The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 12-3: Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 18, October 2025, 09:00.
Books: Bhagavad Gita
The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity 12-3: 
Chapter 12: Control of the Senses: 3.
Swami Krishnananda.

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Where are we actually standing now, inward or outward? Sometimes we are pulled inward, sometimes outward. Now, mostly viewing things in the light of what we see in humanity at this moment of the twentieth century, we may say there is an extroversion of attitude, an impulsion to evaluate everything in life in terms of outward appearance and external arrangement. There is no inclination of any person to view things in terms of an inwardness of values.

“So, Arjuna, I am now going to answer your question, after having told you something as an introduction. This is the truth of the matter. Having known everything, yet we cannot live according to what we know, and the reason is this. Mostly people who are phenomenally involved are conditioned by phenomenal impulses.” What are the phenomenal impulses? They are vehement subjection to the requirements of objective existence which psychologically goes as desire, greed, hatred, and anger: Kāma eṣa krodha eṣa rajoguṇa samudbhavaḥ, mahāśano mahāpāpmā viddhyenam iha vairiṇam (BG 3.37). Mostly, there is a vehemence of outward approach in the human individual. We always see outside. There is no other tendency in us, presumably. We wake up in the morning and start looking outside. All our engagements are outside. Our fears and longings and expectations are outside. Everything is outside. There is nothing but outsideness in this world. We are sold, as it were, to this world of externality. Well, literally we may say we are just what Christ describes in his great statement: We have gained the world and lost our souls. We have lost our souls because we do not even believe we have souls. We have no time to think that we have souls at all. Why think of souls? We do not have time to think that we exist at all. Only others exist. The world exists, problems exist, relationships exist, occupations exist, troubles exist; all are existing except myself. I have lost myself, drowned myself in that which is outside, as if I am not there at all. My existence is completely sold out to that which is totally outside. The world is an externality. Hell is nothing but an extreme of externality, and heaven is a tendency to internality.

Now, this difficulty of the reason why you cannot put into practice in your daily life this wondrous message of the need to participate in a cosmic purpose arises due to there being kama, krodha and lobha in everyone – desire, anger and greed. There is a susceptibility to long for things, though we may not be always longing for things in an obvious manner. For instance, we are seated here. We are not going on thinking of some object of longing. We may not be even aware of what we are wanting at all, but it does not mean that the tendency is absent in us. A particular atmosphere presented now in this little room is not permitting the manifestation of submerged longings of the mind. But as seeds grow in the field when the atmosphere is conducive, the potentialities for expression outside as desire, greed and anger rise up into action and become large trees, as it were, when conditions become favourable.

Having desire, anger and greed need not necessarily mean that these forces are operating in us perpetually, day in and day out. To be desireful, a person need not go on shouting, “I want, I want, I want!” And we need not go on attacking somebody in order to be angry. It is not necessary to go on shouting, “I have this desire! I have this desire!” There is no need to say all these things. But without announcing our propensities, even without knowing sometimes that these are present at all in us, they shall be present. Our propensities, traits of this character, sometimes lie hidden and latent within us, without external manifestation, due to the pressure of circumstances. If longings do not manifest themselves openly in daylight, it is because the conditions of outer life do not permit their expression. If sometimes we are unable to give vent to our anger, it does not necessarily mean that we are not angry. It only means conditions outside do not permit the ventilation of that anger. So is the case with any trait or impulse.

Even the potential, latent, hidden impulse of this kind will act as a screen preventing the insight into our real association with the universal operation of things. Here is the answer why we cannot put into practice this open truth that we are necessary participants in the cosmic operation. Individuality is no more to be seen in this world. Nothing in the world is individual. Everything is a part of something else, but we cannot understand this. Even the reason is not permitted to think in this manner because impulses which are irrational overcome even rationality many a time. Reason fails when irrational instincts gain an upper hand.

Irrational behaviour is a temporary state of loss of reason, and at that time we cannot know how a person will behave. When irrationality preponderates and puts down all rational possibilities, a person will start behaving like a wild cyclone which does not know where to move or what to do. When thick clouds are hanging in the sky, wind is blowing from all sides and there is a downpour of rain, even midday can look like midnight, as if the sun is eclipsed totally and does not exist anymore. We will not be able even to cognise the presence of rationality in the world. We will become temporarily mad if instincts gain an upper hand. And instincts have many levels of manifestation.

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Continues

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