Posts

Showing posts from November, 2018

The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita-Chapter-2.2

Image
29/11/2018 Chapter 2: The Battlefield of Life - 2. The cosmical impulse corresponding to this psychological impasse through which we are passing is designated in the language of Indian philosophy, especially the Vedanta, the Samkhya and the Yoga, as the process of the matrix of all things known as prakriti, a Sanskrit word which means the original substance of all creation. The material of the universe is called prakriti. It is constituted of certain processes, parts, energies or properties. These are known as sattva, rajas and tamas. The property of tamas indicates inertia, fixity, immobility. Rajas is the name that we give to the impulsion dragging everything outwardly into the space-time-complex and compelling everything to relate itself to things outside. Sattva is the counter-balancing urge which obliges everything to maintain an individuality of internal status, which requires all to maintain a balance and not lose the alignment in the inner layers of personality or...

The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita-Chapter-2.1

Image
04/11/2018 Chapter 2: The Battlefield of Life - 1. We have seen that the occasion for the delivery of the Bhagavadgita was a field of war, which is conspicuous in its occurrence in the context of the Mahabharata. As we have observed earlier, the Bhagavadgita does not intend to tell us a story for entertaining in our leisure hours, but to give a permanent message for the salvation of the soul of the human being. That is why it is called a Yoga Shastra, or a scripture of Yoga. Whatever is said in this scripture is a sermon on the practice of Yoga, and the necessity for the teaching arises on account of a conflict in which one finds oneself at any given moment of time in one’s life. The whole of the Mahabharata is a story of conflict. We would gradually realise that the practice of Yoga resolves itself into a simple system of the overcoming and the balancing of forces for the purpose of resolving all conflicts. The universe moves in two directions, one may say—the centripeta...