The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita- 2 Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday 24, December 2024, 11:00.

Srimad Bhagavad Gita

The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita- 1  

Chapter 1: The Universal Scope of the Bhagavadgita-2.

Swami Krishnananda

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The Bhagavadgita is the kernel of this vast expanded fruit of the Mahabharata, which has matured out of the tree of the culture of India. The philosophic messages which are given in the various chapters of the Gita are dramatically portrayed in the characters of the story of the epic. The one explains the other. The narrative of the Mahabharata, the epic aspect of this great work, is a performance, in the stage of humanity, of the message that is to be conveyed in the form of the Bhagavadgita; and, when we look at it the other way round, the Bhagavadgita is what is intended behind the whole narration of the Mahabharata. The great author of this epic achieves a double stroke by his masterpiece that he has given to mankind. He gives a message that has to go directly into our souls, and at the same time makes it appealing to the various psychological features which constitute our emotional personality.

As I mentioned a little earlier, the message of the Bhagavadgita is not religious in the common-sense meaning of the term; it does not teach any 'religion', if by religion we mean the so-called faiths of the world that are prevalent today, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam or any sectarian cult, though under an outer cloak we may imagine that it is a Hindu scripture. It is a scripture that has originated in India, may be by an accident or a contextual necessity in the history of the universe. But it is not meant only for the people of India; it is for all people, and for all times. It is, therefore, not a message that Krishna gave to Arjuna so that we can just set it aside as something relevant to those times and not applicable to these days. It is a message of eternity, and it has a timeless significance for every one of us. It does not get rusted or worn out by the movements of time or the changes that take place geographically, socially or politically. The vicissitudes of life have no impact upon this message, because it arises from a source which transcends the transitions of life.

In a few words which occur towards the end of each chapter, as a colophon thereof, we are given an indication of the eternity, practicality and divinity of its content. The Bhagavadgita is supposed to be a message which embodies the knowledge of what is ultimately real, and not merely temporarily valuable or significant. When everything passes away, something shall remain, and what that something is, is the object of the quest of this knowledge which is embodied in the Bhagavadgita. It is called 'Brahmavidya', the knowledge of the Absolute, Brahman.

The reality that cannot be further transcended is called the Absolute. It is so called because it is not related to anything else; it is non-relative Being. I am socially related to you, and you are related to me; and therefore our empirical existence is relative, one thing hanging on the other. But the Absolute does not hang on something else for its description, characterisation or existence. In our case, or in the case of anything, existence is conditioned by other existences. For instance, we are dependent on various factors for our life in this world. We require sunlight, water, air, food, we require social cooperation and protection and many other things of this nature, so that if these external conditioning features are absent, our personal or individual existence may be wiped out in a few days. We have no independent status of our own; we depend on other factors for our existence. There is a mutual dependence of characters, individuals and things in this world. Therefore, we say, the world is relative, and it has no absolute reality. But this relativity of things in the world is a pointer to the possibility of the existence of something which is not relative. The idea of relativity cannot arise unless there is something which makes us feel that things are relative. That which enables us to be conscious of the relativity of things cannot itself be relative. So, there is a necessity to admit the existence of that which is not relative, and it is designated, in scriptures like the Upanishads, as Brahman. This is a name that we give, for the purpose of our own descriptive understanding, to that which must exist as transcendent to anything that we see with our eyes or anything that we can conceive with our minds. 

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Continued

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