Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2-2. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday 28, January 2025, 09:00.
Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2-2.
Discourse 2: The First Chapter – Visada Yoga, the Yoga of the Dejection of the Spirit-2.
Swami Krishnananda

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When the spiritual seeker passes some years in self-abnegation, a determined spirit arises: “I have risen above all the desires of the world. I have had enough of all things. I am now here to fight the battle of life, to transcend the world, to face it, to overcome it, and then to go beyond it.” The Pandavas facing the Kauravas is like a spiritual seeker facing the whole world. The objective sentiments are represented by the Kauravas, and the subjective sentiments are represented by the Pandavas. It is difficult for the subject to face the object entirely on the assumption that it is an alien element that is outside, because the world is not an alien element. The blood of the subject flows through the very fibre of the objective world. The individual is a content of the world and, therefore, all the realities of the world are also seen in the realities of the physical personality. There is nothing in us which is not in the outside world. We will realise later on that when we fight this battle of life and want to overcome the temptations and the errors of perception in the world, we are actually heading towards a battle against our own self. We will discover that the forces that we have to face and overcome in the form of an assumed externality of the world are actually in us, because all the faces of reality, positive or negative, that one tries to visualise in the outside world are in a miniature form in our personality.

The three gunas of prakriti—sattva, rajas and tamas—constitute everything in the world, and they also constitute our physical personality. Even our minds are conditioned by these three gunas. Therefore, any kind of envisagement by the subjective consciousness in respect of the outside world would have to take into consideration the fact that the envisager is constituted of the very same elements that constitute the objective world, in the same way as the blood that was in the Pandavas was also in the Kauravas. And so we feel a sense of fright, a sense of diffidence.

Spiritual seekers who are honest in their pursuit will begin to feel a sense of internal fear and tremor after years of spiritual practice, due to various questions that will arise which did not arise earlier because they had a wrong notion that the things they have to fight against are totally outside. The experience in spiritual meditation, living with Gurus, doing austerities in ashrams, etc., will slowly bring out the facts of the inner components of nature, and after years of living a monastic life or a spiritual life under a Guru, a fright of an unknown nature will take possession of the individual.

Questions arose in the mind of Arjuna: “Is it proper to stand against the very same constituents that are also the constituents of my personality? That is to say, can I fight against my own relatives? Is it ethically sanctioned?” In a family, is it permissible or ethical if one member attacks another member? The Kuru family included all the Kauravas and all the Pandavas, and in this attitude of military onslaught it appears as if a large family is fighting against itself, like a house divided against itself. Is this ethically permissible and of any practical utility at all? It looks like patricide, homicide, and any kind of 'cide', which is condemned in ethical courts.

Secondly, the spiritual seeker feels a doubt of another kind: “Am I deserting the world in my enthusiasm for God?” Advanced spiritual seekers will have such questions. “Have I not a duty towards people who are suffering? Am I to fly to God individually, allowing my own brethren, kinsmen and humanity to wallow in the mire of ignorance? Is it not my duty to be of some assistance to these sufferers?” A little bit of spiritual enlightenment is like a half-baked pot, which breaks when water is poured into it. It breaks the very determination of the spiritual seeker to reach God, and he would like to become a saviour of the world, a worker for the welfare of mankind. He goes to foreign countries, establishes centres, has thousands of devotees, and feels a satisfaction that his mission is fulfilled. This is an extension of the logic of Arjuna's feeling that the world is too much of a reality to be bypassed so easily with the feeling that it can be attacked, subjugated and destroyed, because of the fact that it has a relation of kinship with oneself. “They are me and, therefore, I have a duty towards them; and my duty is not to oppose them, but to feel for them.” This is one question.

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Continued

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