Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita- Part 2: Post-8: Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 13,  September 2024, 06:55.
Article
Scriptures
Introduction to the Bhagavadgita: Part 2.
POST-8.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on March 17th, 1974)

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So when we study the Bhagavadgita, as I tried to point out last time, we have to be very broadminded and try as far as possible to dive into the many aspects which it seems to touch. We cannot follow the commentators or the doctrinaires or any kind of cult or creed. We cannot lean upon any type of philosophy or metaphysical preconception that may be in our minds, because as far as one can dispassionately see through the epic of the Mahabharata and the gospel of the Gita, it appears that the gospel of the epic and the Gita is meant for each and every person, and under each and every condition. It is not meant for you and me alone, but for all. It is not meant for only one type of psychological situation, but for all situations. Therefore, often we hear it said sarva-sastra-mayi gita: All the shastras find their communion, as it were, in the scripture of the Bhagavadgita. It solves the moot question of human life. Whether Arjuna must fight or should not fight is a different question. That was only an outward appearance of an inward enigma of life as a whole – the great question mark of our relationship to the world itself. What is our duty in this world? This is what the Gita wants to tell us under the coverage of Arjuna's psychological difficulty, Krishna's exultation in the context of the war, etc.

Now, when we try to go a little deep into this question of our relevance to the teaching of the Gita, why should we study the Gita at all? What does it matter to us if we do not read it? It was meant only for Arjuna, and it had relevance only to that historical context of a war that took place several thousands of years ago, so why should we bother about it? The Mahabharata has relevance to us, and this was precisely the reason why Vyasa took the trouble of writing it.

Our conduct in life is determined by our philosophy of life. Everyone has a philosophy of his own or her own. The ultimate interpretation of the world which you carry in your mind is your philosophy. Everyone has some sort of an idea about the world, what sort of world this is, and our ultimate conviction about it is our philosophy. Sometimes we may be right, sometimes we may be wrong in our opinion. We become wrong, like Dhritarashtra's conceptions of things, when we are unable to relate the various sides of this complex of the world in its outward as well as inward structure, and get misled by the affirmation of our personality, which is called the ego. That we do not understand things properly or cannot see things clearly is no doubt an accepted fact, but we make matters worse by affirming too much, beyond limits, our own personality, thus abrogating the very possibility of there being values other than our own individuality.

The principle of the ego is that sort of self-affirmation which does not want to give credit to other values than those which it has foisted upon its own self, and subtly begins to work for its own comfort and perpetuity. The ego is not always open. It is possessed of an intelligence of its own, like the intelligence of a fox, to its own destruction. Even a thief is very intelligent; he is not a fool. Even a criminal or a delinquent is intelligent. Even a person under a spell of mental aberration has a peculiar sort of intelligence of his own under certain circumstances. Such a sort of intelligence is exhibited by the ego in its conduct in this world, and creates a mess of things.

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Continued

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