Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-6. When we speak of God as the Creator of the universe we do not imagine, even with the farthest stretch of our minds, that God does not retain His transcendentalness. So in the seventh chapter, and even in the eighth chapter, and to some extent in the ninth chapter, the transcendent aspect of God is maintained—God is above the universe. He is an unreachable magnificence, a tremendous force that attracts our awe and admiration, and frightens us with its might and greatness. We are afraid of God in the beginning. The very idea of God frightens us because of the force, the power and the immensity that is associated with God’s existence. There are two kinds of devotion—aishwarya pradhana bhakti and madhurya pradhana bhakti. Devotion that is associated with a sense of awe, admiration and fear is known as aishvarya pradhana bhakti. We admire God, we fear God, and we adore God because of His largeness, His g...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-5. It is true that God exists and the universe is a vast field of completion, but this cannot be told at a wrong moment when there is no receptive capacity in the individual. Now the individual will be ready to receive the lesson on account of the collectedness of the various ingredients of the personality, which has been effected by the practice of yoga, known as dhyana, meditation, that has been propounded, elucidated in the sixth chapter. The cosmological principles, the creational process are discussed in the seventh chapter. The very idea of creation implies the idea of a Creator. There cannot be a creation without a maker of the creation, and therefore we are told that the Creator projected the universe of the five elements by the power of His own Being. The idea of the Creator is the beginning of religion. Devotion to God is the immediate consequence of the very recognition of the existence of a Cr...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-4. While it is true that society is constituted of individuals, and there is an inviolable and inextricable relationship of the individual with what is known as society, the individual is not complete and is not the apex of creation. Man is not the final end result in the chain of the development of the cosmos known as evolution, and many a time we make the mistake of imagining that we have reached the end of evolution—man is the crowning edifice of the whole of this universe. It is a mistaken notion of man. The individual is related to the cosmos in a more tangible and meaningful manner than the individual is related to society. This subject has to be taken up for discussion when the individual is ready for it, and not before that. To say anything at the wrong hour, even if it is the right thing, becomes the wrong thing. Even the right thing cannot be said at the wrong hour—that is not the proper way o...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-3. So even in the second chapter of the Gita, where we are led away from the social complex mentioned in the first chapter, an aroma of society is present, by which the argument which was to counteract the misgivings of Arjuna takes into consideration the reaction of the individual upon society once again—such as prestige, one’s own duty in society, etc. This theme was touched upon in the second chapter also, notwithstanding the fact that the intention of the second chapter is to raise the individual from externalised relationships of every kind to the internal structure of the individual. We have now gradually moved onwards from the first chapter, wherein we have followed the method of the great Teacher of the Bhagavadgita for the purpose of a complete integration of the individual, which is the highlight of the sixth chapter. The meditation or dhyana, which is the subject of the sixth chapter, is nothing but t...

Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-2. From the immense involvement of the individual in the requirements of the social structure, portrayed before us in a picturesque manner in the first chapter of the Gita, we are led along the other chapters, beginning from the second onwards, where the emphasis is on the individual rather than society, because the confrontation of the individual in respect of society has much to do with the internal structure of the individual himself. What we call human society is a kind of mutual individualistic reactions among human units, and these reactions are nothing else but projections of the human psyche in different ways. The study of society cannot be independent of the study of the human individual in its internal characteristics or components. So the emphasis, right up from society in the first chapter, is towards the individual essence known as the Atman, which is taken into consideration for discussion from th...

 Chapter 12: The Entry of the Soul into the Supreme Being Part-1. If we can recollect the procedure that we have been following in our studies, we will remember that the sociological situation in which the individual finds himself becomes the foremost subject for study and consideration. The very first chapter of the Bhagavadgita places us in a sociological complex with which the human being is confronted in many ways. The involvement of the individual in society is so complete that our thoughts are practically sociological, and the aims and objectives of the individual get merged in the complexity of sociological demands. It happened to Arjuna. His personality was lost completely in the tremendous panorama of social conflict that was presented before him, and whatever he spoke was from the point of view of society and the relationship of individuals in light of what we call human society. There is no mention of the higher type of welfare of the individual as suc...

Chapter 11: God Present Within Us : Part-19. God incarnates Himself from time to time, for the solidarity of mankind, for the establishment of righteousness and the abolition of unrighteousness. Dharma-samsthapanarthya sambhavami yuge yuge. At every juncture or crucial moment of time, God’s incarnation takes place. It does not mean that God takes incarnation only some times, in some centuries, and not always. There is an eternal manifestation of God. As God is eternity, His manifestation also is timeless. It is not only merely a historical occurrence that takes place some time in history. It is a timeless advent of an eternal reality, and therefore it can be regarded as a perpetual support in this world of mortality. God is the only friend of man, truly speaking, because perishable individuals cannot be regarded as true friends—they pass away. How can you live in this world by relying upon that which passes away? Suhrdam sarva-bhutnam jnatva mam santim rcchati, says the Gita. ...