernal' which is the Absolute peeping through our reason, through our mind and even the senses, and animating every cell of our body, making us feel "We are", "I am", etc.

Now, the second chapter and the third chapter have some sort of relationship from the point of view of the theme discussed. It is merely pointed out in the second chapter that right understanding is necessary, and only an introductory remark is made as to what samkhya means, so far as the second chapter goes. Right from the beginning till the end of the second chapter, the word samkhya is used in many, many places, suggesting that samkhya is the knowledge of the harmony that is there among all things – samatva – the equanimous, organisational, cooperative feature operating between one and another, thus cementing all particularities or individuals into a sort of cosmic organisation or universal society. This is the suggestion of the second chapter when it says: Samatvaṁ yoga ucyate (Gita 2.48): Equanimity is yoga, balance is yoga, harmony is yoga, cooperation is yoga – not competition, not battle, not war, not exploitation, not animosity, not hatred. Also, a very subtle and potent, meaningful word is used in the very same chapter, connecting this principle of harmony or equanimity operating in all creation with the duties of man in the world, when it says yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam (2.50): Yoga is expertness in action. This is a very pithy statement; no commentary is given here. We are not told as to what this expertness means, though we may impliedly take it to mean that harmony or balance of attitude should be the pre-condition of any kind of adventure or project in life. Every activity should be conditioned by a poised nature of the mind. You should not enter into activity of any kind with disturbed emotions or an axe to grind; there should be no selfishness. The words 'samatva' and 'kausala', used in the second chapter of the Gita, exhaust, perhaps, what the Gita intends to tell us. But they are so difficult to understand because the word used is very subtle in its connotation, though we can extract lot of meaning from it by going into the context in which it is used. The necessity for maintaining a balanced attitude in mind, in our general attitude, while we perform works expertly, arises because of the fact of our location in this universe, which will devolve automatically from your knowledge of the very nature of our individuality in the light of the cosmological process described.

The world is not disassociated from us, because originally we were all united in the Cosmic Self – the universal ahamkara. The world is not an object of the senses, truly speaking. Thus, the reports of the senses may not be considered as a final, reliable information given to us. There is an error sometimes involved mostly in sense perception, because there is an insistence on the part of the senses to consider the world as a total foreigner, without which concept we cannot deal with things in the way we are doing now in our daily life. We are suspicious of the world. Here is the root of all our troubles. We are afraid of the world, and our loves and hatreds for things of the world, including persons, are explainable only on the basis of our erroneous concept that the world is not vitally connected with us. It is not possible to hug onto, or crave for any object which is vitally, organically related to me, nor can I hate it for the same reason. Loves and hatreds in life seem to be out of point, totally, in the light of an understanding of our position, as we know, from a study of the cosmological process. There is lot of teaching in the religions of the world that love and hatred are not good things. Desire is not right – it is an improper attitude of the mind. Everyone says this, in all religions and philosophies. But why is desire bad? Why are loves and hatreds not considered as proper on our part? Because this attitude of like and dislike, love and hatred, implies a total misconception of our connection with the world. So, in a way we may say that our political philosophies, as they are working today at least, though they may not be always so, and our social concepts are totally misplaced, which perhaps explains the turmoil we are passing through in our lives, and the troubles of our psyche, the sorrows of our existence, and the insecurities we are facing from moment to moment. This was troubling Arjuna, and we are the same Arjuna seated here today, in the field of the Mahabharata of this world where Sri Krishna has to come to guide us – which is nothing but the Light of God, the Light of the World.

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To be continued

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