gita

The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India CONTENTS I. The Universal Scope of the Bhagavadgita II. The Battlefield of Life III. The Spirit of True Renunciation IV. The Struggle for the Infinite V. The Mortal and the Immortal VI. The Meaning of Duty VII. The Nature of Right Understanding VIII. The Yoga of Action IX. The Divine Incarnation and God-oriented Activity X. Forms of Sacrifice and Concentration XI. The Yoga of Meditation XII. God and the Universe XIII. Cosmology and Eschatology XIV. The Glory and Majesty of the Almighty XV. The Way and the Goal XVI. The Supreme Person XVII. The Play of the Cosmic Powers XVIII. The Yoga of the Liberation of Spirit Chapter I THE UNIVERSAL SCOPE OF THE BHAGAVADGITA The Bhagavadgita is a well-known gospel. Very few might have not heard the name, 'Bhagavadgita', for it is almost universally accepted as a scripture, not merely in a sense of holiness or sanctity from the point of view of a religious outlook, but as what has been regarded as a guide in our day-to-day life, which need not necessarily mean a so-called religious attitude of any particular denomination. Our life is vaster in its expanse than what we usually regard as a vocation of religion. And if religion remains just an aspect of our life and does not constitute the whole of life, the Bhagavadgita is not a religious scripture, because its intention is not to cater to a side of our nature or a part of our expectation in life, but the whole of what we need, and what we are. This special feature of the Bhagavadgita makes it a little difficult for people to comprehend its significance and message. While hundreds of expositions there are on this great gospel and several commentaries have been written and are being written on it even now, it is difficult to believe that its meaning has been completely grasped, as it becomes a novelty after novelty as we go deeper and deeper into it. The more we read it, the fresher does it appear before our eyes, like the rise of the sun every morning. This speciality and comprehensiveness which is the approach of the Gita is what makes it a little distinct from the other well-known religious guidelines. We have heard it often said that it is an episode in a large epic of India, known as the Mahabharata, and we regard it as a teaching given by someone to someone else in some ancient times in a particular context of those early days. We are likely to read this epic as a story, like a drama or a play, for our diversion and emotional satisfaction. But this epic of which the Bhagavadgita is an episode is not a story come from a grandmother to a child, though it is narrated in the fashion of a dramatic performance with images and artistic touches of characters which portray the various facets of human liking and attitude. What inspires us and stirs us when we read an epic of this kind is the sympathy that exists between these characters and the various phases of our own personal lives. We find ourselves somehow in these epic characters. We are drawn to these images of persons and situations on account of there being a representation, as it were, of what we ourselves are at different moments of time or in the layers of our own personalities. All these people, the heroes and heroines, the dramatize personae of the Mahabharata, are present inside us, and we ourselves are these at different occasions and times. We have layers of personality in us and these various layers correspond to the ideal images that are portrayed in the characters of this great epic, the Mahabharata. Why are we inspired when we read the plays of Shakespeare? Because we are present there. Everyone of these special characters that Shakespeare, for instance, delineates with the masterly stroke of his pen corresponds to our own self in some manner or the other. Every character of Shakespeare is present in us and we are everyone of these. So, we are in sympathy within, we are in rapport with all these characters, and so we are stimulated by a study of his plays. It is human nature as such that is displayed in the dramas of Shakespeare, the epics of Homer or the Mahabharata. It is not the story of some people that lived sometime ago but a characterization of all people that may live at any time in the history of the world. They are not stories of certain people only; they are stories of people as such, of any person, and the nomenclature of these personalities is only by the way, the essentiality is the attitude, the character and the conduct and the personal and social features that they demonstrate in their temporal existence. The characters are perpetual features in the evolution of the cosmos, while the vehicles which embody or enshrine these characters may vary. These are the specific stages through which the world has to pass, and every individual is a part of the world. Everyone has to traverse every one of these stages. Every character is every person and vice-versa. Thus, while the epic of the Mahabharata, like some other epics also of this nature, attempts to portray the culture of an entire nation, or, we may say, the culture of humanity in general, it pinpoints its teachings at a central occasion which it regards as the most convenient hour to give its message in its essentiality. The Bhagavadgita is the kernel of this vast expanded fruit of the Mahabharata, which has matured out of the tree of the culture of India. The philosophic messages which are given in the various chapters of the Gita are dramatically portrayed in the characters of the story of the epic. The one explains the other. The narrative of the Mahabharata, the epic aspect of this great work, is a performance, in the stage of humanity, of the message that is to be conveyed in the form of the Bhagavadgita; and, when we look at it the other way round, the Bhagavadgita is what is intended behind the whole narration of the Mahabharata. The great author of this epic achieves a double stroke by his masterpiece that he has given to mankind. He gives directly a message that has to go into our souls, and at the same time makes it appealing to the various psychological features which constitute our emotional personality. And, as I mentioned a little earlier, its message is not religious in the common sense meaning of the term; it does not teach any 'religion', if by religion we mean the so-called faiths of the world that are prevalent today, such as Hinduism, Budd