A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 42 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday 22, Jul 2024, 06:30.

Chapter 8: The Stages of Yoga-1.

Post-42.

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We have almost entirely covered the fundamentals of the Gita teaching. Whatever follows is in the form of an exposition in greater detail of what has already been very pithily and briefly stated in the preceding chapters.

I already mentioned to you that many of the commentators of the Gita believe that the Second Chapter is the seed of the whole of the Gita. Every chapter from the Third onwards till the end is an exposition of one or two of the verses already occurring in the Second Chapter. Especially Madhusudhana Saraswati, in his classic commentary, explicitly states this, and whenever he starts commenting on a particular chapter, he quotes the relevant seed sloka of the Second Chapter, showing thereby that the root of the entire gospel is in the Second Chapter itself, which is Sankhya and Yoga combined; and in our expositions, which have been in sufficient detail, we have covered a wide area of knowledge, perhaps omitting nothing important.

The name of God does not occur until the Fourth Chapter commences. There is a peculiar situation which is wholly artharthi, wholly worldly, in the First Chapter, and the commencement of the direct teaching in the Second, and an implementation of this teaching in a more profound manner in the Third. The emphasis up to the Third Chapter has been the duty of the individual, the work that is incumbent upon every person, but the name of God has not been taken.

The operations of God as incarnations have been touched upon for the first time in the commencement of the Fourth Chapter. Previously we noticed the circumstances under which God takes incarnations, avataras, to which I need not revert now. We can proceed further to know what other things we can gather from the coming chapters. I have taken a lot of time to take you to the conclusion of the Third Chapter, but as we have not much time at our disposal in the course of this Academy session, I have to go more rapidly over the themes that follow; otherwise, it will take another three months to go to the end of the Eighteenth Chapter with this extent of detail.

Apart from the brief statement of the nature of the incarnation of God in the beginning of the Fourth Chapter, this chapter also touches upon certain other themes which are not relevant to the avatara of God or the very concept of God, but to actual Yoga practice and the understanding of the nature of work or action which, pertinently, is the theme of the Third Chapter.

Karmany akarma yah pasyed akarmani ca karma yah, 

sa buddhiman manushyesu sa yuktah krtsnakarmakrt (Gita 4.18). 

It was told to us that work we must. Silent we cannot be. 

Na hi kascit kshanam api jatu tishthaty akarmakrt (Gita 3.5): 

Not a moment can pass without your being active in some way or the other. 

Karmany eva dhikaras te ma phaleshu kadacana (Gita 2.47). 

It was also added that your duty is to engage yourself in such action as can be regarded as a participation in the cosmic process, but you cannot expect the fruit of that action because the expectation of a fruit of a particular engagement is to consider the value of your work in a future context. If the value of what you do in the future has no value in the present, then you cannot take sufficient interest in your work. The present is a means to what you are expecting in the future, and so your eye will be on what will be expected in the future and you will have no interest in what you are doing. “Whatever I am doing, that is a different matter. It must bring that result.” And you will adjust and adapt your modus operandi of work now in such a manner as, in your opinion, is productive of that result in your mind. There will be some kind of selfishness creeping into your so-called duty because this duty that you perform is done for the sake of something which is other than duty.

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Continued

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