The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 2.6 Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday 28, Mar 2024 07:30.

The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita: 

Chapter 2: The Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata-6.

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In the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata, the second book, a tentative deceptive glory of royalty is described. There was an agreement among the cousin-brothers, who originally had a jealous feeling among themselves, and by some agreement brought about by elders and pressure exerted upon by the differing parties, for some reason or the other, some good thing came out. Each one was bestowed with some blessing. Everyone was happy. The Pandavas were in the height of glory. They were crowned kings, and so were the others.


So is the joy of adolescence. All kinds of ideas come to our minds when we are adolescent youths. It appears as if the whole world is dabbed with honey and milk, and there are no thorns anywhere in the world. It is all glory. “I shall do this, I shall do that, I shall become this, I shall become that.” Young people have such ideas, because it is the period of the budding of the potential energy of the human individual. All the energies come up into action. There is the rising up of every kind of capacity in you at that time, and it is up to you to choose which line you are going to follow. It is, therefore, a very difficult period, adolescence. You cannot understand yourself, and others also cannot understand you fully. You do not know what you are at, what you expect in this world, what you want to become, what vocation you want to pursue, and so on, and others cannot understand your ideas. But you are ready to pursue any line of action. All the energies are ready for action, like an army ready for any kind of order to be issued to it, and now it depends upon what order you are going to issue. Stand still, go forward, retreat – any order can be issued to the army.


All the potentialities in us – biological, psychological, emotional, volitional, and even a little bit of rational faculty – rise up into action, and it is a flower trying to effloresce from its stage of bud. All was beautiful, but there was the sting of future sorrow. That also was a potential in this beauty of the growing and budding adolescence. The latter part of the Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata unleashes the sword which was hidden under the armpit of a satisfaction and a false complacency, and it was a great surprise indeed that a friend could unleash his sword suddenly, and rise into action and ambush. This was done unexpectedly, as it were, by those people who did the sacrifice, agreed to a truce, and said that everything is fine. But my dear friends, it was not fine. The world is not so very sweet as it appears on the surface. It has many other potentialities. “I shall tell you what they are,” said the Kauravas to the Pandavas. With this, the Sabha Parva concludes.


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Next

Chapter 3: The Aranya Parva of the Mahabharata

Continued


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