The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita :

Chapter 1: The Universal Scope of the Bhagavadgita :

Part-(b).


And when the theory is grasped, we know how to implement it in our daily life; that implementation is practice. So, here we have Brahmavidya and Yoga-Shastra, the science of the Absolute and the practical teaching on yoga which is the art of coming in contact with the Absolute, and, it is, moreover, something delightfully wonderful and more incapable of ordinary imagination than what we have already noticed. It is a conversation between God and man, which meaning is conveyed by the phrase, ‘Krishnarjuna Samvada’, in the colophon. Krishna and Arjuna are taken as occasions for bringing into highlight the relationship that exists between the Absolute and the relative. The epic has a special artistic grandeur and beauty of its own. That is the glory of a drama, and you enjoy it, though the enjoyment part of it has behind it a teaching, a moral or a lesson to be conveyed. As we noticed earlier, the characters of the Mahabharata are present perpetually in the features of the human being and so are the characters, Krishna and Arjuna. They are eternal relatives and not persons merely that might have lived historically some time, many years back. It is not a temporal history that is recounted to us in the epic, it is the story of the eternal drama that is played in the cosmos and is meaningful, therefore, for all times under every circumstance, to every person. As the message is imparted to the eternal individual by the eternal Reality, the teaching is also eternal. There is some essence in us which is perpetual in its nature. And that permanent essential something is the individuality of ours, which has a permanent relationship with the Supreme Being. It is, therefore, not a message conveyed in mere temporal language to suit a tentative occasion or a given moment of time, but this specific occasion of the Mahabharata was taken as a necessary context by the author of the Mahabharata to convey to the eternal human nature the knowledge of its relationship with the Eternal Absolute. The union of the individual with the Absolute is the final consummation of this story: The setting in tune of Arjuna with Krishna is the setting in tune of ourselves with all beings in a wholeness, which is Brahman, the Absolute. The story of the universe which is also the story of any country or nation, also the story of our own selves, is a story of the movement of all creation to the Creator, the Father of all beings that are here as these widespread phenomena. The world moves towards God. This is the story of creation. This is what is known as evolution. This is what we call desire, and this is what goes also as aspiration. This is the need, this is the requirement, ‘this is the necessity, the hunger and the thirst, and this is everything that is blessed here. All our requirements, whatever be their nature, are necessitated by the particular nature of the context of evolution at any given moment of time in which we are involved, in which every one is wound up entirely.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued ....