Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita- Part 2: Post-7: Swami Krishnananda.

Chinmaya Mission: 

Thirty youngsters from various parts of Kerala gathered for an enriching weekend at the Gita for Yuva camp, held from August 17 to 18, at Adi Sankara Nilayam. The camp, conducted in both Malayalam and English by Br. Sudheer Chaitanya, Br. Ved Chaitanya, and Brni. Taarini Chaitanya, was inaugurated by Prof. Gauri Mahulikar, Academic Director of Chinmaya International Foundation. Through insightful sessions on Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, and Jnana Yoga, participants explored the timeless wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. The program was further enhanced with Gita chanting, group discussions, and interactive activities, leaving the youth inspired to embrace a path of righteousness and spiritual growth.

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Friday 06,  September 2024, 07:00.
Article
Scriptures
Introduction to the Bhagavadgita: Part 2.
POST-7.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on March 17th, 1974)

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The Mahabharata field is this world itself. That is the Dharmakshetra and the Kurukshetra. Here we have a field which requires of us a particular type of approach and conduct, where we cannot afford to make a mistake, where we are compelled to act, and yet compelled to act only in a particular manner. This is a great difficulty indeed before us. That we cannot abstain from action is something difficult even to understand, because we are forced by the circumstances into which we are born to act. 

But because we have to act, it does not mean that we can act as we like. There is another compulsion, restriction, upon our conduct. We have to act; act we must, but in a given manner alone. We have to move along the winding passages of the Chakravyuha Fort. If we do not enter it, we are not going to win the battle; but we also must have a knowledge of how to enter it, how to move through it, and how to fight there in the thick of the arena.

The world in which we are situated is as much a psychological complex as the whole history of the Mahabharata. We have Bhishma here, we have Drona here, we have Karna, we have Dhritarashtra, we have Duryodhana, we have Yudhisthira, we have all the blessed dramatis personae of the Mahabharata even today in this world, and all these are present as psychological functions in our own personality also, which is more important for us as sadhakas, students of yoga, than anything else. These forces are active inwardly in the individual, outwardly in the cosmos, and in our very presence as human society.

Now, the difficulty which Arjuna seems to have faced when he cast a glance over the army is our difficulty also. Generally, we are confident of some sort of success in our efforts; otherwise, we would not embark upon any kind of initiative at all. But when we actually take up the cudgels, as they say, gird up our loins, enter the field and look at the situation, we get flabbergasted. The world is not so simple as it appeared. Our own friend is not so simple as he appears. We will see his true colours one day. And we ourselves are not what we appear to be. There are more things in heaven and on earth than our philosophy dreams of, as the poet put it. There are many secret things in nature and in human personality and society, many more things than we can see, than we can contemplate and envisage with our empirical approach to things. The Bhagavadgita is placed in a historical context of the Mahabharata, but it draws into its bosom cosmical implications and takes upon itself the task of solving the problem of human action and human duty.

It was a simple difficulty that arose in the mind of Arjuna, but that simple difficulty was the difficulty of mankind as a whole. It is my difficulty and it is your difficulty. It raised a question of human conduct in general. It was not merely a query regarding the particular attitude which Arjuna ought to have adopted at that particular moment of time. That context is only an accident, as it were, into which has been woven the very fabric of the entire structure of human life.

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Continued

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