The Essence of the Gospel of the Bhagavadgita - 7. ( ENDS HERE )Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission 

During the holy month of Karthika several Chinmaya Mission centres had special celebrations worshipping Lord Shiva and Vishnu. 

Featuring here the celebrations from Chinmaya Amarnath, Pittsburgh, USA and Sripaadakshetra, Bengaluru, India.

Swami Brahmananda of CM Bengaluru conducted a power packed profound Satsang focussed on Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi’s Upadesha Sara.

In Pittsburgh, over 500 plus devotees and community members came together for the Kartika Deepotsav 500 devotees to witness the festive Deepa Prajvalanam.

Chinmaya Mission Visakhapatnam hosted a Panchayatana Maharudra Yaagam in this auspicious month with daily Mahanyasa Poorvaka Rudrabhishekam to one of the Panchayatana deities Surya, Lalita Devi, Vishnu, Ganapati and Rudra, including a Sudharshana Homam.

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Sunday 16, June 2024 06:20.
Article
Scriptures
The Essence of the Gospel of the Bhagavadgita -7.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken at a conference in Delhi on December 27, 1973.)

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In the beginning, vice appears to gain an upper hand and succeed, but as Manu says in his Smriti, root and branch will be destroyed one day or the other. Ravana also appeared to succeed in the beginning, but what happened to him? The simple Rama who walked without even any footwear, who had no chariot of his own, who had no gorgeous dress like Ravana, a single Rama was enough to foil all the attempts of the pompous Ravana because it was material glory which was quantity opposing the great quality of virtue and divinity. One Rama was sufficient to face the multitude of many a Ravana. Thousands of Rakshasas were burned to ashes by a single arrow of Rama in Janasthana, and a single act of goodness, which is the dedication of the self to God, is enough to summon the grace of invisible forces. Uncalled for, unrequested, divine forces descended upon the very place where the Pandavas were suffering in the forest. The Pandavas never asked for help from any person, not even from the gods. They simply suffered and suffered and suffered. But suffering cries out in a louder tone, in a manner that the whole world will reverberate with it. The cry of a single suffering soul is enough to shake the whole earth, and Indra descended from the heavens. All the deities that guarded the quarters came down to help the Pandavas, and finally virtue succeeded because it had the backing of divinity. When God begins to help man, who can face him?

But God does not immediately come to help, as it were. He follows the system of politics called sama, dana, bheda, danda. Sri Krishna did not take up arms against Duryodhana immediately. That could have been done, but he did not do so. He first tried the method of conciliation. He made a calm and polite and very humble request, “My dear friend, why don't you give the Pandavas' their share honourably? This is not dharma, this is not duty.” It did not succeed. He tried other methods. “You take half, you give half. Or you take the major portion and give the minor portion.” That also did not work. Then he said, “I will create dissension among you”—bheda, it is called—by telling Karna whose son he was, because Karna was the strength of Duryodhana. That also did not succeed. Then the mill of God began to work powerfully. Once God begins to take action, He will pounce upon you like a lion, and Duryodhana was attacked from every side until his very bones were pounded. This is what happens to vice when God begins to take action.

So the good people of the world, the virtuous and the righteous here, need not weep. Their weeping, their crying will be heard, and it will be heard definitely in a proper way, and help shall come to them. The poor and the needy, the suffering, the downtrodden need not cry, and their cry will not be for long. It is only for a short time, and the glory of evil shall be put down.

This epic message is philosophically presented in the Bhagavadgita as the need to take the help of the knowledge and wisdom of God for conducting ourselves properly along the path of duty and righteousness in the world. Sankhya and yoga are said to be the message of the Bhagavadgita, which means to say, the blending of knowledge and action, God and man working together. This symbolic message is also conveyed towards the end of the Gita in a famous slogam: 

yatra yogesvarah krsno yatra partho dhanurdharah, tatra srir vijayo bhutir dhruva nitir matir mama (BG 18.78). 

Sanjay says, “There success is sure to come, there victory is certain, where Krishna and Arjuna work together in unison seated in a single chariot.” Where the grace of God and the effort of man come together and act in unison, success is certain.

So beware of committing a mistake in your thinking about personal agency. God does everything. Man is only an instrument—nimittamatram bhava savyasacin (BG 11.33). 

You become the fountain pen, as it were, in the hands of God, Who shall write the judgment of mankind.

Thus, the contemplation which is the Bhagavadgita gospel to us—the gospel of action, the gospel of duty, of conduct and righteous demeanour in this world—amounts to saying that our action and our sense of duty should be rooted in the consciousness of the presence of God. “Practise the presence of God and perform your duty. Trust in God and do the right.” This is in essence the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, a vast subject which you can go on studying and thinking about and understanding throughout your life; yet, you will not reach the depths of the Gita, because it is the word of God. As God is as deep as eternity, so is the depth of the Bhagavadgita, which is not to be understood merely by the study of the language of the Gita, but to be pondered over as a philosophical text and a spiritual message to mankind for all posterity.

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NEXT

The Importance of the Bhagavadgita

Continued

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