The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action : 2. Swami Krishnananda

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Sunday, March 13, 2022. 20:00.

(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)

Post-2.

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The Bhagavadgita is the science of mankind's culture and activity, to put it simply and precisely. The Bhagavadgita is not a religious gospel of the Hindus. It is not a scripture in the sense of any sectarian doctrine. It does not teach religion in the popular sense of the term. It does not teach any type of ethics or morals in the common understanding of the meaning of the term ‘ethics' or ‘morality'. The Bhagavadgita purports to expound human nature in its various aspects. It is not necessarily the Hindu nature or the Christian nature or the Buddhist nature; it is human nature. The problem of Arjuna was a human problem. It was not a Hindu problem or an Eastern problem particularly. It was a problem of the psychology of the human individual, and psychology is the same everywhere, wherever man or woman is. So in this sense, we may say that the Gita is a universal gospel. It is meant for me, and it is meant for you, and for all alike. It has no distinction of sex, colour, caste, creed, state, language or hemisphere. It also does not belong to a particular time in history. It is not a historical document that is given to us. It is a spiritual message. Inasmuch as the spirit has no time and space, this message of the Gita also may be said to be timelessly and spacelessly valid, which means to say that it is going to be a directive in our life at all times – past, present and future.

In the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna we have a pictorial representation of what the Bhagavadgita ideal of life should be, ought to be. We have in the glorious life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna a representation of the doctrines of the Bhagavadgita in practical life. The understanding of the nature of life is a presupposition of understanding the meaning of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita. It is very difficult to make out what is actually the sense that the Gita ultimately conveys to man, on account of which hundreds of commentaries on it have cropped up like mushrooms – not one giving the entire meaning of it, and not any one of the commentaries being capable of being regarded as redundant. Every commentary gives an aspect of the truth of it, but not the whole of it. The Bhagavadgita is such a totality of approach that even Bhagavan Sri Krishna declined to tell it a second time when Arjuna requested him to speak it once again after the war was over. That comprehensive approach cannot be summoned into consciousness constantly in human life. Very rarely do we rise to such heights of human understanding. For Sri Krishna himself to say that he could not speak it a second time would give us an idea as to the meaning hidden behind the whole gospel.

We may say it is God speaking to man. When God speaks to man, He speaks from every corner of the world. He does not speak only from the front or from behind or from any particular direction, because the existence of God is not a local, objective station. The presence of God is not like the presence of an object. It is not here or there or somewhere. It is everywhere. And therefore, the message of God should come from every direction. When it comes from every direction, it touches every aspect of life. It does not merely touch every aspect of life, but solves every question and every problem. Thus we are told that the Bhagavadgita is sarva shastra mayi, which means to say the essence of every teaching is in the Upanishad and the Bhagavadgita. Whatever question may arise in one's mind, that question can be answered in one way or the other in a word, in a phrase or a sloka of the Bhagavadgita. There is no mental trouble or psychological complex which is not touched in the Bhagavadgita, and there is no remedy for the psychological ills of man which cannot be unearthed from some place in the Gita gospel.

Thus, as the teaching of the Bhagavadgita is of universal significance, to study it is to study man himself, to study life. If we can chant with the poet who said the proper study of mankind is man, we can also say in the same strain that the proper study of the Bhagavadgita is man. But the understanding of the real purport of the Gita gospel is almost a superhuman task. It is difficult to make out what it actually teaches. Some think that it teaches the principles of action or activity in the world. There are others who think that it teaches the way of devotion to God, the creator of the world. There are still others who are of the opinion that it is a political gospel. It is also a guide light for social life, for individual discipline, for even the sciences of civics and economics. These standpoints have given rise to various expositions of the Gita, as I mentioned a few minutes before. All these aspects may be regarded as true, inasmuch as we have to accept that the Gita touches all sides of life in its generality. But when we try to apply its knowledge in our day-to-day existence, we have to take it very seriously and apply it in a manner consonant with the various difficulties that we face from morning to night.

To be continued ....

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