The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita- 3.7 -Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Friday, February 05,, 2021. 07 : 15. AM.
Chapter-3. The World is the Face of God - 7.

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Here we find Arjuna at the very beginning of the Bhagavadgita. All the supports and all the weapons that we have in our hands do not seem to be sufficient to meet the powers that are arrayed before us in battle. The soul recoils from the fact of its having to come in opposition to the powers of the world which are vastly arrayed before it. Then doubts arise. I mentioned to you something about the nature of the havoc that doubt can play in our minds, and doubts will not leave us till the last moment of our lives. There are varieties of doubts; when one doubt goes, another one comes that was not there previously. Doubts shake us from the root, and we become diffident at that moment. Perhaps there is a mistake—this is what we begin to feel. Various arguments were thrust forward by Arjuna to discount the justice of the war. “What is the point in facing Bhishma, Drona and others who are our venerable ancestors?” The regard for elders, the regard for people, love and affection for kith and kin is so strong that a violation of this law is usually regarded in society as an unpardonable mistake. He becomes a renegade in society. “Is this practical, and is this ethically permissible?” is the query of Arjuna. “No, not permissible,” he himself gives the answer. “To cut the throat of those people who have taken care of me from childhood, from whose hands I have eaten food, to strike a blow at their own heads would be a heinous sin,” says the ethics of the world. This would not be permitted. The other argument is: “Where is the guarantee that this battle is going to end with success on our side? May be somebody will win—may be the other side. Why should it be only this side? And all our efforts will be in vain. We will be doomed and destroyed, and will be seeing only bloodshed. What will be the fate of those people who we have harnessed for battle and who have dedicated their lives for our sake, and who have left their mortal coil in our name?” This is another argument—there is no certainty of the consequences of war apart from the fact that there is a mistake in encountering people who are our own. Thirdly, there is a doubt: “The world is not as bad as it appears, and there is something worthwhile in it.” The rejection of the world for the sake of God is involved in a subtle error of not recognising the values that are present in life.

These questions are the sum and substance of the first chapter of the Bhagavadgita. Doubts and doubts and doubts—at least three different doubts are mentioned. The retort of Sri Krishna to it, in the second chapter, is that we have no correct understanding of the matter. We have no samkhya buddhi. Samkhya buddhi is correct understanding; that Arjuna lacked. These are the words that Sri Krishna utters: “All this logic, ethics and morals that you spoke of in favour of the world and against the justice of the war—all this that you have said is an outcome of a lack of understanding. You have not understood what Truth is. There is a necessity for clarity of the power of reasoning before you begin to reason. A muddled reason cannot bring correct results. Therefore samkhya, understanding, is the first thing that you have to strive for, and not merely employ this ruptured weapon of unintelligent reason to justify erroneous notions.”

“Well, is it so?” says Arjuna. “Am I mistaken? There is diffidence in my heart. I cannot face this world, and there is a sense of the human in me which always speaks its own language, and the human sense cannot always reconcile itself with what the battle of the spirit expects it to.” We are human and think human, but Sri Krishna wants us to be divine. How is it possible for a human being to be divine? That is possible only if there is the capacity in the individual to rise to the understanding that is equivalent to the character of the spirit. That understanding, which is the light of the spirit, is samkhya buddhi; that is the higher reason, the higher self also, in this way. “What is this samkhya, what is this higher understanding which I lack? Why is it that you say I have no samkhya buddhi, that I am faulty in my arguments? What is wrong?” This will be taken up in further chapters.

End

NEXT-4.The Cosmic Manifestation

To be continued ...

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