Introduction to the Bhagavadgita- Part 1: Post-5.: Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday 25, June 2024 :06:50.
Article
Scriptures
Introduction to the Bhagavadgita- Part 1
POST-5.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on March 3rd, 1974)

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The ancient masters have hammered into our minds in these scriptures that we should not run after mere pleasure of the ego and the senses, the preyas, but should be able to devote a little time for the shreyas, or the blessedness of what we really are essentially in our inner life. This was the mission of a great master called Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa who wrote the Mahabharata, who recorded the Bhagavadgita for us, blessed be his name. His writings are so all-comprehensive that an old adage says Vyasochishtam jagat sarvam: Whatever is there in this world is nothing but that which is vomited by Vyasa. We cannot say anything which he has not said. There is nothing in the world of knowledge which Vyasa has not written, particularly in his masterpiece called the Mahabharata, which is the quintessence of the Vedas and the Upanishads in an expository and epic fashion. 

It is said of the Mahabharata and the philosophy of the Bhagavadgita that whatever is there is anywhere else, and whatever cannot be found there cannot be found anywhere. Such is the vastness, the depth and the comprehensiveness of this writing of Krishna Dvaipayana Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, the editor of the Vedas. He is called Veda Vyasa because he edited the Vedas. He did not merely write the Bhagavadgita, he was also the classifier of the Vedas in their present form, and so is called Veda Vyasa, an omniscient sage of incredible power of yogic knowledge. Such a master has given us this wonderful epic of spiritual life called the Mahabharata. It is not a story or an analogy or an anecdote, but a dramatic presentation of life in a picturesque form.

Whatever Rishis have written is of a similar nature. They are not telling us stories; they present human nature in its true colour and true form. And in a more splendid fashion has Vyasa done this work in the Mahabharata, in the Bhagavadgita. The different facets of human life, with their passions and prejudices, with their longings and aspirations, with their problems and difficulties, together with their solutions, are all presented to us in this masterly work of Vyasa. The Bhagavadgita may be regarded as the focussed point of the Mahabharata. The focusing point of the entire teaching of this epic is the Bhagavadgita, from where we have approach or access into the various palatial edifices he has built for us in the form of the personalities of the epic—the great masters Bhishma and Drona, Bhima and Arjuna, Yudhisthira, and above all, the great personality of Krishna, which runs like a silken thread through the entire garland of the Mahabharata. All these are to stir our inner spirit to action in practical life and to enable us to see reality in the visible things of the world, to awaken us into facts from the slumber of our ignorance and to din into our ears the great message that the visible is not the whole of reality. The larger part of reality is invisible to our eyes.

To approach truth, to have a vision of reality, to know the true nature of our own selves, we have to adopt this philosophical foundation, this psychological approach and this practical technique which is embodied in the Bhagavadgita. As I mentioned, because it is a metaphysical text, it is a practical exposition of yoga in its many-sidedness, and it is also a record of mystical experiences of the highest reaches of the human soul. For a student of yoga, a student of culture, a student of philosophy and an aspirant after God-realisation, nothing could be better than to endeavour to understand what this message of the Bhagavadgita is.

The outward setting of the Bhagavadgita is the historical stage of the Mahabharata. I mentioned in the very beginning that these great masters adopted a triple approach: the outward, the inward, and the universal. Therefore, when we study the Vedas or the Upanishads or yogic texts or the Mahabharata or the Bhagavadgita, we have to adopt this triple method of interpretation: the outward setting of the whole drama, and the inner facts of this enactment, and finally the outcome of it, namely, the fruit of Universal realisation.

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Continued

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