Introduction to the Bhagavadgita- Part 1: Post-4.: Swami Krishnananda

Chinmaya Mission: 

Chinmaya Mission Uganda are utterly grateful to have been blessed and graced by the first-ever Non-Stop Musical Hanuman Chalisa Chanting in Uganda. 

Events were held prior at Jalaram Mandir and SSD Mandir, leading up to the 108 Chanting. 

Approximately 350 people attended throughout the day, with 120 staying for the entire event. 

The First Lady High Commissioner of India, Dryuti Rawat Singh, graced the occasion and participated as one of the main Yajma, and H.E. 

Uppender Singh Rawat joined for the last three hours.

The team took the crowd to depths of electrifying magic and a meditative state. 

The Hanuman Chalisa chanting inspired many, and they look forward to making it a signature event in Uganda. 

Kudos to the dedicated sevaks of Chinmaya Mission Uganda for organizing such beautiful events that spread the fragrance of Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayananda's work and vision. 

Your efforts are truly inspiring, fostering love and devotion in the hearts of all.

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Thursday 20, June 2024 :07:20.
Article
Scriptures
Introduction to the Bhagavadgita- Part 1
POST-4.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on March 3rd, 1974)

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The life of the human being is a vast field of activity and confrontation of forces. Life is activity; it is nothing but that, and everyone knows what it means. This activity is impulsive, and sometimes it is compulsive. We are obliged to act in a particular manner. We can choose certain types of activity, but we have no choice whether to be active or not to be active. That we have to act and work and toil seems to be written on our foreheads, and no one can escape this predicament, but we have a freedom to choose what type of work is suitable to our temperament and to our practical needs of life. This is, no doubt, the actual position and situation, but we bungle in the choice of duty. While we are compelled to work from morning to evening right from our childhood, we are not sufficiently endowed with the understanding necessary for choosing what is actually good for us.

A distinction is made between what is good for us and what is pleasant for us. Most of us pursue what is pleasant for us, but we do not know what is good for us because what is called the pleasant, the preyas, as it is put, is immediately attractive to the senses and the sensations of our body. Completely enmeshed in bodily sensation and social relationships, we immediately jump into those circumstances which promise us social satisfaction and sensational pleasures. This is, again, unfortunate. Pitiable is the condition of that person who thinks that the pleasures that the ego can evoke through social relationships, and the pleasures that the senses can evoke through contact with objects, are the be-all and the end-all of life.

We have two great problems in life: the senses and the ego. These are our terrible masters, and we cannot satisfy them. They are devils indeed. However much we may feed them, their hunger seems to be insatiable. If we go on feeding the senses, they go on burning more and more, like a conflagration. The more we go on feeding our ego, the stouter and the fatter it becomes, and the more we try to pamper it. We have no other difficulty in life. These are our only difficulties: our senses and our egoism. But these are not what is good for us. The ego does not give us what is good nor promise what is good, and the senses of course are worse still.

The great masters whose revelations are recorded in the scriptures are intent upon the good of man, rather than merely pampering his temporal needs. They are the real mothers and fathers for us. While our physical parents have given birth to this visible body of ours and taken care of it for some time in their own manner, the great sages who take care of our inner life are our real parents, because our life is not exhausted merely by the physical body of social relations.

Our life continues beyond the grave. We live beyond death. We have a life transcending physical relationships and sensory contacts. If we depend on only those factors which give pleasure to the ego and the senses, and ignore those factors which are necessary for the sustenance of our inner life, what will happen to us when we quit this world? Who will take care of us? These sensations, these masters who have pampered the ego, are not going to help us anymore. Certain other things will come before us which will be absolute strangers, whom we have completely ignored in our present life, on whom we may have to depend entirely. After we leave this body, where will we go? Who will help us? Who will be our friends? We do not know. Is it fair on our part to completely neglect those essentials which are going to be our real sustenance in our future life, and hang on to only those temporary factors which are regarded as necessary for a physical existence in this short span of life? Is this knowledge, is this culture, is this wisdom?

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Continued

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