the bhagavadgita 2

8/14/2019 The Bhagavadgita 2

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THE BHAGAVADGITA

Book: Dr. S. RadhakrishnanSummary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

Part 2

Chapter 7: The Individual Self

Reality is, in its own nature, infinite, absolute, untrammeled, inalienablypossessed of its own unity and bliss.

Gods purpose for the world or the cosmic destiny of man is the realization of theimmortal aspiration through his mortal frame, the achievement of the Divine lifein and through this physical frame and intellectual consciousness.

Any sense of satisfaction and security derived from submission to externalauthority is bought at the price of the integrity of the self. Submission is not thehuman way of overcoming loneliness and anxiety. By developing our innerspiritual nature, we gain a new kind of relatedness to the world and grow into thefreedom, where the integrity of the self is not comprised. We then become awareof ourselves as active creative individuals, living, not by the discipline of externalauthority but by the inward rule of free devotion to truth.

The individual self is a portion of Lord, a real, not an imaginary form of theSupreme, a limited manifestation of God. Any form that the individual assumes isbound to be superceded, for he always tries to transcend himself and this

process will continue till becoming reaches its end in being. When the ego is lostin a false identification with the not-self and its forms, it is bound; but whenthrough the development of proper understanding, it realizes the true nature ofthe self, then it is freed. This realization is possible through the properfunctioning of buddhi or vijnana.

Man is the possessor of freedom. After describing the whole philosophy of life,the teacher asks Arjuna to do as he chooses. The whole teaching of Gitarequires man to choose the good and realize it by conscious effort.

Man is a complex multi-dimensional being, including within him different

elements of matter, life, consciousness, intelligence and the Divine spark. He isfree when he acts from the highest level and uses the other elements for therealization of his purpose. But when he is on the level of objective nature, whenhe does not recognize his distinction from not-self, he becomes a slave to themechanism of nature. But even when he falsely identifies himself with theobjective universe, and feels that he is subject to the necessities of nature, he isnot without hope, for the One Spirit operates at all levels of being.

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Neither nature nor society can invade our inner being without permission. Theworld is not fulfilling a prearranged plan in a mechanical way. The aim of creationis the production of selves who freely carry out Gods will. We are asked tocontrol our impulses, shake-off our wanderings and confusions, rise above thecurrent of nature and regulate our conduct by reference to buddhi or

understanding, as otherwise, we will become victims of lust which is the enemyof man on earth.

There are certain factors in our lives which are determined for us by forces overwhich we have no control. We do not choose how or when or where or in whatcondition of life we are born. On the theory of rebirth, even these are chosen byus. It is our past karma that determines our ancestry, heredity and environment.

Our life is a mixture of necessity and freedom, chance and choice. By exercisingour choice properly, we can control steadily all the elements and eliminatealtogether the determinism of nature.

We must rise above our ego and grow into the Supreme Self of which the ego isan expression. When we make our individual being one with the Supreme, werise above nature with its three modes, become trigunatita, and freed from thebonds of the world.

Chapter 8: Yoga Shastra

The Bhagavad-Gita gives us not only a metaphysics (Brahma-Vidya) but also adiscipline (Yoga-Shastra). Derived from the root, yuj, to bind together, yogameans binding ones psychic powers, balancing and enhancing them. By yoking

together and harnessing our energies by the most intense concentration ofpersonality, we force the passage from the narrow ego to the transcendentpersonality.

Perfection at human level is a task to be accomplished by conscious endeavour.The image of God operating in us produces a sense of insufficiency. Man has ahaunting sense of the vanity, the transience and the precariousness of all humanhappiness.

For every individual there comes an hour sometime or other, for nature is not in ahurry, when everything he can do for himself fails, when he sinks into the gulf ofutter blackness, an hour when he would give all he has for one gleam of light, forone sign of the Divine. When he is assailed by doubt, denial, hatred of life andblack despair, he can escape from them only if God lays his hand on him.

The invisible impulse to seek God produces the agony that inspires heroicidealism and human fulfillment. The image of God in us expresses itself in theinfinite capacity for self-transcendence.

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Chapter 9: Jnana or Saving Wisdom

Wisdom is not to be confused with theoretical learning or correct beliefs, forignorance is not intellectual error. It is spiritual blindness. To remove it, we mustcleanse the soul of its defilement and kindle the spiritual vision. The fire of

passion and the tumult of desire must be suppressed. The mind, inconstant andunstable, must be steadied so as to reflect the wisdom from above. We mustcontrol the senses, possess the faith which no intellectual doubts disturb andtrain the understanding (buddhi).

Wisdom is direct experience which occurs as soon as obstacles to its realizationare removed. The effort of the seeker is directed to the elimination of thehindrances, to the removal of the obscuring tendencies of avidya. According toAdvaita Vedanta, this wisdom is always present. It is not a thing to be acquired; ithas only to be revealed.

Jnana and ajnana, wisdom and ignorance are opposed as light and darkness.When wisdom dawns, ignorance dies and the evil is cut off at the root. Theliberated soul overcomes the world. There is nothing to conquer or to create.

Chapter 10: The Way to Knowledge: Jnana-marga

We can reach the goal of perfection, attain the saving truth in three differentways: by a knowledge of the Reality (Jnana), or adoration and love (Bhakti) ofthe Supreme Person or by subjection of the will to the Divine purpose (Karma).These are distinguished on account of the distribution of emphasis on thetheoretical, emotional and practical aspects. Men are of different types, reflective,

emotional or active but they are not exclusively so. At the end, knowledge, loveand action mingle together. God Himself is Sat, Chit and Ananda, reality,truth, and bliss.

From the earliest times, yoga has been employed to describe practices andexperiences of a special kind which have been later adapted to the teachings ofthe different methods, Jnana, Bhakti and Karma. Each of them uses thepractices of Dhyana-yoga or the way of meditation. According to Patanjali[Yoga-Sutras 1.2]:

Yoga is the suppression of the activities of mind.

Unless the individual has complete self-awareness, he cannot become master ofhis life. Besides body, life and mind require to be integrated. As a self-consciousbeing, man is actually aware of the deeper discords in him. He generally resortsto working compromises and leads a precarious life. But until a perfect harmony,an organic balance, of his many sided possibilities is achieved, he is not fullymaster of himself.

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The Bhagavad-Gita describes to us how the aspirant avoids bodily excesses ofindulgence or abstinence, chooses a comfortable seat, regulates his breathing,focuses his mind on one point and becomes harmonized (yukta) and detachedfrom all desire for the fruit of action. When he attains this unity, he arrives at aperfect understanding with his fellow beings through sympathy and love and not

because it is a matter of duty.

Yoga is to be practiced for the sake of attaining truth, of gaining contact withReality. Krishna is the Lord of Yoga (Yogeshvara) who helps us in our life tosave ourselves. He is the supreme lord of spiritual experience who conveysthese moments of celestial glory when man gets beyond the veil of the flesh andalso indicates their true relation to the problems of daily existence.

Chapter 11: The Way of Devotion: Bhakti-marga

Bhakti or devotion is a relationship of trust and love to a personal God. Worship

of the personal God is recommended as the easier way open to all, the weak andthe lowly, the illiterate and the ignorant.

Bhakti is derived from the root bhaj, to serve, and means service of the Lord. Itis loving attachment to God. Narada defines it as intense love for God. ForShandilya, it is Supreme longing for God, for his own sake. It is surrender intrusting relationship appropriation of the grace of the Lord. It is Ishvarapranidhanof Yoga Sutra, which according to Bhoja, is the love in which, without seekingresults, such as sense enjoyment, etc., all works are dedicated to the teacher ofteachers.

The Eternal One is viewed in the Bhagavad-Gita not so much as the God ofphilosophical speculation as the God of grace such as the heart and the soulneed and seek, who inspires personal trust and love, reverence and loyal self-surrender.

When the soul surrenders itself to God, He takes up our knowledge and castsaway all forms of insufficiency and transforms all into His infinite light, and thepurity of the universal good.

Mans effort is involved in the total surrender to the Supreme. It cannot beunintentional or effortless. The doctrine of grace is not to be interpreted as one ofspecial election, as such a conception conflicts with the general trend of the Gitathat the Supreme is the same to all beings.

So long as worship is done with devotion, it purifies the heart and prepares themind for the higher consciousness.

Bhakti leads to Jnana or wisdom. When the devotion glows, the Lord dwelling inthe soul imparts to the devotee by His grace and light of wisdom. The devotee

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feels united intimately with the Supreme, who is experienced as the being inwhom all antitheses vanish. He sees God in himself and himself in God.

Bhakti, in the Bhagavad-Gita, is an utter self-giving to the Transcendent. It is tobelieve in God, to love Him, to be devoted to Him, to enter into Him. It is its own

reward. Such a devotee has in him the context of the highest knowledge as wellas the energy of a perfect man.

Chapter 12: The Way of Action: Karma-marga

In determining the purpose of any treatise, we must see the question with whichit opens (upakrama) and the conclusion to which it leads (upasamhara). TheGita opens with a problem. Arjuna refuses to fight and raises difficulties. He putsup a plausible plea for abstention from activity and retreat from the world, anideal that dominated certain sects at the time of the composition of the Gita. Toconvert him is the purpose of Gita.

Right through the teacher (Krishna) emphasizes the need for action. He does notadopt the solution of dismissing the world as an illusion and action as a snare.He recommends the full active life of the man in the world with the inner lifeanchored in the Eternal Spirit.

The Gita is therefore a mandate for action. It explains what a man ought to donot merely as a social being but as an individual with a spiritual destiny. It dealsfairly with the spirit of renunciation as well as with the ceremonial piety of the

people which are worked into its code of ethics .

The Gita adopts the view developed in the Bhagavat religion which has the two-fold purpose of helping us to obtain complete release and do work in the world.The Gita asks us to live in the world and save it.

The Gita advocates detachment from desires and not cessation from work.

Krishna advises Arjuna to fight without passion or ill-will, without anger orattachment and if we develop such a frame of mind violence becomesimpossible. We must fight against what is wrong but if we allow ourselves tohate, that ensures our spiritual defeat. Action done devotedly andwholeheartedly, without attachment to results makes for perfection.

The Gita requires us to lay stress on human brotherhood. If we act in the spirit ofthe Gita with detachment and dedication, and have love even for our enemy, wewill help to rid the world of wars.

In his commentary on Sanatsujatiya, Shankara says: Liberation isaccomplished by wisdom, but wisdom does not spring without the purification ofthe heart. Therefore, for the purification of the heart one should perform all acts

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of speech, mind and body, prescribed in the Shrutis and Smritis, dedicatingthem to the Supreme Lord.

The teacher of the Gita recognizes a realm of reality where Karma does notoperate and if we establish our relations with it, we are free in our deepest being.

The chain of Karma can be broken here and now, within the flux of the empiricalworld. We become masters of karma by developing faith in God.

We can live in Gods world as God intends us to live only by keeping alive theprecious unearthly flame of uniqueness. By placing ourselves in the hands of theDivine, by making ourselves perfect instruments for His use do we attain thehighest spiritual wisdom.

The Gita teaches the doctrine of the Brahman-Atman which the followers of theUpanishads seek and proclaim. The teacher of the Gita reconciles the differentsystems in vogue and gives us a comprehensive eirenicon which is not local and

temporary but is for all time and all men. He does not emphasize external formsor dogmatic notions but insists on first principles and great facts of human natureand being.

Chapter 13: The Goal

The Gita insists on the unity of life of spirit which cannot be resolved intophilosophical wisdom, devoted love and strenuous action. Work, knowledge anddevotion are complementary both when we seek the goal and after we attain it.

The liberated souls take upon themselves the burden of the redemption of the

whole world. Anchored in the timeless foundation of our spiritual existence, thefreed soul, the eternal individual works for the jiva-loka; while possessingindividuality of body, life and mind he yet remains the universality of spirit.Whatever action he does, his constant communion with the Supreme isundisturbed.

When the purpose of the cosmos is reached, when the Kingdom of God isestablished, when it is on earth as it is in heaven, when all individuals acquire thewisdom of spirit and are superior to the levels of being in which birth and deathtake place, then this cosmic process is taken over into that which is beyond allmanifestations.

Summary: Satyendra Nath Dwivedi

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the bhagavadgita 2

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