The Importance of the Bhagavadgita-6. Swami Krishnananda.

 

========================================================================================

Friday 19, Jul 2024, 06:10.
Article
Scriptures
The Importance of the Bhagavadgita-6.
Swami Krishnananda
(Gita Jayanti Message spoken on December 26, 1982.)

========================================================================================

We are seekers and are humbly trying to tread this path of divine glory though we have not entered it, not visualised it, perhaps not even properly understood it. Our plight is far, far below that unconditional surrender which Arjuna felt necessary when his total personality was tending to melt as a ball of lead melts in furnace fire, or mist melts before the sun.

This glorious advent of the Bhagavadgita is the sacred occasion of our prayers and worships today. As I mentioned, the Gita is not a book. No religion considers its scripture as a mere book, just as you are not a mere body. You know very well you are so-and-so, and are not merely a body, though nothing can be seen about you except your body. The Bhagavadgita is not a book, though it looks like a book and nothing else is seen there. As we have something non-physical within us though only the physical is seen, there is something super-physical and super-linguistic in the Bhagavadgita, apart from its appearing as a Sanskrit text which can be understood by grammatical interpretations and application of semantics, etc.

The culture of Bharatavarsha does not recognise any object as being purely material, and more so is the case with divine embodiments such as the scriptures. The Veda, the Upanishad, the Bhagavadgita are sacred. The Veda mantras are not some printed characters on pieces of paper, though when we lift the Veda and carry it from one place to another we seem to be carrying only paper and ink. The Veda is not paper and ink. It is something more than what we can touch with our hand or feel as a weight thereof. It is a power, it is a force, it is a vibration, it is an energy, it is a solution, it is a succour, it is divinity that somehow or other has been implanted within this range of linguistic style, whether of the Veda mantras or the verses of the Bhagavadgita.

I began by saying that the word is power, and it is not merely some sound that we are making. What I speak is an emanation of what I am, and naturally what I am is something difficult to understand. It is an energy, it is a force, it is a power, it is a purpose, it is an intention, it is an aspiration, it is a longing, it is a strength. Everything can be said about what one is. That pours itself forth when language is spoken, unless of course language is misused in order to not reveal the ideas but to conceal them.

Oftentimes words are spoken to hide the ideas inside, not to express the ideas, but this is not a proper utilisation of language. It is an insult to the style. When you speak, you speak yourself, and this is essentially and especially the case with integrated masters, spiritualised souls, divine seers such as the mantra drishtas of the Vedas and here, in this instance, the Bhagavadgita. So is the Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana. “When I am not visible physically, you shall see me embodied in the Srimad Bhagavata,” said the great Lord.

======================================================================================

Continued

===================================================================================