The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 3.3 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 13, Apr 2024 06:40.
The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita: 
Chapter 3: The Aranya Parva of the Mahabharata -3.

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What are the difficulties of a spiritual seeker? These are the difficulties the Pandavas had to face. They had even to be exiled into the forest. The third Parva of the Mahabharata is called the Aranya Parva, or the Vana Parva. The exuberance of a tentative placement in luxury and security gave place to a sudden bolt from the blue, unexpectedly come from the skies, as it were, and the royal prince seated on the throne found himself in the thick of the forest. Oh, what a pity was Yudhisthira's fate!

My dear spiritual seeker, we find ourselves in a wilderness after some time. We hop from place to place in search of different kinds of spiritual security and atmosphere. It is a kind of psychic wilderness where we do not know how to properly place ourselves. It is an exile from our original aspiration and the satisfaction and security, the balance of approach and positivity that we seemed to have in our minds in the early days. The Kauravas drove the Pandavas out into the forest.

The wild tendencies within us, which are also in this kingdom of our personality, gain an upper hand. In one interesting, humorous place Acharya Sankara, in his commentary on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, says the devils in the universe are more in number than the gods. It is a very amusing statement indeed. The devils are greater in number than these gods. Why should the gods be small in number and the devils be more? Anyway, each one of you can make a commentary on this sentence of Acharya Sankara. The gods get defeated. Sometimes even gods get defeated. In our epic stories and Puranas, we hear of gods being dethroned and vanquished by asuric forces. The Pandavas, the virtuous, good, righteous ones, are in the thick of the wilderness of the forest, and the licentious, greedy and unsympathetic forces of the Kauravas are on the throne.

This should not happen to a spiritual seeker. One has to guard oneself against such a predicament. Whatever be the security we may have, however much we may guard ourselves, yet we may find ourselves in the position of the Pandavas. There is a glory of young age of spiritual aspiration. I am not referring to our physical age. Spiritual aspiration also has a young age, which is exuberant and joyous. We feel that we are happy if we have all facilities, and sometimes we appear very elevated as seekers if we become pundits, learned in the sutras, masters of commentaries, or teach in a classical style of language. All these are satisfactions, no doubt. We are enthroned in something. In the Sabha Parva there is enthronement, but the trouble is yet to come. Trouble comes only when the unattended impulses inside are going to speak in their own voice. Unattended impulses are those with which we have not yet made peace.

As I gave a homely example, it would not be possible for the husband to suddenly kick away the wife and go to a meditational mood. He has some duty to the house. The house is this body and everything that is there, and the furniture of this personality, our property, is not easily forsaken with impunity. I do not say that everyone should pass through this stage of wilderness, but mostly everyone passes through that. Everyone falls into a pit, and then wakes up. “Oh, I'm sorry. Here is a pit. I shall not go in this direction.” But we will know it only after falling, not before. Nobody can instruct us not to go there. Desires, instincts and impulses are irrational, like naughty children. They will not listen to any advice, and we have to fall and break our neck. Then we will say, “I made a mistake. In future I will not go there.”

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Continued

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