The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-2. Part-8.

-




2: Challenges of the Spiritual Seeker-8.




God-realisation is interpreted in terms of sense experience and psychical satisfaction. If we read the history of the evolutionary process of religion, we find that people always hesitated to touch the last point, and always satisfied themselves with everything but that last deciding factor. It will not be clear to us what is it that we are actually asking for, unless the logical limit of the conclusion is reached. But we never want to reach the logical conclusion of anything. We leave everything halfway. We somehow or other adjust ourselves with the law of things and then allow the things to rule us, though in a different manner. We may not be servants, vassals or underlings of an emperor, but the subjection continues. The freedom of the spirit is not a possession of any status or an acquisition of a power that is empirical, but a complete dissolving of all empirical values and an awakening into a new set of values altogether, which the mind at present can never even dream. Hence to think God would be a futility. The mind cannot think, because all thoughts are conditioned by evaluations, which again are nothing but interpretations of sense.


The decision is taken by God Himself—man cannot take the decision. And Sri Krishna took up the lead in this path of what decision is to be taken finally. Is the universe as an object to be retained, even in a subtle form, or is it to be abolished altogether? Is it to be absorbed totally? And do we have to see to the deathbed of the entire objective existence, or is it necessary to strike a lesser note and come to an agreement with factors which are far below this level of extreme expectation? Yudhishthira was wavering, he could not come to a conclusion; and we too are wavering. It is not easy for us to love God wholly, because that would mean the acceptance of the necessity to dissolve the whole world itself in the existence of God, and one would not easily be prepared for this ordeal. “It is true that Krishna is my saviour and my friend, philosopher and guide, but Duryodhana is my brother-in-law and my cousin—how can I deal a blow to him? Bhishma is my grandsire and Drona is my Guru. My own blood flows through the veins of these that seem to be harnessed against me in the arena of battle.” So there is a double game that the spirit plays between love of Krishna and love of the world, love of relations, love of individuals and love of family contacts, or to put it in a clinching manner, love of empirical values.

To be continued ...


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-5. Part-5.( Last Part)

-
Image
5: God is Our Eternal Friend-5. ( Last Part ) We are filled with doubts in our minds—we can prepare a dictionary of all our doubts—they are endless. Everywhere we have a suspicious attitude about the world, about things, about people, about ourselves, about the past, about the present, and about the future. These doubts cannot be dispelled until knowledge arises, and we know what knowledge means, an insight into which we have been given in the second chapter of the Gita. Knowledge is the knowledge of God ultimately, and as a result, knowledge of the nature of the world in its reality, as mentioned in the third chapter. This is true knowledge, and when we are awakened to this real knowledge, all doubts get dispelled. Then what happens? Atmavantam—we become truly possessed of the Self that we really are. We are people who have lost ourselves and are in pursuit of things outside. Yes, this is what has happened; we have grasped the world and lost our own selves, and we are
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavad gita : Ch-10. Part-3.

-
Image
Chapter 10: The Imperishable Among All that is Perishable : Part-3. We are told in the Puranas that Narayana or Vishnu takes incarnations for the preservation of creation. Vishnu is regarded as yajna itself. It is the highest sacrifice—God sacrificing himself every moment of time for the sustenance of His creation. As adhiyajna He is the administrative power and the methodology of the working of the cosmos. All activity is comprehended under this yajna of the cosmos. Therefore God is present in all activity when it is considered as a passage to God, when it is regarded as a manifestation of God as rays emanating from the sun. Those wise souls who envisage God as adhibhuta, adhidaiva and adhiyajna, which means to say, who encounter God as a comprehensive Absolute and not merely existing only here or there, such devotees are true knowers. They can entertain or maintain this consciousness even at the time of passing from this world—they are not deprived of th
Read more

The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-9. Part-8.

-
Image
9: The Unity of the Lover and the Beloved : Part-8. The distressed souls seeking God are of one type. One who is baked in the fire of samsaram,who is tortured in this hell of earth, suffering through various sorrows, seeks riddance from the grief of the world by resort to God under the impression that God is like a parent—a father or a mother or a supreme saviour. The intention behind this devotion is redress—freedom from sorrow, the inability to bear suffering. This is the reason here behind the devotion to God. Whether this could be an adequate reason, anyone can contemplate independently for oneself. Can we love God merely because He is the only source of redemption from our sorrows? Do we want freedom from sorrow, or do we want God? That is a different question that will come up later on. Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ....
Read more