The Importance of the Bhagavadgita-5. Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission Mumbai:

Hari om. We celebrated the 8th Anniversary of Chinmaya Pradeep in Sandeepany Sadhanalaya today with a paduka pooja and an online satsang. 

We thank everyone involved in the functioning of Chinmaya Pradeep and encourage more and more people to visit, learn, share about about Poojya Gurudev’s life, vision and work. 

Recordings are enclosed below. 

Highlights of 7th Year of Chinmaya Pradeep programmes from June 2023-May 2024

https://youtu.be/1590MywZguI

Online satsang by Swami Swatmananda on the 8th Anniversary - 12th June 2024

https://youtu.be/dO0NRQHJafk

Paduka Pooja by Shri Mukul Patel and Smt. Meghana Patel on this occasion 

https://youtu.be/2wISlOJ4t-4

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Saturday 13, July 2024, 06:20.
Article
Scriptures
The Importance of the Bhagavadgita-5.
Swami Krishnananda
(Gita Jayanti Message spoken on December 26, 1982.)

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This grew into a mighty magnificence of universal expanse which is the supreme shaktipada, as we may say in modern style – God entering man and possessing him, flooding him, overpowering him, destroying his existence itself, frightening him to his core, and compelling this frightened poor spirit to exclaim the very same prayers which were put into the mouth of Arjuna in the Eleventh Chapter: “Mighty being, I cannot tolerate the vision presented before me.” Perhaps it is the salt doll that, before stepping into the ocean in which it is going to melt, gets frightened at the very sight of it and exclaims, “Enough of this!” When our feet go one inch deep into the waters of the ocean, we get frightened at the waves dashing upon us and we draw ourselves back. We cannot even see the ocean without a sense of shocking fright which passes through the very veins of our body because it is a terror, and we know its powers. Jnatum, drastum, pravestum are the words used towards the end of the Eleventh Chapter in connection with the manner in which the soul tunes itself with God-existence. It has to be understood, and the understanding was communicated in a mighty manner throughout the chapters leading up to the Ninth or Tenth, we may say. Then comes drastum: It has to be seen. And it was seen by Arjuna. He understood what it could be when, in the Tenth Chapter, he was told what God could be and what He is. “Oh, it is like this. I understand. Jnana has come. Now darshan is necessary.” Manyase yadi tac chakyaṃ mayā draṣṭum iti prabho, yogeśvara tato me tvaṃ darśayātmānam avyayam (Gita 11.4): “O Lord, if you feel I am fit for this vision, deign, condescend to grant it to me.”

The vision was granted. “The whole sky was lit up with light, and thousands of suns arose, as it were,” said the poet. What else can be said? Thousands of suns are nobodies before this light, but we have to say something. What else can we say? We are like frogs in a well and the ocean is so big, but whatever we say, it cannot be equal to the actual ocean. So we may say it is like thousands of suns or millions of suns, but that cannot be an adequate description of God's glory. We have not seen any light greater than the sun's light, so we can only multiply the sun's light arithmetically and imagine that God must have been like that. However, God is more than all He has created, even greater than the sun's light itself. Well, the vision was granted, but we do not know whether Arjuna actually entered it. Pravesha perhaps was not done. He visualised it, and there the matter ended.

Arjuna said, “Come down. I shall be pleased to see you once again as my comrade, my jolly friend Sri Krishna, not as this mighty terror before me.” It appears that Arjuna did not enter it, because he was still the same Arjuna after the Gita was spoken. He was not a different person. At least this is what we have to believe, as it is told in the Mahabharata itself. It was a sudden injection of a power that was required at that moment, and perhaps when the work was over the power was withdrawn. It was not essential for Arjuna to be always in that condition. It was not necessary, and it would also not have been proper.

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Continued

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