The Bhagavadgita in a Nutshell: 2. Swami Krishnananda

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Swami Chinmayananda:
November 27 at 4:41PM · 
A devotee asked Gurudev that she been disappointed in her life by everyone on whom she has poured love on. Swipe to read the response from the master himself.

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Saturday 30, November 2024, 06:30.
Article
Scriptures
The Bhagavadgita in a Nutshell: 2.
Swami Krishnananda.
(Spoken on November 3rd, 1973.)

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The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna to this question is that motive behind the action is very important. It is the motive determines the worth, value and consequence of an action. The intention behind a deed is very important, and the deed itself is not all. But that is not the whole truth about the matter. We cannot simply have an intention and be rid of all activity. The difficulty with us is that inaction is impossible for the embodied being. Our body, our personality, our individuality is made up of a network of impulsions to action. That is why some philosophers in the West say that the whole world is a process of becoming, while they call God as 'being'. We call God the Supreme Being. We do not call Him the Supreme Becoming. 

But the world is the opposite of it because it is a process of becoming. Our body, our personality, whatever we are as individuals, is a part of the cosmic process of prakriti:

guna gunesu vartanta iti matva na sajjate (BG 3.28). 

We do not get attached to anything in this world if we understand one simple truth of the structure of this world of which we are a part. When we know the world, we know ourselves also because we are only a thread in the fabric of the structure of the world. So, if we understand the world, we will understand ourselves and our relation to it automatically. 

This understanding is implied in this half sentence, half slogam, guna gusesu vartanta iti matva na sajjate.

While our duties in this world are intimately connected with the nature of our own individuality, we have also to remember that we are inwardly and outwardly connected with the world of process. The word 'process' is a Western term, but in India, in our Sanskritised terminology it is called the work of the gunas of prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas. The whole world is a permutation and combination of the three gunas of prakriti of which the world is constituted, and these three work incessantly. The processes of creation, preservation and destruction of the world go on continuously. It is not that Brahma created the world once upon a time and now he is keeping quiet, and now only Vishnu is working and sustaining it, and Rudra will come afterwards to destroy it. These three processes of creation, preservation and destruction are eternal processes. Every minute there is creation, every minute there is sustenance, every minute there is destruction. The whole world is in a restless movement towards Self-recognition, towards God-realisation, and we are caught up in this process of the world.

So, from this point of view of the restlessness of the cosmos taken in its totality, we are also restless because we are part of the world. This is why Bhagavan Sri Krishna says, “Arjuna, you cannot keep quiet. The whole world cannot keep quiet. The whole universe is active, and you are a part of the world which is so active. How can you keep quiet?”

Now, we cannot keep quiet; that is one side of the matter. But we cannot foolishly be active; that is another side of the matter. 

Ma karmaphalahetur bhur ma te sangostv akarmani (BG 2.47): 

Do not be attached to the fruits of action, and also, at the same time, do not be inactive. Sri Krishna is catching us from both sides. We cannot keep quiet, and yet we cannot do whatever we like. A disciplined form of activity, action, is our duty. This Third Chapter is wonderful. The more we think about it, the more wonderful it appears to be. Everything is done by prakriti.

Prakrtim yanti bhutani nigrahah kim karisyati (BG 3.33). 

“Ah, is it so?” Arjuna is a very shrewd man. He wants to catch Krishna at every point. “If everything is done by prakriti, whatever I do, even if I go and hit somebody's head, it is prakriti's action only. I can abuse somebody, I can do a sinful action because you say everything is done by prakriti, and who can restrain prakriti? If prakriti does everything, then even sinful actions are prakriti's only, and I may do anything. Is it so?”

*****     

Continued

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