A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 3-3: Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, 24 Dec 2023 06:40.

Chapter 3: The Transmigration of the Soul:3.

Post-3.

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Sri Krishna was there as Arjuna's charioteer. This long harangue of Arjuna was received with dismay by Sri Krishna. “At this hour, when you are face to face with a difficulty, you say that there is no difficulty, and you come to the conclusion that the best thing is not to do anything. But you are a hero, and the problem has to be solved. The Mahabharata is a world problem, and when the problem raises itself before you, you are saying, 'Inasmuch as I cannot understand the meaning of the problem, I will refuse to solve it. I will go by the idea that it does not exist at all.' Is it all right? What do you say?” In one sentence Sri Krishna rebukes Arjuna and says, “How come this mood has overpowered you in this predicament? Very strange indeed!”

Then Arjuna again speaks, in the beginning of the Second Chapter. “Did I not explain myself properly? My love goes for my own elders on whose lap I sat, and who gave me education and taught me the art of archery. And my own brethren, kinsmen, are arrayed in front of me – the Kurus, whose blood also flows through my veins. What benefit can accrue to me by opposing my own kinsmen, my own well-wishers, my own elders?”

The answer of Sri Krishna is the Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, commencing from the eleventh Slogam. 

 (Gita 2.11): 

Sri bhagavan uvacha:

"Ashochyan-anvashochas-tvam prajna-vadansh cha bhashase

gatasun-agatasunsh-cha nanushochanti panditah."

“You speak as if you know everything. Very wise words you have spoken before me, while actually these are unwise words. You are grieving over the consequence that may follow from engaging yourself in this vast conflict-ridden field. You are taking your stand on an opinion that you hold on the question of life and death itself – whether it is good to live or to die. You are trying to answer this question by your own parochial logic, your limited understanding.”

Birth and death are the scenes through which everything in the world passes. The process of evolution, so-called, is the process of perpetual dying and perpetually being born. Evolution is the requirement on the part of every entity in this world to cease to be what it is at this moment and be another thing after some time. There is a transmutation and a metempsychosis – a transmigration, you may say – of the special conditions under which an individual is living; and even when you appear to be whole and single, a solid individual like any one of us, every cell of your body is transmuting itself every moment. Medical men say that every seven years all the cells of the body renew themselves. So there is a complete cellular transformation of your personality three times by the time you reach twenty-one years, and then it is that you are supposed to be mature.

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To be continued

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