The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita- 5. Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 24, January 2025, 09:10.
Srimad Bhagavad Gita
The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita- 5.  
Chapter 1: The Universal Scope of the Bhagavadgita-5.
Swami Krishnananda

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One can imagine with this introduction the widespread comprehensiveness of the gospel, the teachings of the Bhagavadgita. It leaves nothing unsaid, and the language in which this message is conveyed has behind it an incomprehensible secret. The deeper we go within ourselves, the deeper is the meaning we will discover in it. If our outer personality reads the Gita, we will see only the outer feature of its message. If we study it as a linguist, as a Sanskritist or an academician, we will see only that aspect, a story narrated which appeals to our feelings and emotions, or to our reason. If we read it as a psychologist, we will find there an unravelling of the mystery of the human psyche. If we read it as a rationalist, we will find there arguments for substantiating the verities of the cosmos. And if we read it as a seeker, we will find there a parent to take care of us, a father and a mother who will console us and solace us under moments of despair when clouds hang heavy in the horizon and we cannot visualise the light of the sun. Such is the tremendous depth of this gospel and teaching known as the Bhagavadgita, and of the epic of the Mahabharata in which the Bhagavadgita occurs, displaying the whole character of mankind. It reveals an entire culture, not only of the Indian nation, but of all nationalities in the various stages of their evolution.

One might be surprised that this Divine Message, which should be regarded as spiritual in its character, has been imparted at a very critical moment, when a war was about to take place, in a battlefield, when people were up in arms to fly at each other's throats, when there was heat in the minds of all that were arrayed in the war-ground. We know what is battle; and an hour or so before this terrific occasion should be regarded as the time for giving a message of eternity. It was not taught in a school or a college; one would have expected such a masterly teaching to be conveyed to students in a church or a temple, in an academy, a university, a college, a hermitage, a monastery, which would have been the proper place to reveal this message. Spirituality has little to do with war or battle, with fighting and with bloodshed. One cannot imagine the relevance of the wondrous eternity of the message to the awful scene of the battle of the Mahabharata. But here, again, is the speciality of the Bhagavadgita. It cannot, therefore, be considered as a religious scripture in any traditional sense. We do not expect a religious gospel to be broadcast in a battlefield. We assume an air of holiness, a sanctimonious attitude when we speak of God or religion. By holiness we mean something which is different from an unholy atmosphere. And what can be more unholy than a battle, a war, something unthinkable, detestable and undesirable to the utmost extent, the dreadful scene of killing each other. And yet, this is the occasion considered to have been most suitable.

Yes, the problems of life are not merely religious problems, and we should not be under the impression that we can be happy merely by a so-called religious message. If by religion we understand what is in our minds usually—and we know very well what we understand by religion: a scripture which has to be carried on the head and worshipped with a tremendous piety and fear in an atmosphere which has to be uncontaminated by secularity of any kind, cut off from the atmosphere of the give-and-take attitude of people, of shops and streets and thoroughfares, a temple, a church, a priest, a ritual—we have to study the Gita a little differently.

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Continued

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