The Bhagavadgita in a Nutshell: 4. ( Ends )Swami Krishnananda

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Saturday 21, December 2024, 19:50.
Article
Scriptures
The Bhagavadgita in a Nutshell: 4.
Swami Krishnananda.
(Spoken on November 3rd, 1973.)

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In the Yoga Vasishtha, Vasishtha mentions to Rama: 

"ardhaprabuddhasya sarvam brahmeti yo vadet, mahanarakajālesu sa tena viniyojitah": If you even talk of the immortality of the soul and the absoluteness of God to a half-baked mind, both you and that man will go to hell – the teacher and the student both. So do not tell truths which cannot be grasped, and this is precisely the warning given by Bhagavan Sri Krishna in the Bhagavadgita. 

"Na buddhibhedam janayed ajnanam karmasamginam" (BG 3.26): Do not disturb the minds of people by telling great truths. It may be a great truth, but you have spoiled the man by your truth. 

It is like allowing a man to catch fish by saying the Atman is immortal, or you go and hit somebody's head and say there is no reaction at all. That is, he mistakes cosmical implications of action for personal implications of desire, comfort, etc. As the two are always together, it is very difficult to distinguish between them. Wisdom or knowledge is the tendency to the realisation of impersonality, whereas ignorance, avidya, is the opposite of it, the tendency to personality, desire, attachment, etc.

God and prakriti are inseparables. Prakriti is the face of God, the multitudinous spread-out fingers of God operating everywhere. And in our humble endeavour to be karma yogins, we have to be instruments in the hands of prakriti or Ishvara, and not instruments in the hands of kama, krodha, lobha. If our actions are driven or impelled by kama, krodha, lobha, they cannot be called prakriti's actions or Ishvara's actions because in Ishvara, in prakriti, no kama, no krodha, no lobha can be there. Jiva-srishti is distinguished from Ishvara-srishti. Read the Panchadasi.

A Guru is essential. These great scriptures have to be learned under a Guru. You cannot simply purchase an edition from Gita Press and then say you have understood the Gita. It is very difficult, and even Arjuna could not understand it. Krishno janati vai samyak kinchit partho dhananjayah: Krishna alone knows the meaning of the Gita. Arjuna knows a little of it. And what about us?

This is why Guru upadesha is essential. It is very easy to misconstrue and misunderstand even great truths, and to wrongly apply them for our personal prejudices. The world before us is the body of God, but it is the body of God as the impersonal, cosmical prakriti. The individual impulses are to be very carefully distinguished from the cosmic urges of prakriti.

So we are expected to be karma yogins in the sense that we are parts of the universal prakriti and integral parts of Ishvara himself, but we cannot be karma yogins if this movement process urged by the cosmic prakriti is mixed up with individual predilections of kama, krodha, lobha, etc. By a careful thought bestowed upon our own conscience, we can know whether we are working for the satisfaction of the impulses within or as a duty-bound soul. Duty is different from desire. Duty is an ought, a must, an imperative, a categorical imperative. The philosopher Immanuel Kant even went to the extent of saying that if a work brings us satisfaction, it is not real karma yoga; it is not a liberating action. This is a little extreme, of course, but he said it with a purpose. Though he was partially right, it is not wholly true. When we do karma yoga we have another kind of satisfaction within us. It may not be an impulse-ridden satisfaction of the senses, but it is a satisfaction which is super-normal, super-physical, engulfing us from all sides with a broader perspective. It cannot be explained, and only one who experiences it will know what it is.

While there is pleasure out of the fulfilment of a personal desire, there is a divine bliss out of performance of a duty. When we perform a duty we feel a satisfaction, but it is not sensory satisfaction and cannot be explained in language. It is bliss, ananda. Ananda is different from kama vasana and prayers.

This is in some way a sequel to the subject of how The Divine Life Society founded by Gurudev Sri Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj has endeavoured, struggled hard to maintain this spirit of the teaching of the gospels and of the mahatmas, the incarnations, saints and sages, and how in order to be even the least of the disciples of Gurudev, we have to endeavour to be as much impersonal in our attitude of conduct as possible. The most impersonal personality was Sri Gurudev. He had no personality. People used to tell me, “When you see Swamiji, you cannot know whether he is a man or a woman.” That idea of gender does not come. When we see a man, we immediately know that he is a male, and when we see a woman, the idea of female comes. But when we saw Swami Sivananda, we could not think he is a man. We never had the idea of 'man'. Something was coming. In Tamil, they use the pronoun 'it': “That has come. It is sitting there.” We cannot say, “He is sitting there,” because he is not a man, and we also cannot say 'she'. So we say 'it'. God is It, That. We do not use the words 'he', 'she', and so on for God, and even saints are referred to as 'it' only. I like that term very much.

Impersonality is the character of God, impersonality is the character of prakriti, impersonality is the character of the whole creation, and impersonality should be the character and attitude of ours also. To the extent we are successful in the development and manifestation of this impersonality of character in even the humblest of proportions, to that extent we are disciples of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, to that extent we are devotees of God, and to that extent only will we succeed in our spiritual pursuits. This is the Bhagavadgita in a nutshell.

With these few words I invoke the blessings of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, the grace of the Almighty Bhagavan Sriman Lakshmi Narayana for the prosperity of all mankind, for the success in the undertakings of all seekers of Truth everywhere, for their health and long life, so that they be fitting instruments in the invisible hands of Gurudev Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, fitting receptacles for the grace of Bhagavan Narayana. “God bless you all” is my prayer.

End

Next

The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self

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