Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2. Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday 31, July 2026, 19:50.
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Commentary on the Bhagavadgita: 2.
Swami Krishnananda

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Brahma-vidya is an intricate subject. It is not just repeating some words of the Upanishads or the Brahma Sutras or even the Gita. It is the entry of the consciousness into the very import of the teaching, which is suggested in many of the verses of the Bhagavadgita itself. Mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti (7.7); aham ātmā guḍākeśa sarvabhūtāśayasthitaḥ (10.20); paśya me pārtha rūpāṇi śataśo'tha sahastraśaḥ (11.5); divyaṁ dadāmi te cakṣuḥ paśya me yogam aiśvaram (11.8); jñeyaṁ yat tat pravakṣyāmi yaj jñātvāmṛtam aśnute, anādimat paraṁ brahma na sat tan nāsad ucyate (13.12); sarvataḥ- pāṇipādaṁ tat sarvato'kṣiśiromukham, sarvataḥśrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati (13.13): The Total has eyes everywhere, has feet everywhere, has hands everywhere, because it is neither a subject nor an object. In the total perception of things, we are not ourselves, nor are we other than what we are. We are something beyond both what we are and what is other than what we are. This is the final import, as it were, of the Brahma-vidya aspect of the Bhagavadgita.

But, as I mentioned, theoretical physics has to lead to applied physics. What is the use of merely knowing things? This knowledge has to be applied in practical life. In a similar manner, this Brahma-vidya, which is the knowledge of the integrality of things, has to be put into daily implementation in our teacups, in our fountain pens, in our angry gestures, in our prejudices, in our desires, in our attractions, in our repulsions. In every situation, this Brahma-vidya has to be there. We have to be total and whole persons always. We cannot be whole only at some time, and a fraction at some other time. Will we be whole persons in our offices, and only a percentage in our houses? We are whole everywhere, but if we behave in different ways at different times, and convert ourselves into fractions of human personality, as it were, we are not living a wholesome life. It is not a holistic approach to things.

Brahma-vidya is to be applied in the Yoga Shastra, which is the daily application of our consciousness, our mind, our attitude, to anything in the world in terms of the lesson that we have learnt through Brahma-vidya. What is the purpose of this practice of yoga in terms of the wisdom that we gain through Brahma-vidya? It is kṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāda: the conversation of the soul with God. Kṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāda is the conversation of the soul with the Absolute. The soul speaks to the Absolute. Arjuna's envisaging the mighty Krishna is symbolic of the soul envisaging the Cosmic Being in its daily life.

Who can encounter the Absolute? Who can talk with God, unless we are flaming and blazing forth in the purity of our spirit as God Himself is? Unless we have transcended the limitations of flesh and bone and the limitations of the psyche which are conditioned socially, politically, etc., unless we are able to lift our consciousness above these limitations, how will we converse with God? Who can dare approach God, when there is no communicating medium between ourselves and God? The wavelength of our individuality and the wavelength of God are in such contrast that there is no mingling of these two factors. The radio station of God is sending messages. We are unable to receive any message from God because our receiving sets here have a very feeble wavelength and, therefore, no message is received. The Yoga Shastra, or the practice of yoga, is nothing but the tuning of the wavelength of our receiving sets to the wavelength of the message that comes from God's broadcasting station.

This is Yoga Shastra; and the purpose of this is to contact God directly. There is no use of thinking God, praying to God, feeling God, and imagining that one day we will realise God. It is necessary to confront Him every day, if it is true that He is present in every atom, as they say. In every atom He is vibrating, as the sun is vibrating in the solar system. If that is the case, He is to be contacted just now. God is a here and a now, and not an afterwards or a somewhere or a someone. He is without these limitations of the concept of space and time. Contact with God is contact with timelessness, with eternity, with just-ness, now-ness and here-ness. Such is the import of the final teaching of the Bhagavadgita, where the soul communes with God in its realisation of the perfection that it has to achieve finally through the Yoga Shastra. This is the practice of the discipline necessary in this world in the light of the knowledge of Brahma-vidya, which is the theoretical education that we receive of how the world is made, finally.

First we have to know, then we have to do, and then we have to realise. A similar reference is made in the Eleventh Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. It is not enough if we merely see and know, but we have to enter into it. It is necessary for us to enter into God in our daily life. It is not enough if we are merely thinking as a kind of outer whitewash on our body. Then it will remain like a whitewash outside only, and it will not be part of our structure.

The entry into God's existence every day is the living of the divine life, and we should not think that this is a very hard thing. Who can enter into God every day? Where is God? Is He in some unimaginable infinity? It is nothing of the kind. Sarvataḥ pāṇipādaṁ tat sarvatokṣiśiromukham, sarvataḥ śrutimal loke sarvam āvṛtya tiṣṭhati (13.13); mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti (7.7): Outside God, nothing exists. If that is the case, what is the distance between us and God? Distance is abolished. It is a distanceless, timeless contact. That is possible for us, provided that we open the gates of our personality, open the windows to the sunshine of the Supreme Being that is illuminating us perpetually, and melt our egos, which affirm that “I also exist together with God”. The biblical fall of Satan is nothing but the story of the affirmation of the ego in the presence of God: “If you are there, I am also there.” The devotee says, “God, Thou art, but I am also there to contemplate You.” That devotee should not be there at all. Let that devotee melt, and then God possesses him. The ocean enters into the rivers, and the world melts into the consciousness which is a now and a here.

The Bhagavadgita is a Brahma-vidya, a Yoga Shastra, śrīkṛṣṇārjunasaṁvāda. It is a theoretical understanding of the structure of the cosmos, the practice of yoga, and the daily contact with God in our practical affairs, which is true divine life.

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Next
Discourse 2: The First Chapter – Visada Yoga, the Yoga of the Dejection of the Spirit
Continued

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