The Central Intention of the Bhagavadgita - 4. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday 27, April 2026, 05:45. 
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Scriptures
The Central Intention of the Bhagavadgita: 4.
Swami Krishnananda.
(Spoken on November 26, 1972)

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The world is a scientific principle by itself. It is not meant for our enjoyment or for our hatred. It has an independence of its own, and we have to look upon the world as it is, and not as it appears. This knowledge is called sankhya, which is the subject of the Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. The sankhya to which Bhagavan Sri Krishna refers in the Second Chapter is the knowledge of the scientific nature of things, free from the emotional attitudes we have towards them. While emotion may lead us to love and hatred, the scientific attitude leads us to knowledge and understanding. This is sankhya tattva, and acting on the basis of this understanding is yoga. The understanding is sankhya, and the implementation of it is yoga.

This knowledge of the true nature of things will tell us what to do with those things. If we do not know what these things are by themselves, we will not know how to conduct ourselves in respect of them. When we see a person, we should put on a sort of conduct and attitude towards him, but first we must know who he is. It is a governor or a prime minister or a friend or an enemy or an animal such as a tiger, a lion, a snake, etc. When we know what sort of thing is in front of us, we know what sort of attitude we can put on in respect of it. But we do not know what it is. The essential nature of the world is not known to us, so we mistake it for different things at different times and then come to grief like a moth falling into fire.

Therefore, Bhagavan Sri Krishna, the Guru, tells the disciple Arjuna that knowledge is the basis of the practice of yoga, and not the sentiment, emotion or imagination that was ruling his mind in the beginning. Knowledge is power, strength, confidence and the capacity to act, but emotion and sentiment are a weakness which will tell us one thing now and another thing afterwards. “So don't depend on sentiment and feeling of your mind, Arjuna, O seeker, but brace yourself, ground yourself in a superior understanding, sankhya. Put it into action.” This is sankhya yoga.

Now the teaching goes further. How do we put it into action? How do we implement this knowledge? First we must know what this knowledge is. Knowledge of the true nature of things is sankhya, but what is the true nature of things? If that is known to some extent at least, we may be able to act in the world in the proper manner. What is this knowledge?

The knowledge of things as they are, on a higher analysis, a superior investigation, tells us that the world and the individual are intimately connected to each other. While the senses tell us that the world is outside us, knowledge tells us the world is not as outside us as it appears. This is the difference between the report of analytical knowledge and the report of the confounded senses. The senses tell us that the objects are totally outside us, that they are to be loved or hated, but the understanding tells us that we have no business either to love them or hate them because they are ultimately inseparable from our own personal life. Like threads connecting a fabric of cloth, forces connect the world with our personality. We are part of the world as threads are part of a cloth. What can be more stupid than a thread hating another thread in the very same cloth? It is the same as hating a part of our own structure or loving a part of what we ourselves are. Neither of these attitudes can be called wisdom. “Arjuna,” says Sri Krishna, “this is the truth of the whole matter.”

The elements which constitute the world ultimately enter into our own senses. The fibre of the thread is uniform everywhere throughout the cloth. Likewise, a single fibrous matter permeates the structure of the world and the structure of the individual at the same time. The five elements which constitute the world outside also constitute the sense organs which perceive the objects as outside. Look at this wonder. It is as if the elements are looking at themselves. On one side they appear as the subject, on the other side they appear as the object. When the elements get rarefied into the functional apparatus of the subject, they become instruments of individual knowledge. When they appear as gross, they look like objects.

Sattva, rajas and tamas constitute the five elements, and every element has all the three characters. The tamasic aspect of the elements makes them appear as gross objects, the sattvic principle present in them makes them instruments in perception by a subject, and the rajasic element present in them creates this urge for perception. So sattva, rajas and tamas, the three strands of the elements, become responsible for perception and external knowledge. Thus, the perceiver and the perceived are not really independent of each other. “Arjuna, you thought that the world is outside you, that you have enemies outside, that you have father and mother, brother and sister, friends and relatives. No such thing is possible. They do not exist at all. What you see in front of you is neither your relation, nor your friend or enemy. It is something inseparable from the structure of your own being.” Guṇā guṇeṣu vartanta iti matvā na sajjate (B.G. 3.28): Gunas operate upon gunas. It is not Arjuna operating on Bhishma, it is guna operating upon guna. One guna of prakriti operates on another guna of prakriti. There is a mutual concourse of these gunas, or properties of matter, and therefore, O seeker, do not get confused. Where is the question of loving and hating now? Impossible is this attitude of emotion.

Oh! Now the eyes are open. We have a wonderful vista in front of us, quite different from the world we saw before. We felt that we had a father and mother, brother and relatives, friends and foes in the world as objects of sense. Now it does not appear to be like that: “These are all certain principles, centres, independent units connected inseparably with my own being. So it is not I that look upon the world, but something else looking upon itself.” This is a far-reaching consequence of the Bhagavadgita analysis in the Second and Third Chapters

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