Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2-3. Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Wednesday 12, February 2025, 09:00.

Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2-3.

Discourse 2: The First Chapter – Visada Yoga, the Yoga of the Dejection of the Spirit-3.

Swami Krishnananda

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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.

Another question that arises in the spiritual seeker is: “I have practised meditation for twenty years, and have lived in an ashram for forty years. What is it that I have achieved, finally?” There will be a despondency of spirit. “If forty years have not brought anything, what is the guarantee that another twenty years will bring something? Perhaps there is some error.” A very intelligent friend of mine who is living in a nearby ashram—who is practically the founder of that ashram, a veteran who worked day and night for establishing that ashram—came to me one day, after twenty years of hard work in establishing that ashram. I was going for a walk, and by chance he was walking behind me. He asked, “Are you also finding time to read the commentary on the Gita by Jnaneshwara—the chapter on meditation? Swamiji, do you really believe in these things?” He asked me, “Do you really believe in these things?” His mind had gone off a little bit, somehow or other. His enthusiasm for social welfare and for establishing a centre of Hindu revivalism possessed him to such an extent that his nerves broke down, he had a heart attack, and doubts arose in his mind regarding the existence of God Himself; and he is now in a broken condition.

This is not the problem of a beginner in spirituality. It is the problem of an advanced person in spirituality. The world is not afraid of a beginner; it knows that he is a fly, so it does not care. An elephant does not care about a fly sitting on it, but if a lion comes in front of it, it will be conscious of the lion. Similarly, the world will not care to recognise even ten or fifteen years of japa, meditation, etc., because these japas are not going to touch even the skin or the fringe of the reality of life. But if we are determined, the world begins to feel that we actually mean to encounter it. Then it will show its teeth and claws, and will stir up the emotions which had been buried inside, and the renunciation that we resorted to will irrationally sink down into the sentiments of unfulfilled subconscious potentialities, and petty desires will manifest themselves. A person may be a well-to-do individual, coming from a rich family, and he may have renounced that for the sake of the pursuit of God. But after thirty or forty years of meditation, he may feel so starved and his appetite will increase so much that he will eat much more than he had eaten when he was with his family, and petty desires will arise for things like a wristwatch or a radio. He had been a well-to-do man, the son of a big landlord, but that does not matter because individual sentiments manifest themselves only when the social sentiments are suppressed.

When we are well placed in the midst of society and everybody respects us, we cannot know what kind of persons we are. Society should reject us or we should reject society, either one or the other, and then we will stand by ourselves. At that time, what we are in our basic subconscious will surface, and we will be neither rich nor poor; we will be just sentimental individuals like anybody else. Then the doubts arise: “This is not for me.” “I have made a mistake in choosing the Guru. I will have to go to another Guru.” “My meditations must have been wrongly manoeuvred.” “What happens to me? When I die, I lose all things. This world is lost for me.” “I have a father and a mother who love me.” The little affection of those parents and relatives will sting like a scorpion when everything is cut off and there is nothing for us to stand upon. And, as I mentioned, silly desires, most irrational instincts, will take possession of the individual when he totally cuts himself off from society and becomes an itinerant monk or an austere individual, starving his sentiments. “What is the guarantee that I will attain God in this birth? It may be a great hope, but from what has happened to me over the last fifty years, I realise that I have achieved nothing. I have not taken even one step in the direction of God-realisation.”

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Continued

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