The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita-1.4

22/06/2018
Chapter 1: The Universal Scope of the Bhagavadgita-4.

4.
In a few words which occur towards the end of each chapter, as a colophon thereof, we are given an indication of the eternity, practicality and divinity of its content. The Bhagavadgita is supposed to be a message which embodies the knowledge of what is ultimately real, and not merely temporarily valuable or significant. When everything passes away, something shall remain, and what that something is, is the object of the quest of this knowledge which is embodied in the Bhagavadgita. It is called ‘Brahmavidya’, the knowledge of the Absolute, Brahman.

The reality that cannot be further transcended is called the Absolute. It is so called because it is not related to anything else; it is non-relative Being. I am socially related to you, and you are related to me; and therefore our empirical existence is relative, one thing hanging on the other. But the Absolute does not hang on something else for its description, characterisation or existence. In our case, or in the case of anything, existence is conditioned by other existences.

For instance, we are dependent on various factors for our life in this world. We require sunlight, water, air, food, we require social cooperation and protection and many other things of this nature, so that if these external conditioning features are absent, our personal or individual existence may be wiped out in a few days. We have no independent status of our own; we depend on other factors for our existence.

There is a mutual dependence of characters, individuals and things in this world. Therefore, we say, the world is relative, and it has no absolute reality. But this relativity of things in the world is a pointer to the possibility of the existence of something which is not relative. The idea of relativity cannot arise unless there is something which makes us feel that things are relative. That which enables us to be conscious of the relativity of things cannot itself be relative.

So, there is a necessity to admit the existence of that which is not relative, and it is designated, in scriptures like the Upanishads, as Brahman. This is a name that we give, for the purpose of our own descriptive understanding, to that which must exist as transcendent to anything that we see with our eyes or anything that we can conceive with our minds.

To be continued ..