The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita-2.4 -Swami Krishnananda

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26/02/2020.
Chapter 2- Challenges of the Spiritual Seeker - 4.
Post-4.
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1.

#I am just giving an outline of the situation, which goes deeper then the ordinary psychological level. It touches the borderline of the spirit, and yet has not entered into the universal spirit. That situation is a terrible situation indeed, where we have lost everything that we can call our own, and lost our grip and hold over things which are near and dear to us, yet have lost also our grip over that which we are seeking.

##This is exactly the condition of being left adrift at sea. “I am at sea,” as they say, which means there is no succour. We are just sinking because there is no support at all from anywhere. It is not true that there is no support, but it appears as if we are sinking on account of a contradiction between the values of the individual and the values Universal.

###We are still wedded to the calculative spirit of the individual sense, which assesses even the Absolute God Himself in terms of individual benefits and rewards. It is impossible to get out of our brains the idea of reward and pleasure.
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2.

#Before the Universal takes possession of us, it burnishes us and cleanses us completely. This process of cleansing is the mystical death of the individual spirit. There it does not know what happens to it. That is the wilderness; that is the dark night of the soul; that is the suffering, and that is where we do not know whether we will attain anything or not. 

##We weep silently, but nobody is going to listen to our wails. But the day dawns, the sun shines and there seems to be a ray of light on the horizon. That is towards the end of the Virataparva of the Mahabharata. After untold suffering for years, which the human mind cannot usually stomach, a peculiar upsurge of fortune miraculously seems to operate in favour of the suffering spirit, and unasked help comes from all sides. In the earlier stages, it appeared that nothing would come even if we asked. We had to cry alone in the forest, and nobody would listen to our cry. 

###Now the tables have turned and help seems to be pouring in from all directions, unrequested for. Great princes, rulers of the time, join themselves into a force and gather into a power in an assembly led by Sri Krishna, contemplating the future steps to be taken under the circumstances. 

####The most beautiful and magnificent force of literary strength of Vyasa comes in the Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata. God Himself takes up the responsibility of guiding the spirit. Well, when that happens there is nothing else that we need. We need not even speak—He speaks for us. He does everything for our sake. He advises us, He reprimands us and shows us the path.
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To be continued ...

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