The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 2.2 Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday 03, Mar 2024 07:00.

The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita: 

Chapter 2: The Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata-2

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The first book confines itself to the infant stage of the Pandava and Kaurava brothers. Incidentally, it is also a description of the infant stage of any living being. It is a state of ignorance. Little babies are beautiful because of their knowing nothing. Everything attracts sympathy when it is a small child; it may be even the child of a lion, of a tiger, of a dog, of even a snake, what to speak of others. Even a little crawling tiny baby of a snake will attract sympathy, but not the grown-up snake. The innocence, ignorance, incapacity, helplessness, total dependence, and many other interesting factors contribute to the reason behind this dangerous beauty of babyhood. The Pandavas and the Kauravas were totally oblivious of their future. It was a joyous, jubilant, playful age of the little children, princes born in a royal family. They were together, and they were immensely friendly. They were one family, and it was all love and brotherhood and intense affection that prevailed in that childhood of the royal family.

But even a little snake will show its hood. In the beginning, it simply crawls without raising its head. The little cub of the tiger will tell you, “I am a tiger, and don't mistake me for anybody else.” Even older children will slowly begin to manifest tendencies of psychic vagaries and become a little naughty and uncontrollable. They are not so very palatable and handsome as they were earlier when they were on the lap of the mother. We have to be careful to note what these potentialities of a human being, or of anything, are.

We are going to be told in the Mahabharata what the potentialities of these children in the royal family of the Pandavas and the Kauravas were. We will be surprised at all the things we have in ourselves. We have every blessed thing. There is nothing that we do not have. Each one began to manifest his potentiality. There is a vociferous tendency also present in us, side by side with an affectionate tendency. It is not that we are capable only of affection; we are capable of many other things also. Our capability beggars description. There is nothing we are not capable of. Immense affection, kindness, goodness – yes, we are capable of that. And we can trample on somebody's foot, and on the head of somebody. Even this is not impossible for us. “Down you go to hell!” you may cry to a man, even if he be your own brother. “To hell you go! I will bury you alive.” These are also our capacities, capabilities. And wondrous capabilities of genius, scholarship, art, music, and happy behaviour are also our potentiality.

These started manifesting themselves. Gradually there was a split in the ideology of these children. For what reason do people hate one another? Is there a reason behind it? We do not require a reason for hatred, even as love also does not require much of a reason. Perhaps, love and hatred have no reason behind them. The moment we apply reason, they cease to be affections and hatreds. So it is not that only reason is present with us; unreason also operates. There is a potentiality for the capacity to defy every kind of rational attitude. “I cannot listen to you. Don't talk to me.” Sometimes we say that, and is it a rational attitude? We have decided not to listen; we have decided not to do something, or we have decided to do it. This kind of attitude is the expression of another faculty in the human being, which is not reason. There are many other things also inside us. We are a Pandora's box. If we are opened, anything can be found in us. I am not trying to expatiate on any special field of human psychology here. The subject is something else.

Continued


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