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Devi Mahatmya, Pronunciation of Mantras and Hindu Gods

Devi Mahatmya, Pronunciation of Mantras and Hindu Gods by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Monday 9 December 2013 12:43

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Visitor: Should all the slokas and mantras of the Devi Mahatmya be treated as three separate portions.

Swamiji: This was done because they were addressed to Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. Were the chapters then spoken from different aspects? No. The three deities are the three stages of consciousness – tamas, rajas and sattva – reached in an ascending order.

Visitor: Are the chapters then suitably written to tamas, rajas and sattva?

Swamiji: No, because they are all one. It is our incapacity to see all three as one that brings in the distinction. It is the same one guna that appears as tamas, rajas and sattva.

Visitor: Then the number of slokas in each portion has no meaning as so many mantras? The numbers vary, unlike in the ashtottara and sahasra – namavalis.

Swamiji: There is no significance in the number as such of the slokas. It is all one continuous mantraof prayer to one deity only.

Pronunciation of Mantras

Visitor: Is it a sin if a mantra is mispronounced due to ignorance or physical defect?

Swamiji: Some people become fanatics and think only their mantra works, and only if pronounced correctly. A devotee in Tamil Nadu used to recite Namah Chivaya (instead of Namah Sivaya) with such faith that he was able to walk on water while reciting Nama Chivaya. One day a grammarian taught the devotee to pronounce the mantra correctly as Namah Sivaya. But with the correct pronunciation, the devotee could no longer walk on water. He fell into the water because he was concentrating on the pronunciation of the mantra and had lost faith in his Guru who gave the mantra. There was a sweeper woman who approached her employer, a proud Namboodiri Brahmin of Kerala, for a mantra she could recite. He was angry that she should ask for a mantra, as she was of a low caste. But she persisted. The Namboodiri yelled at her contemptuously “Go and recite Tapala Curry”, meaning frog curry. The woman took it in good faith and went on repeating the phrase with such devotion that she became enlightened. People asked her who her Guru was, and when she told them they went and praised his disciple’s saintliness and how good a Guru he must be. But the Namboodiri had forgotten all about the low caste woman. Now he remembered the incident and felt sorry for himself; for he was still in samsara while she had become enlightened with the ‘frog curry’ mantra! All these parables emphasise the importance of the attitude or bhava in mantra japa. The attitude is much more important than the mere sound of the word.

Hindu Gods

Visitor: Swamiji, someone with a definite purpose of his own, in order to provoke me into an argument, remarked, “Hinduism is nothing but one god fighting with another!” I knew his mind and so refused to say anything. But what is the meaning of these so-called wars between Vishnu and Brahma, for instance, when Lord Siva vanquishes them both and quells their pride? Lord Siva establishes at the same time that He is the Most Supreme! Is it because in such contexts the Manifested God gets accretions of their level which is lower than that of the Supreme Being? The Puranas and the Epics are full of such incidents of war among the Gods.

Swamiji: The subject-object opposition in time and space, the affirmation of the ego as superior to and supreme over everything, causes the clash, no matter at what level. This clash of the positive and the negative, both of which are inherent in everything finite, produces a spark as a higher synthesis and is absorbed in the higher synthesis. But this level of the present higher synthesis is, again, not the highest. It is still only in the process of evolution into the next higher synthesis. Hence this clash and this spark are repeated, and so is the absorption of the spark into the next higher synthesis, from level to level. This clash or ‘war’ between the gods – deities of the different levels – goes on until the last higher synthesis is absorbed into the Absolute. This process of the sparks getting absorbed thus is explained in the Puranas and the Epics as one god warring with another and a third god conquering (absorbing) both within Itself.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

A Catechism of Hinduism

A Catechism of Hinduism by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 8 December 2013 21:01

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Q: When was Hinduism founded?

A: The word ‘Hinduism’ originated due to historical and linguistic circumstances, and refers to what more properly be designated as Bharatiya-dharma, or Sanatana-dharma. There is no personal founder for Hinduism. People who follow the faith or religion which goes by the name of Hinduism hold that the foundation of this outlook of life, or way of living, is eternal, since the way of life is an expression of the basic law operating in the universe. In fact, what popularly is known as Hinduism is a practical and ethical manifestation in day-to-day living of what should be considered as the inviolable law of existence, both in its immutable form known as satya and operating form known as rita. Hence, the name Sanatana (eternal or ever-present) associated with this inclusive ‘attitude to life’.

Q: Where was it founded, and who founded it?

A: Hinduism is not believed to be founded in any place, since it has no founder.

Q: What were the prevailing circumstances when it was founded?

A: While Hinduism has no founder, and therefore no circumstances can be cited in that regard, students of Hinduism and scholars who are accustomed to do research in its field have usually traced some sort of a logical background of the general structure of Hinduism in the panoramic vision of the Supreme Being as recorded in the Veda-Samhitas, which are supposed to find their detailed promulgation in the Brahmanas, Aranyakas and Upanishads. This, if we would so like, may be cited as the circumstance explaining the fundamentals of Hinduism. The Bhagavadgita is regarded as the quintessential summing up of the general attitude to life as a whole.

Q: What are its basic principles?

A: Briefly, the principles of Hinduism may be stated as follows:

Q: Which are its Scriptures?

A: The principal Scriptures of Hinduism are:

Q: Which are the other important books written on it, and who are their authors?

A: The other important texts associated with Hinduism, apart from the basic canons mentioned above, are:

Q: What is the method of prayer?

A: Within the fold of the Hindu religion, prayer is mainly an inward contemplative submission before the Almighty felt as an immediate presence. But in popular practice, this inward feeling of presence is usually expressed as recitations or chants of mantras or passages from the scriptures, such as the Vedas, Itihasas and Puranas. Prayer is offered either individually by one’s own self in private, or collectively in a congregation, as it may be necessary. It may be verbally articulated or mentally contemplated with feeling.

Q: What are the rituals?

A: Ritual in the Hindu religion is a manifestation through external performances of one’s inward feeling of worship and adoration of the Almighty. The basic rituals consist of:

Q: Give glimpses of the life-sketch of its founder.

A: Hinduism has no founder, but it adores the great personalities mentioned in or associated with its fundamental scriptures mentioned earlier – for example, sages like Vasishtha, Vyasa, Suka, Valmiki, Yajnavalkya and Uddalaka, and all the propounders of the religion of knowledge, devotion and action.

Q: How and in which countries did it spread?

A: Hinduism has its stronghold in India, especially. But it spread outside India in the East and its impact in such countries and lands as Java, Sumatra, Cambodia and the like is well known to history. Today, a large population of Indians dwells outside India, in many different countries of the world. The way it spreads its message outside has been through its teachers, messengers, propounders and actual living participants, who accomplished this task either by travel or by written message, or through both.

Q: Where are its monuments/places of pilgrimage, and what is their importance?

A: The well-known places of pilgrimage by the Hindus are Badarikashrama (Badrinath), Kedarnath, Ayodhya, Mathura, Haridwar or Kankhal, Kasi (Varanasi), Dvaraka, Avanti (Ujjayini), Puri (Jagannath), Pushkar and Manasarovara in North India, and Kanchi (Kanchipuram) , Ramesaram, Madurai, Tirupati, Srirangam, Tiru-Anantapuram (Trivandrum), Palani, Kanyakumari and many other places in the South. There are several other holy places of pilgrimage associated with deities, saints and sages, such as Somanath, Pandharpur, Alandi, etc. and sources of holy rivers, like Gangottari and Yamunottari.

Q: What influence did it have on Indian Culture?

A: It would not be far from truth if it is stated that the foundational outlook of the entire culture of India is universally-oriented, since its policy has always been an accommodating, inclusive, friendly and absorbing spirit in regard to the different calls of life, whether philosophical, religious, social or political. This is the very forte of the Hindu view of life. Its policies of human relation have contributed vigorously not only to the stability of its internal structure in India as a nation, but also to international relationship as a gesture of perpetual harmony as a unit in the comity of the nations of the world.

Q: What are the moral and ethical codes?

A: In India, life has been always regarded as a process of progressive self-transcendence from the realm of matter (annamaaya-jivatva) to the realization of the supreme spiritual bliss (parama-ananda). Human values and ends in life have been classified into the scheme of the fourfold pursuit (purushartha) of existence, viz., the practice of righteousness and goodness (dharma), the effort towards earning the necessary material values (artha), the fulfilment of permissible desires through honest means (kama), and the endeavour for the final salvation of the soul (moksha). This analysis is based on a broad understanding of the different levels of individuals in relation to the Universe. The other aspects of its ethical and moral codes have been touched upon earlier.

Q: Who are the saints and prophets? Give their brief life-sketch.

A: The Hindus adore the well-known Divine Incarnations of Narayana or Vishnu, viz., Rama and Krishna, who are classified among the gods and are not regarded as humans. The great sages and saints who hold a pre-eminent position are Vasishtha, Vyasa, Suka, Dattatreya, Vamadeva, Yajnavalkya and the like; also, the great devotees associated with devotion to the principal gods popularly worshipped, viz., Vishnu, Siva, Ganesa, Devi, Skanda and Surya; included also are the Acharyas referred to above.

Q: What is its relation with modern science and how does it affect modern man?

A: Hinduism, as a religion of an almost universal inclusiveness, takes into consideration the different levels of not only the evolution of life by stages but also the levels of outlook in knowledge and experience. The question of the relation between science and religion arises due to the assumption that the objective of science and the aim of religion are perhaps different, maybe even irreconcilable. But Hinduism, if it gfis to be understood in the true spirit of its internal structure, is fully awake to the levels of perception and knowledge available to the human individual. The epistemological doctrine behind the philosophy of the Hindu religion recognizes the relative value of sense-perception and rational investigation as avenues of knowledge, though it holds that direct intuition of truth is the final test of absolutely valid knowledge. Science comes under the field of sense and reason, and Hinduism accepts the value and utility of the findings through these means of knowledge in practical life, provided they do not contradict the ultimate value of all life, viz., the realisation of the Universal Reality in direct experience.

The manner in which this attitude of the Hindu religion would affect the life of the modern man should, thus, be clear and obvious. That is, the spirit of Hinduism is so accommodating that it does not reject the matter-of-fact value or the practical effectiveness of the findings of modern science. The most interesting outcome of this general outlook of Hinduism is that in its concept of the degrees of reality in the several planes of existence as manifestations through varying levels of density, any degree of reality- such as the relation of scientific findings to human life in general – is part of the total outlook of Hindu philosophy and religion. Thus, one should say that Hinduism as a religion introduces a new spirit of positivity and enthusiasm even into the field of science rather than look upon it as something alien to itself.

Q: What are the recommended duties for man?

A: Man has a duty towards himself as a physical, psychological and spiritual embodiment, as also to the family, the community, the nation and the world at large. Man has a duty to the whole universe of which he is an integral part and from which he can never be separated organically. The primary duty of man is abidance by the law of the universe, which determines the lower relative laws applicable to the lesser levels of life in the world, one’s own country, community, family, and personality.

Q: How does it influence universal brotherhood and tolerance towards other religions?

A: Hinduism should be considered as the great friend of man, in the sense that it has no enemies. In this sense, again, its influence on others is one of a true friend, philosopher and guide. It accepts and holds as valid every faith and every religion in its own field and context and operational jurisdiction, in the light of its origin and circumstances of the place to which it is related and the historical and cultural background of the people in whose midst it arose. It takes things as they are, from their own points of view, and accommodates itself in them, bearing in view the basic fact that all thought and action originating from anywhere is like a river which has to find its destination in a single ocean, the ocean of all-existence.

Q: How is religion related to the practical life of man?

A: Religion is veritably the art and the science and the way of the practical life of man in the world. Hence, no question arises as to the relation between religion and life.

Q: Is religion one of the essential functions in life?

A: Religion is the homage which the finitude of man pays to the Infinitude of existence. Hence, true religion is not a ‘function of life,’ but ‘the whole of life’.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Importance of the Satarudriya

The Importance of the Satarudriya by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Saturday 7 December 2013 17:06

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(Spoken on Sivaratri in 1980)

We celebrate the day and the night in honour of the great God whose majesty and glory is described in ecstasy, especially in the Rudra Adhyaya, or the Satarudriya, of the Veda. Every Siva temple has this daily programme of worship and abhisheka to the great Lord Siva with the recitation of the famous mantras known as Satarudriya – also known as Rudra Adhyaya – which occur in the Yajur Veda. It may well be said that these wondrous Vedic hymns known as the Satarudriya are a sort of magnum opus of spiritual ecstasy, an insight into whose significance and meaning should make one’s hair stand on end.

It is difficult to fathom the depth of the revelation and the feeling of the sage or the rishi to whom these visions were bequeathed by the Almighty. We have very few passages, prayers, hymns or stotras in religious literature comparable with this mighty Satarudriya, wherein everything that we can conceive of in respect of God humanly is portrayed in the language of spiritual intuition. Often it would appear that man is not supposed to understand its meaning, on account of the comprehensiveness of its approach and the profundity of the revelation that is contained therein.

No one can recite these Satarudriya mantras without having one’s sins cleansed at once from their very roots, if only one would have the leisure and the patience to go into the internal connections and the suggestiveness that is implied in these mantras. It will it is not a prayer to one God or to any particular God. Satarudriya, the name of the hymn, has several meanings: prayer to the hundred thousand Rudras – or to the Rudra appearing in a hundred thousand forms – who is Siva at the same time. Rudra yatte dakshinam mukham tena mam pahi nityam is an oft-quoted prayer. The power of God is also the terror of the human individual, while at the same time it is the most beneficent blessing that can ever be anywhere. Hence it is that the great Lord is often designated as Rudra-Siva, who has perpetually blended in His being the aspects of creation, sustenance and transformation of all things.

Those who recite these Satarudriya mantras in temples many a time chant them as a kind of routine, without bestowing sufficient thought on their implications. Most of our chanting becomes mechanical in the course of time, and we go on chanting mantras, repeating prayers and singing hymns automatically like the movement of the wheels of a vehicle, but the spirit behind the recitation can easily be lost when it becomes an everyday programme rather than a surge of the spirit or the call of the soul during moments of meditation and communion with the Almighty. A very beautiful English translation almost approaching the original in its meaning and suggestiveness has been published by the Sri Ramana Ashram; and there are very good Sanskrit commentaries, right from the one written by the great Sanyacharya, which gives us an insight into the extent to which some minds in ancient times could reach in their search for the reality of life.

One who recites these mantras of the Satarudriya is apt to feel that the person to whom these were revealed, who had this vision, was breaking up into pieces and his personality was scattered in various directions. He was dancing in madness of divine possession. And one who soulfully recites these mantras cannot afford to miss also being possessed by this power of ecstasy where the body, mind and the spirit are brought together in unison and forced to forge onward in the direction of the directionless Absolute.

Very mysteriously and curiously, the mantra Namah Sivaya, which devotees have been chanting today right from morning onwards, occurs in the middle of the Satarudriya mantras of the Veda. Very few of the normally accepted mantras occur in the Veda Samhita, but this occurs in the very middle of the Samhita. Namah sankaraya ca mayaskaraya ca nama sivaya ca sivataraya ca is the passage wherein the mantra Namah Sivaya occurs.

This morning someone asked me, “What is this mantra? What is the rishi? What is the chhandas and what is the devata?” I tried to explain that the mantra is a magazine of force. It is a hidden potency which is charged with a capacity which comes from various factors that go to constitute the importance of the mantra. The mantra does not necessarily mean merely the letters which are juxtaposed to constitute the formula, just as language does not mean merely the letters or the combination of the letters, but a hidden cementing power which gives the suggestion of meaning as latent inbetween the juxtaposition of the letters.

Therefore, the sound symbol which is the mantra is a compound of various elements that lose themselves in a fraternal embrace, as it were, to form a single indivisibility – just as, to give a very mundane example, when we sip a cup of tea, there is not merely the taste of milk, there is not merely the taste of sugar, there is not merely the taste of tea leaves, but there is a blend which is what is called the decoction. Or, to give another example, when we taste a delicious dish, we do not merely taste the salt and the other ingredients that constitute the dish. It is a new element altogether that crops up as a compound. The same is the case with a medical prescription; the components lose their individualities and enter into the formation of a new significance, which is the synthesis of the ingredients. Hence, the beauty of language, the style of expression and the significance of literature are elements that invisibly pervade the visible characters of the alphabet of any language.

Such is the meaning of what is known as the chhandas, or the metre of a mantra. The metre, or the chhandas, is the method of the bringing together of the letters of the mantra, by which they form a totality of energy and no more exist merely as letters; they melt themselves in the menstruum of what is known as the mantra. In the Alankara Sastra, which is a treatise on the rhetoric of the Sanskrit language, descriptions are given of what are known as ganas. This science has been lost in modern times. Gana is the force that is behind every letter and the significance that it conveys when it is placed in a particular position. If a sloka, a verse, a formula or a hymn is to convey the required significance or meaning, a particular letter should come in the beginning, a particular letter should come in the middle, and so on. The mantras are not haphazard chanting; they are scientifically organised systems of sound formation. So much may be said about the meaning of chhandas that is behind the mantras, whether Vaidika or Tantrika.

There is also the rishi, or the author, we may say. We know what role the author’s mind plays in the meaning that is conveyed by a textbook. The mind of the author pervades the entire book of which he is the writer or the formulator. The force of the author’s thought is to be seen throughout the book which he has written, from the first page to the last. When we read a powerful text, we do not see merely the letters. We enter into an ocean of thought-force, which is conveyed through the symbols of the letters which are visible on the pages of the text. Likewise is the role that is played by the great master, or rishi, to whom the mantra is revealed in meditation. We do not say that the mantra is created or written down or invented by a rishi. According to accepted theories, the Vedas are not written-down texts. The author of the Veda is unknown. The belief is that these mantras are eternal sound symbols, perpetually existing in the ether of the cosmos, never getting destroyed even during the time of dissolution. Therefore, there is no such thing as destruction of the Vedas or destruction of the knowledge, as the Vedas are more than just books. The idea is that the subtle, etheric tanmatric symbols of force, which become grossly manifest in the sound symbols audible to the ears, are indestructible. They are ultimately certain patterns of thought which become patterns of external sound symbols, grossening further into letters which are written on a palm leaf or paper, etc.

Finally, the vibration alone exists, and there is no substance. The Veda is not a solid book; it is not a visible substance; it is not a textbook. It is a symbol of the ethereal energy pervading in the form of the potency which can transform itself into certain patterns of expression at given moments of time. Modern science and modern thinkers on the basis of modern science have almost come to the borderland of accepting this great truth which is revealed in the original science of India known as sphota vada, the doctrine of sound. As I mentioned, all these sciences are becoming lost. Bhartrihari wrote a great book, called Vakyapadiya, on ancient Sanskrit grammar, which goes deep into the significance of sphota. Much of it has been mentioned by Acharya Sankara and others in their commentaries on the Brahma Sutras. However, the point is that the mantra is a super-sensible potency and a latency of energy, which is brought into contact with the mind of the meditator.

We are also told that the mantra is revealed to the rishi. Remembering the rishi gives us a blessing from that person. When we recite the mantra, we are supposed to remember the great person to whom it was revealed. For instance, when we refer to The Commentary of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Sivananda, the very name Sivananda thrills us in a particular manner. The great work The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo immediately rouses our feelings, which is in consonance with Sri Aurobindo. It is the same with Ramana Maharshi. The moment we hear the names of the authors or the persons to whom the mantras were revealed, we are suddenly stirred up into a spiritual mood. So there is a great point in our being asked to remember the rishi when we recite the mantra, chant the formula or the symbol.

I already mentioned the chhandas. The components of the mantra are very important. I mentioned what are known in Sanskrit rhetoric as Gana Shastras. It is very difficult to explain these things. According to the science of Gana Shastra, the letters of the mantra are arranged in a particular manner by the very power of the intuition of the sage. They are not mathematically concocted or invented.

Then, above all these, there is the devata, or the deity of the mantra, who is embodied in the sound of the mantra. Just as the soul is embodied in this physical frame, just as the idea of the artist is embodied in the painted picture, just as the idea or the thought of the architect is seen in the building or the structure raised by him, the will of the deity – the force and the pattern of the form of the deity – is supposed to be visibly expressed in the vibrations that are produced while the mantra is being recited. Experiments have been conducted and it has been found that when a mantra is chanted very intensely and soulfully, it can produce electromagnetic waves in such velocity that they can scatter sand particles that are spread out in front of the chanter, and these sand particles form a pattern equivalent to or at least approximate to what is supposed to be the form of the ishta devata, or the deity, of that mantra.

Therefore, the great mantra Namah Sivaya that we are reciting today, right from morning until the end of the puja tonight, is not a chant in the ordinary sense. No mantra is to be regarded as commonplace; it is sacred. It is not supposed to be chanted with an unclean mouth – after eating something without washing the teeth, etc. We are supposed to recite it in a holy mood, in a spirit of dedication and sanctity of aspiration, as if we are seated in front of God Himself.

The Rudra Adhyaya, to which I referred earlier, will be recited several times during the course of the worship on this auspicious Sivaratri. But many of you will not know what they are chanting. You will hear only some sound, some chant – that is all. It may sound like noise; but it is not noise. It is the pouring forth of the soul as it was revealed to that mastermind, the rishi.

The Rudra Adhyaya is highly purifying. There are two or three occasions in the course of the hymns of the Veda Samhitas when superb ecstasies are recorded. The Purusha Sukta is one such occasion. It occurs almost in every one of the Samhitas – in the Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda – where the incomprehensibility, the all-comprehensiveness and the might of the Almighty is devastatingly described. And I may say that the Satarudriya is even more devastating. It will make us dance in the ecstasy of divine possession if we know what it tells us. Prostration to every blessed thing! Whatever we can see, whatever we can hear, whatever we can touch, and whatever we can think, feel and understand is divine manifestation. God has spread Himself in this variety of the unintelligible creation, which stuns even the highest rationality of the modern mind.

The recitation of a mantra, especially of the type of the Satarudriya, is not merely an ordinary japa in the common sense of the term. It is our moving into the depths of the ocean of that comprehensive outlook which the mantra portrays in front of us.

The Satarudriya consists of two sections, the Namaka and the Chamaka. In the Namaka, which is the preceding portion, namah occurs many times: Prostrations, Prostrations, Prostrations; Salutations, Salutations, Salutations; Surrender, Surrender, Surrender. This prostration is expressed in an infinite way. Then comes the Chamaka: cha me, cha me, cha me. “Everything is to me; everything is to me; everything is mine.” There is nothing which is not ours here. “Everything may come to me.” Everything has to come to us as it has to come to God Himself.

One of the verses of the Bhagavadgita says, apuryamanam achalapratishtham samudram apah pravishanti yadvat tadvat kamayampravishanti sarve sa shantim apnoti na kama kami: “As rivers enter into ocean, everything enters into you.” We should not cry that we are paupers, beggars in this world – as if we have nothing, no friends, and are forlorn and outcaste. Everything is in our possession. Everything has to come to us when our will is expressed. At the affirmation of a single thought it has to materialise itself, provided – a tremendous provision indeed, of course – provided that our thought is in unison with the Almighty’s will. So, everything shall come to us. If everything shall go to God, why should it not come to us? We are amritasaya putrah, children of the Immortal. We are heir-apparent to the resources, the reservoir of the riches of the Almighty Himself.

Thus, the Chamaka portion invokes everything into ourselves in a divine insight into the all-comprehensiveness of God. We first of all surrender ourselves and become the very substance of God’s Being Itself, and then everything enters into us as rivers rush into the ocean. Wondrous! Many a time I become indescribably thrilled even when thinking of these Satarudriya mantras.

And so, on this auspicious occasion, may I request you all to bestow some thought upon these great legacies left to us by our ancestors of yore, the treasures which we are likely to overlook in the humdrum activities of modern comforts and distractions. The Veda Samhitas are reservoirs of all-force, all-power and all-meaning.

As I mentioned, there are a few occasions when such ecstasies are revealed in the Veda Mantras. One is Purusha Sukta; and another is the Satarudriya, which occurs in the Taittiriya Samhita of the Yajurveda and also in the Sukla Yajurveda. Another place where such majestic expressions can be found in the Vedas is a sukta in the earlier portions of the Rig Veda, where the story of creation in terms of the glory of the Sun-god is described. Here occurs the oft-quoted famous verse, ekam sat vipra bahudha vadanti, the one poets sing of in various ways. In the Atharva Veda there is the Skambha Sukta, which is not well known. It is something like the Purusha Sukta where the rishi to whom the mantra was revealed contemplates on the miracle of creation, putting the question to himself: “What is the substance out of which this great citadel of the cosmos has been created? What are the rafters? What is the wood that is used for building this cosmos? What are the building bricks?” etc. There are also other suktas in the Rigveda, such as the Hiranyagarbha Sukta and the Visvakarma Sukta.

How many of us have the time, the leisure, the mood, and the interest to go into these mysteries? We are too busy wasting our time on good-for-nothing things. It is very unfortunate. Our soul is not going to be satisfied by any modern gadget. We must have time in our lives to be a little serious. We should not be like foolish children, running about as if everything is all right. Anything can happen in this world, at any moment, because we do not possess an insight into the purposes of the universe. The universe has been planned in a particular manner by the will of the Absolute, and everything moves according to that plan. Things do not happen because we will or wish them to happen in a particular manner. Hence, we must be prepared to adjust ourselves to any circumstance that may manifest in our experience in accordance with the plan of the universe.

Therefore, it is high time that we seriously contemplate what is worthwhile in our lives. We are souls – not bodies, not even minds and intellects. We are not merely social units, citizens, passport holders, etc. We are something more than that. We are not even this physical body constituted of the five elements. The requirements of the body are not our real requirements. They are only tentative demands felt under certain given conditions. For instance, medicine is required when we are ill, but we cannot say that medicine is our final requirement. We may require food when we are hungry, but that is not our final requirement. That is not the only thing that we are asking for in this world. We are not that which asks for food, we are not that which asks for physical comfort, we are not that which asks for social recognition, and we are not that which seeks authority and position in life. We are something transcendent to all these things. When the time of crisis comes, we throw off everything; and suddenly, to our consternation, we realise that we are the most valuable thing in the world. The most valuable and precious treasure in the world is ourselves, not what we possess – not our dollars and pounds and rupees, not our land and buildings, not even our friends. They can leave us in one second when the plan of the cosmos requires that to happen.

Yatha kashtham cha kashtham cha sameyatam mahodadhau, sametvicham yateyantam tatvad bhutasamagamah says the Mahabharata in a very famous passage: Just as logs of wood in the ocean come together as friends, as it were, but then separate, so also people come together and separate. We know how logs of wood meet on the surface of the ocean. They come together due to the current; and when the current moves in a different direction, they are separated. Likewise is friendship and bereavement. Therefore, the idea that we have friends is a false notion. Our friendships in society and our relationships with anything in this world are like the relationships that one log of wood in the ocean has with other logs. Sometimes one log collides with another – embraces another, as it were, as a friend. And then it is suddenly cast off in a different direction by the current of the water and by the wind that blows. When the wind of the plan of the universe blows us in some other direction, we should not cry that we have lost everything. We do not lose anything, we are only participants in the great plan of God; and one who is ignorant of this will reap sorrow, just as one who is ignorant of any law reaps some grief as a consequence thereof.

May we have the blessedness and the blessing of the mighty Rudra Siva, the Great Lord whom we are worshipping today, that He may bless us with understanding – dhiyo yo nah prachodayat. We ask for nothing from God except enlightenment, understanding, insight and comprehension. We do not want material prosperity or material goods. There is no use in having anything. We have to ‘be’ something. What we ‘have’ is not important; what we ‘are’ is important. A great saying of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj is, “Be satisfied with what you have, but be dissatisfied with what you are.” But we are the other way around. We seem to be satisfied with what we are, but we are dissatisfied with what we have. We always complain about the goods that we possess and the commodities that we have, and we are always complacent about our own selves, our egoistic personalities.

The truth is, we have to be satisfied with every circumstance in which God has placed us, but we should always be dissatisfied with our own internal achievements. As the Upanishad puts it, neti neti: “This is not adequate; ‘not this, not this’, is the Truth.” Any achievement of ours is inadequate for the purpose, ultimately. The soul is not going to be satisfied with anything that is offered to it. Our soul is the infinite reservoir of forces. It is compatible with God-Being Itself. And so the infinite in us cannot be satisfied with any finite offering. Some little titbits and toys seem to satisfy us occasionally; a wristwatch, a transistor, some sound, colour and movement seem to be satisfying to us. We are ignorant children, moving and groping in the darkness of oblivion in this world. Thus, what we have to ask from the Mighty Lord is the blessing of enlightenment, knowledge and wisdom. And we ask nothing from God except God Himself.

May we all gather our powers, muster in our forces and bring ourselves together into a concentrated attention of devotion to the great Almighty, whose glories are sung in the great Veda mantras, so that we may be burnt and burnished in this austerity of spiritual attitude. May Lord Siva’s grace be upon us all!

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

Hinduism and the Vedanta

Hinduism and the Vedanta by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Friday 6 December 2013 19:38

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I

The word ‘Hindu’ is of foreign origin. It has no association with the principles which are psychologically compounded by habit and tradition with what one vaguely feels when the word ‘Hindu’ is uttered. The history behind this word seems to go back to the time when the Greeks and the Persians came to India, maybe somewhere around the time when Alexander, king of Macedon, invaded India. The barrier which these people from outside India had to cross was the river Sindhu, which today goes by the name of Indus. The letter ‘S’ gets transformed into ‘H’ when it passes through the Persian tongue, and into ‘I’ in the Greek tongue. The word ‘Sindhu’, which is actually the name of the river, got somehow associated with the very people who lived across the river, and ‘Sindhu’, dropping the letter ‘S’, got converted into the word ‘Hindu’, and further on into the word ‘Ind’ in Greek. Thus, even the word ‘India’ has its roots in the word ‘Sindhu’. From this one can gather how both the words, ‘Hindu’ and ‘India’, do not have any real connection with either the beliefs and faiths of the people so called or even the original name of the country itself. The country is traditionally known as ‘Bharatavarsha’ or, simply, ‘Bharata’. This is something about the name itself.

Now, what does one really mean by the word ‘Hindu’, whatever be its origin? To state simply and plainly, it would mean a person who follows or lives according to the canons and principles of the religion known as ‘Hinduism’. But this would raise the question, “What is Hinduism?”

Many definitions have been given by stalwarts like Lokamanya Tilak, and such leaders of Hinduism. The area which the religion called Hinduism covers is so large that it is not easy to give an off-hand definition of it at one stroke, as any such attempt is likely to carry with it a flaw of inadequate characterisation. However, broadly speaking, a Hindu is one who holds and lives according to some of the following essential principles:

There is no necessity to go into further elaborate details of what the word ‘Hinduism’ may suggest, because it would be clear that what is stated above would be enough to provide necessary guidelines to draw the requisite conclusions in matters of detail.

However, it has to be added that the religion known as Hinduism accepts the supernatural origin and final authority of the Word of the Veda, which consists of the Samhitas, the Brahmanas, the Aranyakas and the Upanishads. Hinduism also accepts the validity of the ethical and legal codes known as the Smritis, the Epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Puranas, the Agamas and Tantras, and also the six schools of philosophy known as Nyaya, Vaiseshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mimamsa and Vedanta. The word ‘Vedanta’ suggests and includes also its variations known as the Advaita, Visishta-advaita, Dvaita, Dvaita-advaita, Suddha-advaita, and Achintya-bheda-abheda. It also includes the religious doctrines of the different schools of Vaishnavism, Saivism and Saktaism. Hinduism accepts and provides for the worship of the accepted Divinities of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Ganesa, Durga, Lakshmi, Sarasvati, Surya and Skanda among many others which are all included in the all-embracing pantheon.

II

At the time of death, the individuality does not get dissolved, though the physical constituents may be separated and dissolved. What is it that takes rebirth? It cannot be the body, because it is discarded and it is dissolved into the physical elements of which it is composed. It cannot also be the essential Self, the Atman, because the Atman is a Universal Presence which cannot be said to be subject to transformation of any kind, such as transmigration. What else transmigrates?

The peculiar thing called the individual is neither the body nor the Atman. It is a strange admixture of localised self-affirmation in terms of space and time, and this principle of self-affirmation is impossible to define except as a peculiar pressure-point or force which is generated by the influence of space-time upon consciousness which by itself is indivisible. This point of pressure spatio-temporally occasioned is in fact the centre of what is known as the psyche, often called the mind, sometimes known as the Chitta or the Antahkarana in the Sanskrit language.

This pressure of consciousness causing the individual self-sense may be broadly understood as having three levels of empirical expression, viz., the conscious, the subconscious and the unconscious. Only the conscious level operates when a person is awake, the sub-conscious operates in dream, and the unconscious in deep sleep. The conscious impulses and activities of the individual are limited expressions of the desires which seek to fulfil themselves by way of contact with sense-objects. When the pressure of desires is too much and they cannot be easily fulfilled under conditions prevailing in the waking state, they operate as reveries in dream as a sort of satisfaction of strong impulses incapable of operation during waking state. But the desires of an individual are so immense and complicated that their satisfaction cannot be really achieved in a single life. Such unfulfilled longings get wound up in unconscious states, a specimen of which is deep sleep. It is the power of unfulfilled desires that acts like a projectile and drives like a rocket this complex known as the individual pressure-point in the direction of manufacturing a new apparatus for their fulfilment, under expected conditions, this new apparatus being called the newly formed body. Here is the interesting background of what is known as rebirth.

As a realised soul has no desires, it has no rebirth. Hence the passing of an ordinary person and the disappearance of a person like Lord Krishna have nothing in common. The energies which are elemental that go to contribute to the formation of a new body in the case of an individual with unfulfilled desires do not operate in the case of a realised soul, because rebirth is caused by the magnetic pull exerted by the desiring centre of consciousness upon the physical elements and the forces of nature outside. Such a desire being absent in realised souls, they have no rebirth. They merge into Universal Being. The legacy which acts as the link between the here and the hereafter is desire, which causes reincarnation. The legacy so-called is a mysterious admixture of consciousness and desire, which is the causative factor behind rebirth. It is neither the physical body formed of the five elements, nor the Atman which is all-pervading. It is not true that in death the apparatus through which thinking and feeling act is destroyed; it continues in spite of the body being destroyed. The screen of the television which projects the picture of individuality is the point of consciousness-desire, explained above, and it is not destroyed when the body is destroyed. In a way, our waking life is also a reflection of some anterior existence, which we do not remember now, since we are now in this world in a different space-time continuum, totally different from the space-time complex of the previous life. It has to be reiterated that death does not destroy the link between this life and the other life, because death is only of the physical body, and everyone knows well that a person is not exhausted by the physical frame only. There is something more in man than what appears to the eyes or to any sense-organ.

The modern theory of evolution from matter to plant, plant to life, life to mind and from mind to intellect is nothing but a corroboration of there being a continuous link from one state of life to another. Else, there would be no evolution and there would be no meaning in any form of ‘related’ life at all. All this requires deep study, and a mere cursory reading of one or two textbooks may not be adequate. The principle involves vast areas beyond the ken of the studies provided in our modern colleges and universities.

The principle of karma, or the principle of reaction which conditions the notions of good and bad etc., is not supposed to apply to the sub-human species since they do not have the self-consciousness of personal agency in action and are just guided by the natural forces of evolution. Nemesis cannot be attributed to an individual as long as it is free from personal agency in action. The sub-human species evolve in the same way as there is rise of life from matter to the vegetable kingdom, etc., as mentioned. This is not caused by karma, but by the very pressure of universal evolution.

If there is no transcendent meaning of the human being beyond the present life, no one would lift a finger or do anything in this life unless he is an idiot of the first water, knowing well that the next moment death may overtake anyone and no one can be sure that one can be alive after a few minutes more. Who, on earth, will try to do anything in this world if the next moment is uncertain, unless it is to be accounted for by an unconscious pull of the transcendent ‘Beyond’ which speaks in a language of ‘Eternity’ that there is life further to this medley of uncertainties, anxieties and insecurities here on earth? The point that man is to be restrained from undesirable behaviour and action can have meaning only if there is something more than the meaning seen in earthly life. Else, what is the point of being good or exhibiting good behaviour? Why should there be morality, why should there be anything at all, since everything is going to be devoured by death the next moment?

III

Advaita Vedanta does not naively say that Brahman is real or that the world of dualities is unreal. To attribute this sort of statement to the system would be something like calling the dog a bad name in order to hang it. The sense in which the doctrine asserts the absoluteness of Brahman would also explain the sense in which its relation to the world of experience is to be understood. My feeling is, this doubt arises due to a superficial reading of the philosophical problem involved, just either by hearsay or reading some titbits here and there, without going into the profundities of the subject.

The Advaita Vedanta does not hang on Sruti alone, though it has no reason to doubt the validity of the word of the Sruti. Firstly, take the question concerning the Sruti: The statement that Brahman is the cause of the Veda is not to be understood as if the Veda is an effect proceeding from Brahman as the cause, in which case the Veda would be non-eternal. What this position actually means is that the Veda is to be understood as an embodiment of eternal principles or truths, and here what is to be considered as eternal is the principle involved and not necessarily the way in which it is embodied in word or language. For instance, to give an example, that two and two make four can be taken as a permanent principle which cannot be changed, but the language in which it is expressed or the purpose for which it is applied need not be taken as equally permanent; because the same truth can be expressed differently in different languages and may be applied for variegated purposes. Also, Brahman does not cause the Veda as a potter causes the pot or a carpenter causes the table. Here causation is to be understood in a highly metaphysical sense, and not in an empirical way. The very fact of the existence of Brahman implies the existence of the eternal principles mentioned, even as, we may say, the fact of the existence of a three-dimensional universe implies the validity of the principles of mathematics. We cannot say that mathematics is caused by the three-dimensional world, so that mathematics would be a non-eternal fact. On the other hand, the fact of the validity of mathematics is a logical consequence of the three-dimensional world of space and time, and a logical deduction does not become non-eternal merely because it proceeds from a premise. The premise is in a way the cause of the deduction in a logical process of implication, but the implication does not become non-eternal because it is inseparable from the fact of the premise. Thus, the causation of Brahman in respect of the Veda does not in any way mean the non-eternality of the Veda, if we are careful to see that causation here is understood logically and not empirically in the sense of something proceeding from something else as if the one is different from the other.

Further, it is sometimes suggested that even the word of the Veda is eternal, even as an embodiment of eternal principles. This, again, is to be understood in its proper spirit. We may explain this position thus. Though the expression of a fact in a particular language may be considered as non-eternal, in the sense that it is finite because of its differentiation from other languages, yet the fact of it being possible to express a thing in that particular way should be considered as a permanent possibility, and here the word assumes a sort of eternality, Parinaminityatva, to put it in the language of Acharya Sankara, though not Kutasthanityatva as is the nature of Brahman itself. No one can say that the English language, for instance, is an eternal fact. Yet, no one can also deny the possibility of expressing a fact in that mode of language at any time or claim that the possibility can ever be absent and be non-eternal. I hope you catch the point of this interesting feature.

When Acharya Sankara says that the Veda itself is unreal from the Paramarthika point of view, the same is to be understood in the sense of nothing being eternal except Brahman, and even the Veda cannot be eternal if it is to be understood as something other than Brahman, for there cannot be two infinities or two eternalities. Here you will notice that the two apparently contradictory statements of Acharya Sankara are really not contradictory, for they have to be understood from two different points of view or angles of vision, from which position the statements are made.

The problem of free will and determinism can also be explained by a homely example afforded by the science of psychoanalysis, to give only one instance as to how it can be explained. The patient is made think in a particular manner by the determined will of the psychoanalyst, but patient always feels that he or she is having out of complete freedom of choice, notwithstanding the determinism of the will of the physician that is at the back of it. Perhaps you remember the interesting statement of Spinoza that a stone which is thrown into the sky by someone may feel that it is moving up of its own choice, if only it had consciousness of its movement. We feel that we eat a particular diet out of our free will and nobody compels us to eat such and such a thing, though it is well known that the choice of diet is determined by the physiological condition of the person; so where is free will here? Swami Vidyaranya, in his Panchadasi, says that free will is the way in which the omnipresent will of the Absolute (or you may say, Isvara) operates through the individuality of a created being. Here, again, it is a question of viewpoint or standpoint. The consciousness of agency in action is what is known as free will, though this consciousness itself may be impelled by a law that is operating in the universe. So, where is the contradiction between determinism and free will? Man will not be held responsible for his acts if he is conscious from the bottom of his heart that the universal law is operating through him, but he will certainly be responsible for what he does if he knows that he exists as an individual and therefore actions proceed from him and not from the universal reality. No one can do wrong unless this doing proceeds from individual consciousness which contradicts the fact of its being determined by another. Thus, there is a mix-up of arguments here, when doubts are raised as to how man can do wrong if he is determined. The doubt arises from a fallacious argument.

The problem of evil, again, is an old, hackneyed theme, which has been explained by masters of thought already. It exists in the world even as illness exists in a human organism. But do you believe that illness really exists in a person unless there is a maladjustment of the parts of the organism? The evil does not exist except as a condition of operation, and it is not to be understood as a thing hanging over us from somewhere outside. All this difficulty arises due to an anthropomorphic conception of God as somebody sitting in heaven and controlling the destiny of the universe. If God is understood as universal Omnipresence or Absolute Being, the very question of evil will be a self-contradiction, because that would imply the finitude of God. Here, again, the flaw in the argument that raises such questions can be seen.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Laws and the Stages of Life in Hinduism

The Laws and the Stages of Life in Hinduism by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Thursday 5 December 2013 20:40

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The Purusharthas

Life has been always regarded in India as a process of progressive self-transcendence from the realm of matter (Annamaya-Jivatva) to the realisation of supreme spiritual bliss (Parama-Ananda). Human values and ends in life have been classified into the scheme of the fourfold pursuit (Purushartha) of existence, viz., the practice of righteousness and goodness (Dharma), the effort towards earning of the necessary material values (Artha), the fulfilment of permissible desires through honest means (Kama), and the endeavour for the final salvation of the soul (Moksha). This analysis is based on a broad understanding of the different levels of individuals in relation to the Universe.

The principle of Dharma is summed up in the Mahabharata as the attitude of not meting out to others what one would not expect others to mete out to oneself. What is contrary to the welfare of one’s own self should not be discharged or done in regard to others (atmanah pratikulani paresham na samaoharet). Another definition of Dharma is that it is the conduct which conduces to prosperity here (Abhyudaya) and spiritual blessedness hereafter (Nihsreyasa). That charitable disposition by which one regards others in the world as ends in themselves and not mere means to one’s satisfaction may be regarded as Dharma. The practice of Dharma in this sense is more than ritual or ceremony. Morality is superior to external rites. A moral act presupposes a moral condition of the mind within, and the distinction between moral feeling and moral action is the same as that which obtains between character and conduct.

The moral perspective is based on a general view of the world as consisting of a larger family than the one with which we are usually familiar. Our existence is bound up with great mysteries and is more complicated in structure than is apparent from a surface-view of things. The world-view which reaches its logical limits sees all beings as constituting a single unit of a universal cooperative life, and the recognition of this fact in the smaller circle of individual and social life is Dharma, or righteousness. A violation of this principle is Adharma, or unrighteousness. Dharma sustains the organic structure of the cosmos, like the force of gravity which maintains the solidity of a body of matter. Adharma tends towards a rupture of the organism and brings about a condition of what may be called universal ill-health. If Dharma is health, Adharma is disease.

Dharma, thus, is eternal law and not the custom or religion of a country or people. All minor Dharmas, which go by the names of goodness and religion, receive the stamp of meaningfulness only when they are in consonance with this Dharma of the Universe. The pursuit of material prosperity (Artha), the fulfilment of one’s desire (Kama), and even attainment of salvation (Moksha) are all based on Dharma, which is the rock-foundation of all practical life. None of these efforts can be successful if it is rooted in the primary acceptance of the truth that the individual is co-extensive with the Universe.

The Ashramas

The grouping of life into the pursuit of the four Purusharthas is the basis of the ancient ethics of India. Every act of the human being pertains to one or the other of these aims. The ethical system in India is connected with the mode of life to be lived by one as a Brahmacharin, Grihastha, Vanaprastha or Sannyasin, which are the four orders (Asramas) or stages of life. It is the injunction of the scripture that a person cannot remain in a stage which is none of these four strata of society.

Brahmacharya is the first stage of life, which is lived in the observance of the vow of perfect continence and celibacy under the guidance of a preceptor and dedicated especially to the study of the Vedas and other scriptures. The Kshatriya students may also have to be trained in the art of using weapons and administration in general. It is a life of probation and strict discipline. The Brahmacharin is an adherent to the principle of non-violence (Ahimsa), Truthfulness (Satya), self-restraint (Brahmacharya), non-covetousness (Asteya), non-acceptance of gifts (Aparigraha), purity and cleanliness (Saucha), contentment (Santosha) , austerity (Tapas), sacred study (Svadhyaya), and service of the preceptor (Guru Seva). These are the constituent factors in the life of a Brahmacharin. He shines with spiritual splendour (Brahmavarchas), which he earns by way of self-control, and on account of this glowing nature of his personality he is termed a fire-lad (Agni-Marmaka).

While the stage of the Brahmacharin is particularly devoted to the accumulation of Dharma, the life of the householder is for the preservation of Dharma, the earning of Artha and the fulfilment of Kama. He puts into practice the knowledge gained during the period of Brahmacharya. Artha and Kama should be directed by Dharma. This rule is a great scientific prescription for sublimation of desire, as different from its suppression, regression or substitution. The householder is regarded as the hub of the wheel of life, round whom the welfare of the society revolves. His is a life of a balance of forces – social duty, personal desire and spiritual aspiration. His duties in the form of the Pancha-Mahayajnas have already been explained. This is the general rule for a householder belonging to the Brahmana class in society. The Kshatriya has the special duty of subscribing to the administration of the country by military service and the governmental system. The Vaisyas, or the trading community, and the Sudras, or the serving class, have their duties of providing for the economic harmony and needs of the country and the labour that is required for the sustenance of society. The classification of society into four castes is not to be taken in the sense of a rigid mechanical isolation of groups by virtue of birth and heredity alone, as it has tended to be viewed in later times, but a logically developed co-operative system of living instituted for the preservation and prosperity of the whole society through division of labour based on the quality of persons and the proportion of the contribution that people can make for its solidarity in accordance with their aptitude, knowledge and capacity. Svabhava (one’s inherent nature) determines Svadharma (one’s duty as an individual in society).

The third stage of life is of the Vanaprastha and is devoted to the duty of disentangling oneself from the attractions of the world. Artha and Kama do not any more interest the mind which seeks only the final blossoming of Dharma into the flower of Moksha. The duties of life which means a great value to the householder are relative to the phenomenal view of things and, while they are valid for sensory perceptions and mental cognition in the spatio-temporal realm, they do not reveal the Absolute which the soul hankers after and which alone can bring final satisfaction to it. The Vanaprastha girds up his loins to strive for this attainment through austerity (Tapas) and inward worship (Manasika-Upasana). The Aranyakas and some portions of the Upanishads throw much light on the nature of the contemplations which the one dedicated to a life of spiritual discipline practises. While the Samhitas may be said to be relevant to the Brahmacharin and the Brahmanas to the Grihastha, the Aranyakas pertain to the life of the Vanaprastha. The consummation of this discipline is in Sannyasa, or complete renunciation of worldly duty and desire, and living a life devoted to the highest meditations on the Absolute described in the Upanishads.

Though, originally, the order of Sannyasa as envisaged in Manu Smriti and the Mahabharata constituted a purely spiritual condition into which the Vanaprastha entered, and it had no linkage with any special tradition, the order of the monk gradually developed into a system (Sampradaya) by which the renunciates in different groups were related to one another by the allegiance they owed to their own particular orders, and thus formed a section of society devoted to a voluntary discharge of the obligation of the dissemination of knowledge, in addition to the individual duty of spiritual meditation. This compromise with social life arose not only due to the peculiar circumstances of a changing society in the passage of time, on account of which the minds of people in general may be said to have found a life of total isolation impracticable, but also due to the withdrawal of support from society from the way in which it used to be given in earlier days when the monks could sustain themselves on alms received without making their existence felt by people.

In its true spirit, Sannyasa is a spiritual state, and not a social classification, in which established one learns the art of depending on the Supreme Being by withdrawal of interest from the particular sources of support in the world. This condition is, however, not suddenly reached, and four stages even in the order of Sannyasa are recognised. In the first three stages, called the Kutichaka, Bahudaka and Hamsa, the Sannyasin lives in fixed residences – but in an increasing degree of freedom from the need for comfort – and the stages are distinguished by the increasing intensity of restrictions, in an ascending order, which the Sannyasin imposes on himself. The fourth stage is of the Paramahamsa, who is absolutely free from all the wants of a personal life and lives mostly a life of absolute self-dependence devoted to pure meditation. There are said to be two other stages, called the Turiyatita and Avadhuta, wherein fixed one does not pay attention to creature comforts and is satisfied with anything that comes to him of its own accord and remains mostly in a state of consciousness lifted above the body and its surroundings.

Sannyasa is also said to originate from four causes. A Vairagya-Sannyasin is one who enters the order being prompted by the latent impressions (Samskaras) which direct him to take such a step. A Jnana-Sannyasin is one who takes to the order due to his grasp of the import of the scriptures, after a deep study of them, and being convinced thereby of the existence of the spiritual ideal. A Jnana-Vairagya-Sannyasin is one who resorts to Sannyasa after deep learning and also having seen the normal enjoyments of life. A Karma-Sannyasin is one who embraces the order having passed through the stages of the Brahmacharin, Grihastha and Vanaprastha, gradually. But he who takes to Sannyasa directly from the stage of Brahmacharya is called a Vairagya-Sannyasin. One who takes to it for acquiring spiritual knowledge is a Vividisha-Sannyasin. One who embraces Sannyasa being compelled by impending death is an Atura-Sannyasin. One who takes to Sannyasa with a feeling that there is nothing except the Absolute is an Animitta-Sartnyasin.

But Sannyasa is, in the end, as observed above, not one of the modes or orders of social life but a condition of consciousness in which it realises its spiritual absoluteness. Here ethics and spirituality coalesce in the attunement of the individual to the structure of the cosmos. Man becomes one with creation, being freed from the bondage of attachment, convention and anxiety. The soul fixes itself in the Infinite and knows nothing other than it. The duties of the Brahmacharin, Grihastha and Vanaprastha are progressive stages of self-sublimation and self-transcendence which reach their fulfilment in Sannyasa. The three basic cravings, called Eshanas in the Upanishads, which correspond to the psychological complexes in the form of desire for wealth, fame (with power) and sex, are overcome in the graduated educational process constituted by the stages of life.

The plan of life arranged into the four stages is a systematic endeavour for the conservation and transformation of the vital, intellectual, moral and spiritual aspects of human nature towards the purpose of the attainment of Moksha, or liberation in the Absolute. In this fourfold scheme, society is preserved and transfigured for an insight into the reality which underlies it. It is a remedy for the problems and ills of life born of the separation of society into selfish individualities. It is the process of integration not only of the individual but of the family, community, nation and the world at large, through the expression of the great preservative force tending to universal solidarity – Dharma. The great hymn of the Veda, the Purusha-Sukta, makes the four aspects of the caste system limbs of the Supreme Being, thus teaching that the organic structure of society is knit into a single fabric with the threads of diversified personalities.

Here is the philosophical background of the ethics of co-operation by which the Universe is maintained. The four Varnas (castes) and the four Asramas (orders) are classifications based on the three properties (Gunas) of Prakriti – Sattva (equilibrium), Rajas (distraction), and Tamas (inertia) in their different permutations and combinations. The four Asramas are the stages of the progressive overcoming of matter by spirit, externality by universality.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Wednesday 4 December 2013 21:21

*READ MORE \* The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

I shall endeavour to touch upon a few salient points which will be of some meaning and utility in our day-to-day life. To apply knowledge to life is the most difficult aspect of knowledge. We have always been accustomed to bifurcate life from knowledge, and vice versa, so that a learned man is not necessarily a happy man nor even a rich man. The reason is that learning, knowledge, has been isolated from the facts of life. This is one of the conflicts that we observe in life. As they say humorously, Sarasvati and Lakshmi never live in the same house, meaning thereby that learning and wealth do not go together. There are many such conflicts, all which are supposed to be solved, in one way or the other, by means of the great teachings known as the Bhagavadgita.

Bhagavan Sri Krishna, when He spoke the Bhagavadgita, intended to resolve a conflict. What is a conflict, may be a question that raises itself before our minds. There are, actually, four types of conflicts, within which every other type or variation of disharmony can be subsumed. The occasion for the delivery of this Gospel was the battle of the Mahabharata, which means a field of conflict with other people. The first conflict one encounters in life is with other people. ‘You do not like me,’ and ‘I do not like you’. When we wake up in the morning and look at the world, we are faced with a conflict with other people, the human society. This is a difficulty which saps the vitality of many in the world. We have to see faces with whom we cannot reconcile ourselves. It may be a boss, a subordinate or an equal, it makes no difference. When we cannot reconcile ourselves with another face, there is a conflict; and we see nothing but faces when we get up in the morning and look at the world outside. The battle of the Mahabharata is a large epic, describing this primary conflict of human nature – conflict of one person with another person, in which can be included conflicts of groups, communities and nations, because all these are nothing but personalities and individualities associating and clashing in certain manners and patterns. What we call a society, or a family, or a nation, or a community, is the way of human beings grouping themselves into patterns. Thus, conflict with other people includes every kind of conflict in the world.

We have the Mahabharata epic, in the middle of which the Bhagavadgita occurs. Where is the Bhagavadgita located? In the middle of the battle of the Mahabharata. What is this epic battle? A conflict between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, cousin brothers in a unitary family. It was a family feud. We may say it was a conflict between Yudhishthira and Duryodhana, which amounts to the same essential situation. So, again, to reiterate, the conflict which Bhagavan Sri Krishna tries to resolve has as its background the conflict enumerated in the long epic poem of the Mahabharata. What is this background? The conflict of personalities! That was the occasion for the war. Huge armies were arrayed on both sides. Thousands were about to fly at the throats of one another. That was the occasion for the giving of this Gospel. The Gospel was not delivered in a school, a college, or a university, a temple, a church, or an auditorium. This most interesting and indispensable Gospel which we try to enshrine in our hearts, in our memory, was given on that momentous occasion of a war that was about to break between large contending armies. Nobody would, normally, like to seek wisdom on such a tense occasion. That is not the time to speak at all; it is the time to act and do something immediately. Who would speak philosophy when there are large numbers of men emotionally worked up into such a heightened pitch of anxiety and wrath that they will hear no words spoken by anyone, and are bent upon a severe type of action! On that occasion who would speak a sublime Gospel or a scripture! But that was the occasion, and there could not be a better time.

Now, the very purpose of this war was primarily to resolve a social conflict. Well; it was agreed that the war was indispensable. The purpose behind the war was not to destroy people but to resolve a social conflict or a political tension. It was impossible to mend people, and so they thought it was necessary to end people. And they concluded that by the ending of the embodiments of conflict, the conflict would automatically vanish. If you cannot untie a knot, you cut the knot. And for memory’s sake I may mention a few specimens who were involved in this conflict – the leaders, the generalissimos of the war. There were powerful veterans on the side of the Kauravas, almost invincible in battle, three of whom, the most prominent ones, were Bhishma, Drona and Karna. Nobody could face them with immunity to their lives. On the other side, that of the Pandavas, we have leaders like Bhima and Arjuna, the brothers of King Yudhishthira, the eldest of the Pandavas. While the most powerful from the Kaurava side was Bhishma, the most invincible on the side of the Pandavas was Arjuna. They knew every tactic of war, and people would shudder in their hearts by merely hearing the name of these people.

Now, on mutual acceptance, it was agreed that the war had to be waged to end a social conflict. But, when the hour of crisis came, when the iron was hot and it had to be struck, when that moment came, what happened? A most unexpected conflict arose within the mind of Arjuna. It was not a conflict with other people, but a conflict within one’s one self. I told you that there are four types of conflicts. The first one is conflict with other people, and to end it they started or embarked upon this perilous adventure of war. But before it broke out or started, the most important of the leaders, the hero of one party, the most renowned warrior, had to pass through a muddle of conflict within himself – his own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and the various tantrums of his psychological organ. You know the situation. All action emanates from the individual, and to do or not to do is to be decided by the individual himself. A decision can be taken only when there is no conflict in one’s mind. Either you do a thing or you do not do the thing. Either you want a thing or you do not want the thing. These are decisions that the mind takes. But if one begins to waver between the two horns of the dilemma, and one does not know which side to take and what steps to put forward, due to a conflict within one’s one mind, there would be no solution at all. A most surprising attitude did Arjuna put on, to the wonder and marvel of everyone there. The most heroic of persons began to speak words of pusillanimity, feelings of pity which would be completely unexpected from a warrior girt up on the brink of a war. Instead of attempting to solve the social conflict for the sake of which the war was to be engaged in, another conflict was added on to it. So, instead of one conflict, we have two conflicts here. Arjuna, the leader, the great warrior, advanced specious arguments before Krishna, his colleague, his friend and guide, who was seated on the very same chariot, and clinched the whole matter by saying, “I am not for this.” It was a very difficult thing to swallow, and only a personality like Krishna could take it in the true spirit in which it arose.

When a person is truly friendly with you, he knows how to take your moods. That is a wisdom of life. Krishna was not pleased; nor was he displeased. A doctor is neither pleased nor displeased with the patient. An emotion will not rise in the mind of a physician. Krishna was not distressed at the agonising condition of the mind of Arjuna. He did not weep, cry or beat his breast. He spoke words of wisdom laden with the profundity of the experience of life which, incidentally, opened up the gates for a solution to all conflicts in life. Not merely Arjuna’s conflict, but your conflict, my conflict, and anyone’s conflict at any time found a solution herein. All problems, all conflicts, all disharmonies, in everyone’s mind, in every pattern of society, and for all times, were dealt with effectively. Thus it is that the Bhagavadgita became a scripture of universal significance. Though it arose on account of a historical context, it gradually bordered upon timeless questions and the eternal problems of mankind, or humanity as a whole. The Bhagavadgita teaches not the Hindu religion, but religion as such. It is not my religion, or your religion, but it is the religion of the human soul that is spoken in the words of the Bhagavadgita. It is an answer to the questions of mankind, not merely the themes of some religion, cult or creed. It is ‘man’ putting a question to God. Not any particular person or any particular faith or association or affiliation raising a problem, but man, signifying humanity, raising a problem before the Maker of all things. And to it, the answer came from all sides. The answer came from all the mouths of the Cosmic Person, not merely from one individual called Krishna. There was no Krishna then, when this answer came. The query was not raised by Arjuna as a historical person. It was not Arjuna that kicked up the problem; it was the humanity present in Arjuna that raised the question. There is a character of humanity in everyone of us, which is neither male nor female, neither eastern nor western. The human element puts the eternal question. Hence, the answer has to be all-comprehensive. The human complexity raised the question, and who will answer the question? Not ‘another’ man. One man’s problem cannot be solved by another man or another person. Because another person is also a human being like this person. You cannot solve my problem, nor can I solve your problem, because both of us stand on the same pedestal of the human outlook. And here was the problem of humanity as a whole, not of one individual; and who will answer this question? Not Krishna, because to utter the name Krishna in this context would be to raise the question of an individual. It was not the historical Krishna that spoke to Arjuna, but it was Narayana who spoke to Nara. This is also known as Nara-Narayana-Samvada, though, indeed, Krishna-Arjuna-Samvada. God spoke to man, not Krishna to Arjuna, as a person. The Universal spoke to the particular. The All-comprehensive began to speak words of wisdom to that which is localised in space and time. Humanity was face to face with the Absolute. With this background of understanding we shall be able to realise the importance of this scripture of Yoga.

Thus, on the background of the necessity to solve a social conflict, an individual conflict arose in the mind of a symbol of humanity, known as Arjuna. As I already pointed out, I cannot answer this question and you cannot answer this question, because we are all persons, human beings, individuals, and it is the individual that raises the question. Then who is to give the answer? Not anyone in the world. The answer has to come from That which is beyond the world. And hence the personality of Krishna began to expand gradually into the All-inclusive Consciousness which covers the entire gamut of the evolution of mankind and the world as a whole. This apocalypse of Consciousness is what is known as Virat, or the Visvarupa. It expanded not merely quantitatively in space and time; it is not the swelling of a body that is called Virat, or Visvarupa, but a humanly unimaginable expansion of Consciousness, which alone can solve the questions of mankind’s conflict.

And what is mankind’s conflict? One person set against another person. This is the first phase of the problem. That each one is at loggerheads with one’s own self is another phase of the conflict. You do not know what you will think tomorrow. You do not agree today with what you thought yesterday. Your understanding cannot go hand in hand with your feeling. Your feelings cannot go hand in hand with your will. Your emotions will not agree with your logical argument. Your logic goes against the facts of human society outside. All this is a description of internal conflict. “I can neither fully agree with you nor fully reject you.” This is also a personal conflict. If I can fully agree with you, there can be no conflict. If I can fully reject you, then also there is no conflict. But, unfortunately, I cannot fully reject you for certain reasons and cannot also wholly accept you for certain other reasons. This is individual conflict. And there are also non-alignments of the layers of the personality itself.

The four conflicts are a, b, c, d. The earlier one is the cause of the later. I am proceeding from the posterior to the prior, from the gross to the subtle, from the visible to the invisible, from the outer to the inner, for the purpose of explanation. The outer conflict of society is an outcome of the internal conflict of human nature. Why has this conflict come? Is there any solution for this? Arjuna fell at the feet of Krishna. “I am confused, and I do not know what I am supposed to do. Bewildered is the condition of my mind. It is true that I have come here for battle, as a general of the army, but now something is happening within my own mind. I do not know, Krishna, what is happening! I am sunk in grief. I am gripped by sorrow. I cannot lift my finger. I cannot raise my hand. My nerves are getting paralysed. I cannot even stand up. I am falling down. My reason is failing.” This is what happens when internal conflict reaches its climax. And here the real Bhagavadgita starts, which is God speaking. Up to this time man was speaking: “I shall wage a war, I shall end these people, crush them and pound them to powder.” That was the boast of man before the war was entered upon. Then the sinking down of the personality: “This is impossible. I shall withdraw, because I do not think that I am fit to adjust myself to this complex that has arisen now in the form of a social conflict, which, I hold, is raised by us due to ignorance, greed and callousness towards the consequences of war.” The answer of Bhagavan Sri Krishna, representing the unity of the cosmos, is simple and precise, though it is apparently a long gospel of many chapters.

Arjuna was thoroughly mistaken in assessing the values of life. “Your understanding is turbid, it is not clear enough to grasp the vitality of life. Nobody asked you to start the war. It is you who started this, and I merely said nothing against it. If you want it, have it, and be done with it. After having started it of your own accord, relying on the strength of your arms, listening to nobody else’s advice, what makes you now sing a different tune altogether, as if you are another person having nothing to do with the previous person that you were who decided to wage the war? The answer of Arjuna was: “I do not know.” There are some students who come to this Ashram. If I ask them why they came, the answer is: “I do not know.” It is difficult to speak to such people. How is it that they do not know anything? You must know something at least. The truth is that you know that you do not know. Don’t you know even that much? Well, it looks something humorous. But, this was exactly what Arjuna did. “I do not know what to do. Tell me what is my duty.” The answer is the Bhagavadgita, which is supposed to be a Gospel on duty.

What is the duty of man? I began by speaking of the four conflicts, which the Bhagavadgita endeavours to resolve. To solve the first conflict, Arjuna thought that battle is the only way. But before the war took place outside, a war broke out inside the warrior. There was a psychological war which fumed up like wild fire within the mind of the hero, even before the outer social war took place. “Do you know why this happens? Do you know why any war takes place at all? Why conflicts should arise at all? The ultimate cause of all conflicts? Do you know this, Arjuna?” Sri Krishna spoke. You do not know anything. You do not know that you have a higher conflict pushing you forward into a further external conflict. Behind the social conflict, is the individual conflict. Behind the individual conflict, there is another conflict which was not apparent to the mind of any person then, but Krishna knew what it was. It was the conflict between the individual and the world as a whole in the form of this vast creation.

Man has estranged himself from Nature. This is the third conflict – the conflict between man and Nature. The world seems to be outside us, and we seem to be strangers in this world. We are not sure if we are really wanted in this world. Sometimes it looks that we are not wanted at all, and yet we, somehow, reconcile ourselves with the hardships of this mysterious creation and pull on in life, “get on”, as we say. The world is not going to be reconciled if we are not going to obey its laws. Because of a conflict of our individuality with the universal Nature we suffer various pains – hunger and thirst, heat and cold, and, finally, death. All these catastrophes of human life, and life in general, are the outcome of an isolation of the individual from the cosmic Nature. Nature does not die; it is the individual that dies. Nature has no hunger and thirst; it is the individual that has hunger and thirst. Nature does not feel cold. Nature does not want a blanket or a sweater; it is the individual that feels heat and cold. The bodily limitations, the vital limitations, the mental limitations, the intellectual limitations, are all the result of this bifurcation of personality or individuality from the universal Nature. If you are to be tuned to Nature, you are to become an integral, vital, universal part of Nature. Then you will have no hunger and thirst, no heat and cold, no death. But why should this difficulty arise? “I never wanted to isolate myself from Nature.” Nobody would purchase trouble deliberately. And why has this happened? Who is responsible for this banishment of the individual from the universal? This third conflict is due to another conflict altogether, viz., the fourth conflict – the conflict between the Universe and the Absolute, between man and God. We are removed from God Himself. That is why every other disease has cropped up. Social conflict or political conflict is due to individual conflict. The individual conflict is due to the conflict of natural forces in respect of the individual. This, again, is due to a higher conflict between the Universal Being and the individual.

The war seen before us is the array of forces which God has unleashed to teach us a lesson. The whole world is up in arms against us, because we have set ourselves against God. Can we expect to have peace and happiness here when we wage a battle with God Himself? But this is the secret that man does not know because of an original ignorance, what we call the original sin of man, the fall of man, the fall of the soul from its Divine Status of Universality. Unless we reconcile ourselves with God, we are not going to reconcile ourselves with Nature. Nature is nothing but the army of forces let loose by God against the erring individual, as a reaction to the rebellion set against Him. When there is conflict with a country in war, we cannot speak to its soldiers, “My dear friends, please do not fight,” for they are not responsible for the battle. They are released by some other force behind them. We must tackle that force, which is the cause of the release of these forces. Why do we talk to the soldiers, because they, poor fellows, know nothing except that they have been ordered; and they act. Thus there is no use of speaking to the world, “My dear friend, Wind, don’t bite me. Water, do not drown me. Fire, do not burn me.” They will say, “We do not know. We are only ordered to act, and we shall do according to the order. You speak to the Person, the Force who has ordered thus. Otherwise, we shall burn you down, cut you, blow you up, drown you, kill you.” So there is no use trying to get rid of the troubles of life, because these are forces released by a higher Nature. Unless we reconcile ourselves with God, we are not going to be friendly with Nature. And unless we reconcile yourself with Nature, the cosmos as a whole, our internal conflicts are not going to cease. And until internal conflicts are solved, the external wars are not going to end. The social peace which we are clamouring for, the national peace, world-peace, the Ramarajya as we call it – all these wonderful things that we are aspiring in life – cannot be had on earth until we solve the original conflict that is between us, within us, with Nature, and God.

This is the essence of the themes described in the chapters of the Bhagavadgita. We are face to face with the Supreme Being in the eleventh chapter; and whatever I have told you now is the inner significance of the contents of the first eleven chapters. The chapters that follow from the eleventh onwards describe methods of practically applying this knowledge in specific contexts of life. Before doing anything, understand well. And think well, dispassionately, taking into consideration all aspects of the question that arises in your mind. Cast a glance around you, and recognise where you really stand in this world, what your difficulties are, and tap the diffiuilties in their roots. Then it is that you will be blessed, and mankind at large reach blessedness and beatitude.

Social collaboration, individual self-control, universal interrelatedness, and Absolute Oneness are the standpoints from which the Bhagavadgita exhorts us at different levels of its teaching. The highest Reality is Aksharam Brahma (the Imperishable Absolute). It is the Supreme Person, or Adhiyajna from the standpoint of creation. It is manifest as Adhibhuta (the external universe) as the object on the one side, and as Adhyatma (the individual experiencer as the subject) on the other side. The Divine Principles organising the relations between subjects and objects is Adhidaiva (superintending Deity). The movement of the cosmic cycle, the inexorable impulse to action, the universal urge of creativity, is Karma-Visarga (the complex of activity determined by interconnected universal factors). No one can escape this duty of ‘All-Life,’ and none can afford to be ignorant of this secret of existence. Here is the Bhagavadgita in a nutshell.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Values

Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Values by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Tuesday 3 December 2013 20:20

*READ MORE \* Spotlights on Hinduism and Religious Values

(1968)

  1. The influence of religion over the masses is definitely on the wane, since religion, unfortunately, has latterly tended to become formalistic, ritual-ridden and church-oriented, with its social rigidities, mechanised disciplines and an emphasis which began to appear more like an external pressure on the individual rather than a spontaneous incentive for the development of the natural spiritual potentialities of the seeking spirit. Corruption and such other pointers to personal and social deterioration can be attributed ultimately to a lack of the true spiritual sense among mankind.
  2. The charge against Hinduism that it is fatalistic is born of an ignorance of the scientific law of cause and effect, traditionally known as karma, upheld by Hinduism as one of its necessary tenets in the field of its vast compass. Very few, even among Hindus, have a correct knowledge of what true Hinduism is. This is perhaps the fate of the majority of followers of the other religions in the world, also. The interpretation of the law of karma that it inhibits progress by making people slaves to the belief in the inevitability of whatever is to happen is erroneous. The law of karma does not mean that. What it actually implies is that every cause produces an effect of equal force, similar to the force of gravitation in the field of physical nature. Inasmuch as the universe is a balance or an equilibrium of forces and it tends to maintain this balance on any account, a disturbance of this equilibrium by any individualistic action receives a kick back by the power of this equilibrium of the universe in its attempt to restore its lost status quo, and this reaction produced by the universe is really the essence of the law of karma. If it implies any sort of ‘inevitability’ as suspected, it is the kind of inevitability that is involved in the fall of an apple from a tree due to the law of gravitation. This cannot be called fatalistic with the shade of the anathema that seems to be suggested thereby. The force of karma can be overcome by purushartha or the higher creative effort which every individual is capable of and can achieve by a gradual approximation of oneself to the nature of Reality.
  3. The charge of fatalism leveled against Hinduism is therefore unfounded. If well-meaning, highly educated people of today, too, subscribe to this erroneous notion, that would be an added credit to the depth of their knowledge and the profundity of their wisdom!

The catholicity of Hinduism, its breadth of outlook, is not equivalent to a featureless uniformity of approach like a common form of diet that may be prescribed to everyone in the world. The catholicity implies that everyone is equally hungry and needs food, but it does not mean that everyone should be served the same kind of diet. While there is a basic unity among fundamentals, there is an infinite variety in the methods of approach and the working out of the details. The principles of dharma, artha, kama and moksha as the foundational pre-requisites for an integral approach to life as also the most scientific psychology that is behind what is known as varnashrama dharma are enough testimony to refute the fallacious argument that there is very little that is common in the form of a prescribed formula of religious observances, obligatory for all. It is doubtful if any other religion has within its bosom such a power of absorption, such a strength of transmutation and such a large variety in the methodology of approach as Hinduism.

It is certainly possible to lay down an outline of certain basic minimum observances for all Hindus. The practice of the five yamas – ahimsa, satya, asteya, brahmacharya and aparigraha – with a proper understanding of what these actually mean and how they are to be applied with the necessary permutations and combinations, under different circumstances or conditions of life, an organic approach of life as intended in the canon of the four purusharthas referred to above, as well as a scientific adherence to the psychological principles enshrined in the vehicle of the varnashrama system are instances on the point.

  1. To equate Hinduism with casteism is again wrong to the hilt. In fact, Hinduism is no ‘ism’ at all, if an ism means a creed or a cult or even a caste. The name Hinduism was not given to it by the Hindus, and this name was not even known to them before the entry of the Greeks and the Persians into India. The eradication of casteism is quite all right and perhaps necessary if casteism means a fanatical sticking to outdated forms, meaningless routines and an unjustifiable social stratification derogatory to the dignity of the human individual. But if the system of caste means merely an allocation of function to individuals and groups according to their knowledge and capacity for the overall well-being of the organic structure of the human society, it is something which cannot be avoided by anyone who has a proper knowledge of human nature, its ways of working, and its aims in life. It is absurd to make it felt that Harijans are to be exposed to ridicule. If this has happened for any reason, so much the worse for it. Psychological classification for purpose of the fulfilment of the necessary stages in the development of an integrated society cannot include any type of social degradation as a part of its programme. The evil of untouchability has to be abolished and the respect and dignity that are due to a human being in his or her own status or station in society should be accorded. Let, first of all, everyone be made to feel that they belong to the religion of humanity. Until this is achieved, the religion of God cannot enter the minds of people.
  2. Though it may be true to some extent that a study of Sanskrit may help Harijans in feeling a sense of elevation in themselves, and to this extent a study of Sanskrit may be regarded as very helpful, the difficulty cannot be solved by a mere study of the Sanskrit language. The solution lies more in a transformation of the mental attitude that people have towards them or they have towards others, which can be brought about by the spirit of education alone, and education cannot be equated merely with the knowledge of a language, whatever be the importance of the study of a language in the process of education. As for the Harijans, the required incentive can be provided if they can be made to properly understand and appreciate the value of Sanskrit literature as also the knowledge of which it is the medium of expression.
  3. The Smritis embody two aspects of dharma or the law: (a) Samanya dharma or the unchangeable basic law of life which cannot be changed and does not stand in need of any change; and (b) Visesha dharma or the special forms of the law of life which have to be changed according to the prevailing conditions, social or personal. This necessity has naturally to be acceptable to all section of the Hindus, for it is unavoidable.

This does not mean that new Smritis have to come into being, but that their interpretation should be newly oriented according to circumstances. Inasmuch as Hinduism has no common organisation or an established social form of administration as there is, for instance, in Christianity, the ultimate deciding authority in matters of doubt regarding the visesha dharmas becomes a little difficult to fix upon. A possible solution is to leave the matter to the heads of the different section of Hinduism, who will decide the nature of the case as applicable to conditions within their own circles. There seems to be no other alternative since there is no single Guru or Head for the whole of the Hindu religion.

  1. In the present context of social and international life, it is necessary that the wide reaches of Hinduism should be allowed to take effect without taking sides of any parochial nature, an unfortunate feature that can manifest itself occasionally due to the characteristic weakness of the human mind in general. Though it is difficult to give a complete list of all the correctives that may require to be introduced into the present attitude that Hindus generally have towards their religion, the following essentials may be mentioned as salient issues:

  2. The emphasis on the spirit rather than the letter of the law, that is to say, concentration on the intention, the purpose or the essential significance of a religious mandate rather than a mere mechanistic adherence to the formality of the law. To cite an example, many perform sandhya vandana as if they are operating a machine, with neither a knowledge of its meaning or a real faith in its efficacy.
  3. The proper role of ritual in religion, that is, its necessity and value at a particular stage of the religious life as well as its absurdity when it is stretched beyond the permissible limit.
  4. An understanding of the meaning of the varnashrama dharma as a principle for the solidarity of human society and an eradication of the mistaken idea that it implies an unjust social stratification attended with the notion of function.
  5. The erroneous notion that religion is otherworldly which can be rectified by a correct knowledge of the compound (not complex) of dharma-artha-kama-moksha as the foundational ideal of life.
  6. Removal of the mistaken idea that the law of karma implies a passive resignation or a fatalistic attitude.

  7. That moksha the supreme ideal of life means a spatial and temporal getting rid of the world or the life in it without the knowledge that it really means a realisation of the Universality of consciousness.

  8. A scientific and logical trend of the teachings of the Vedanta has of course attracted the attention of the rationalistic minds, or the intellectuals in society. But it is not true that the emphasis on jnana which is one of the features of the Vedanta has been able to enter the hearts of the populace or the common man. The masses still conceive of and adore God in the fashion adumbrated in the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Puranas, Agamas and Tantras, and not necessarily in the way prescribed by the Upanishads. Also, the term ‘Vedanta’, though it is usually associated with the Upanishads, came to mean later on any teaching which holds God to be the Supreme Reality. In this sense the teachings of Sankara, Ramnuja, Madhva, Vallabha, Nimbarka and Chaitanya are all Vedanta in its different forms. Even the Saiva and Sakta religions are a kind of Vedanta alone, in their own way.
  9. A Guru is essential for one treading the spiritual path, up to a certain stage, as it is in every field of the educational process. Tentatively we may say that a person whom one regards as the best among all those one has seen or come in contact with in one’s life may be regarded as one’s Guru, until one comes across a greater person whom the religious instinct can recognise by a spontaneous reaction.
  10. Though mantras in Sanskrit have a special significance, we cannot say that a formula in some other language, charged with an ardent fervour of religious feeling, has not such an efficacy. The Sanskrit mantras have an additional advantage of semantic or phonetic structure, in addition to their capacity to rouse a religious feeling. Mantras in other languages are also effective.
  11. Fasting and such other dietetic regulation, etc. have a disciplinary value, and therefore these are necessary. But they have no ultimate value as they are not the essence of the spiritual life.
  12. Rituals in religion are not to be discouraged, for they are like the feet of the religion on which its body is supported. But the feet are not the entire personality and should not be mistaken for the same. The mistake is not in the performance of the rituals but in the overemphasis laid on their mere outer form as if it is the whole of religion. The legs are not the whole body, though the legs are necessary for the body in spite of the fact that they are not the essential parts of the body. As regards the extent to which rituals are to be regarded as essential, our explanations above will give the answer.
  13. The samaskaras prescribed in the life of a Hindu are necessary purificatory processes. Our view on ritual is, again, the answer here.
  14. The Karma-kandas of the Vedas in the section dealing with the necessity for ritual in the observance of religion, in one of its forms. Though every rite prescribed in the Kama Kanda of the Vedas may not have any significance, in the context of modern times, the essentials need not be neglected, at least where they are honestly felt to be helpful. All these peculiarities of religion require personal guidance from an expert and cannot be put in black and while in a generalised fashion.
  15. Hinduism is a way of life. Hinduism is not a theoretical doctrine or merely an intellectual school of philosophy. Hinduism is neither a ritual, a creed, cult, faith, dogma, theoretical philosophy, or even a religion as a mere outlet for emotion or what the psychologists condescendingly call ‘the religion instinct’. Hinduism is a name given to the very science of life, the art of living, and it is as wide, as meaningful, and as necessary as life itself. To the question, what should constitute the way of life in the present context, the only answer we can give is that the proper way of life is the ordering of one’s thought, speech and action in accordance with the principles, a bare outline of which has already been indicated in the preceding paragraphs. Here, again, we should add that the entire science of life, which Hinduism is, cannot be explained in a short article or essay. The standard texts already available on this subject, and the example of the Masters who have lead and are leading this life in their own persons, are the proper guides.
  16. It is possible for all sections of Hindus – Advaitins, Visishtadvaitins, Dvaitins, etc. – to come together and form a single force that Hinduism really is. Why should this not be possible when the essential meaning of the rock bottom of Hinduism is properly grasped by means of right education?
  17. We can confidently assert that the future of Hinduism is a glorious success in the fulfilment and materialisation of its values, as long as these values are in conformity with the law of Truth. For, Truth alone triumphs: satyameva jayate.
  18. The steps that are to be taken in the direction of coordinating the essential values of all religions are, we reiterate, the steps towards right education. What right education is, of course, is a different subject altogether. And we do not feel it worthwhile spending time in writing a few lines on this subject which borders upon the deeper foibles of human nature, since a solution to this problem will perhaps have to be attempted by a collaboration of persons competent in this line, who have to come to a conclusion as regards the modus operandi here.
  19. We do envisage a properly constituted approach of Hinduism in the Western countries at this junction of the atmosphere in this century. What is required is a band of experts who know what real Hinduism is, and not merely pundits and scholars with only an academic acquaintance with the fringes of Hinduism or even the go-getters in religion whose influence on the public mind is bound to be inadequate, sketchy, artificial and even commercial rather than truly religious or spiritual. With the concentrated force of stalwarts endowed with this special capacity, the spirit of real Hinduism can not only produce a solacing effect on the tension-ridden psychology of the West but also hold aloft the banner of the Universal character of Hinduism, not as a religion with its traditional connotation but as a comprehensive way of life.
  20. There is no need for anyone to work upon the idea that proselytisation is necessary to instil into the minds of people consciousness of true religion. In fact, the system of proselytisaiton would imply a distrust in the value or efficacy of religions other than the one which the proselytiser professes. Since no religion can be said to be complete from all points of view or to represent every phase of Truth, it would be improper to arrogate the character of completeness to any religious faith so that it can consider others as standing in need of a transmutation into its own make. Rather it is the duty of everyone really interested in the welfare of people to guide them on the path which they are already treading towards the One Destination which is reached by the many paths from many directions, instead of asking a pedestrian already on his way to retrace his steps or to discourage him by saying that all along he has been wasting his time by walking in the wrong direction. For, every direction is a direction to the Infinite, as every river finds, by its winding movements, its way to the ocean, into which other rivers also enter.
  21. The changes that have been presently visible in Hinduism may be due to its contact with the West, or in the mode of the presentation of its contents, but not in the nature of these contents themselves. The sanatana or samanya dharma does not change, though the visesha dharma has to change in accordance with prevailing conditions, as was noted above. Perhaps, pedantic orthodoxies which stuck to forms rather than essences are giving way to a broader understanding and appreciation going hand in hand with modern scientific thinking and logical analysis of religious principles, a method of approach which may be said to have been inherited, to some extent, by its contact with Western culture. But, at the same time, it has to be added that the Western impact has tended to make the Hindu approach to life more academic, social and pragmatic instead of deepening or even emphasising its true spiritual nature.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action

The Bhagavadgita – A Synthesis of Thought and Action by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Monday 2 December 2013 20:48

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(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1973)

The culture of mankind may be said to have reached its zenith in the thoughts of the Upanishads, wherein we have an exposition of the quintessential essence of all values that humanity has been seeking through the passage of history. In this groundwork of human culture, we have the perennial inspiration of the soul of man, the cry of the deepest in the human individual, the raptures of what may be regarded as the most valuable part of human nature. Such is the meaning hidden behind the gospel of the Upanishads, which soar into the empyrean of the superhuman and the meta-empirical, rising to levels of such ecstatic heights almost inaccessible to the faculties available to the human individual, making us giddy with the heights that they have reached. It is practically impossible for the modern man especially even to think of their significance except that they are wonderful spiritual messages given to us. While the human mind is always able to very quickly misunderstand things, it is not so easily able to understand things in their proper perspective and context. It is very easy for me to misunderstand you, but it is not so easy to understand you. This is human nature in its simple openness and placid empiricality. To commit a mistake is easier than to pursue the course of truth.

The glorious teachings of the Upanishads contain truth in their simple nakedness, unclothed with vestures of human liking or sentiment. This is precisely the reason why they could not easily become a guiding directive of the practical life of man in the workaday world.

In the Bhagavadgita we are supposed to be given a practical turn to the supreme and ideal loftiness which the spirit of the Upanishads embodies. You will remember that towards the end of each chapter of the Gita is the colophon: iti shrimadbhagavadgitasu upanishatsu. The Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita are like brothers or sisters born of the same parents – the Vedas, the Srutis and the Smritis – which contain within themselves the wisdom of man in its theoretical as well as its practical aspects.

We have in our own sciences such as mathematics or physics the theory and the practice, the theorem and its corollary, and so on. In one sense at least, though not in every sense, we may say the Upanishads lay down the fundamental theory of the cosmos on which we have to work out the practical application of the doctrine in our day-to-day life. This application of the theoretical dictum or the fundamental principles of the Upanishads is in the gospel of the Bhagavadgita. The Upanishads tell us how to think, and the Bhagavadgita tells us how to act. We always think before we act; but how are we to think? The direction of our thoughts is provided by the Upanishadic gospel but the direction of our action is given in the Bhagavadgita. So we have in the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita a complete science of life.

And today, as we are here to humbly and yet solemnly observe the sacred occasion of the delivery of the Bhagavadgita many thousands of years ago, we may very well confine ourselves to what the Bhagavadgita seems to expect of us in our life – no doubt, on the basis of the wisdom of the Upanishads.

The Bhagavadgita is the science of mankind’s culture and activity, to put it simply and precisely. The Bhagavadgita is not a religious gospel of the Hindus. It is not a scripture in the sense of any sectarian doctrine. It does not teach religion in the popular sense of the term. It does not teach any type of ethics or morals in the common understanding of the meaning of the term ‘ethics’ or ‘morality’. The Bhagavadgita purports to expound human nature in its various aspects. It is not necessarily the Hindu nature or the Christian nature or the Buddhist nature; it is human nature. The problem of Arjuna was a human problem. It was not a Hindu problem or an Eastern problem particularly. It was a problem of the psychology of the human individual, and psychology is the same everywhere, wherever man or woman is. So in this sense, we may say that the Gita is a universal gospel. It is meant for me, and it is meant for you, and for all alike. It has no distinction of sex, colour, caste, creed, state, language or hemisphere. It also does not belong to a particular time in history. It is not a historical document that is given to us. It is a spiritual message. Inasmuch as the spirit has no time and space, this message of the Gita also may be said to be timelessly and spacelessly valid, which means to say that it is going to be a directive in our life at all times – past, present and future.

In the life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna we have a pictorial representation of what the Bhagavadgita ideal of life should be, ought to be. We have in the glorious life of Bhagavan Sri Krishna a representation of the doctrines of the Bhagavadgita in practical life. The understanding of the nature of life is a presupposition of understanding the meaning of the gospel of the Bhagavadgita. It is very difficult to make out what is actually the sense that the Gita ultimately conveys to man, on account of which hundreds of commentaries on it have cropped up like mushrooms – not one giving the entire meaning of it, and not any one of the commentaries being capable of being regarded as redundant. Every commentary gives an aspect of the truth of it, but not the whole of it. The Bhagavadgita is such a totality of approach that even Bhagavan Sri Krishna declined to tell it a second time when Arjuna requested him to speak it once again after the war was over. That comprehensive approach cannot be summoned into consciousness constantly in human life. Very rarely do we rise to such heights of human understanding. For Sri Krishna himself to say that he could not speak it a second time would give us an idea as to the meaning hidden behind the whole gospel.

We may say it is God speaking to man. When God speaks to man, He speaks from every corner of the world. He does not speak only from the front or from behind or from any particular direction, because the existence of God is not a local, objective station. The presence of God is not like the presence of an object. It is not here or there or somewhere. It is everywhere. And therefore, the message of God should come from every direction. When it comes from every direction, it touches every aspect of life. It does not merely touch every aspect of life, but solves every question and every problem. Thus we are told that the Bhagavadgita is sarva shastra mayi, which means to say the essence of every teaching is in the Upanishad and the Bhagavadgita. Whatever question may arise in one’s mind, that question can be answered in one way or the other in a word, in a phrase or a sloka of the Bhagavadgita. There is no mental trouble or psychological complex which is not touched in the Bhagavadgita, and there is no remedy for the psychological ills of man which cannot be unearthed from some place in the Gita gospel.

Thus, as the teaching of the Bhagavadgita is of universal significance, to study it is to study man himself, to study life. If we can chant with the poet who said the proper study of mankind is man, we can also say in the same strain that the proper study of the Bhagavadgita is man. But the understanding of the real purport of the Gita gospel is almost a superhuman task. It is difficult to make out what it actually teaches. Some think that it teaches the principles of action or activity in the world. There are others who think that it teaches the way of devotion to God, the creator of the world. There are still others who are of the opinion that it is a political gospel. It is also a guide light for social life, for individual discipline, for even the sciences of civics and economics. These standpoints have given rise to various expositions of the Gita, as I mentioned a few minutes before. All these aspects may be regarded as true, inasmuch as we have to accept that the Gita touches all sides of life in its generality. But when we try to apply its knowledge in our day-to-day existence, we have to take it very seriously and apply it in a manner consonant with the various difficulties that we face from morning to night.

It may be reiterated that the Bhagavadgita is not such a gospel of any religion as to be consecrated in a puja room or only for certain occasions of festivity, ceremony, etc. It is our vade mecum, our pocket guide for every problem, even in our prosaic earthly life – maybe in an office or a factory or the fields of our vocations. If the Bhagavadgita cannot give us piece of mind, it would mean that the Bhagavadgita has not helped us, which would also mean that we have not understood it. We cannot read all eighteen chapters of the Gita and then start crying, cursing and complaining. It is to prevent this erroneous, ugly attitude of the human mind that this gospel has been introduced to us.

Every verse of the Gita points to a particular corner of human life and tries to throw a floodlight into that corner. While our activities are manifold, they can be classified under certain primary heads or groups so that a study of these principle heads of our activities would be tantamount to a study of the entire life of every one of us. As I pointed out a little earlier, we have to think before we act. It would not be proper for us to act first and repentantly think later on. Most of us try to go headlong into an activity without proper thought being bestowed upon the nature of the activity before us. We are emotional too much, sentimental beyond a permissible degree, and that is why we act first and think afterwards. Generally, the thought that comes after the action is one of grief, repentance, melancholy, and intense unhappiness. “Oh, I have made a mistake!” But why did we rush into activity so hurriedly without considering the pros and cons of the action? This requires self-control. Unless we have a control over our own nature, we cannot restrain our emotions; and unless the emotions are restrained, thought cannot precede action because we must have time to think, but the emotions will not allow us any time to think even once. They start speaking and acting suddenly, at the spur of the moment, without laying the foundation of proper thought over the issue that has arisen.

The Upanishads are the basic building bricks of the basis of the structure of thought to precede human action in general. I do not mean any particular action specifically. Human action in general, whatever be its nature, is to be preceded by a type of thought, which is beautifully represented in the Upanishads. We cannot go into the vast details of this scientific subject in the few minutes available to us here, but suffice it to say that while the thoughts of the Upanishads lay the foundation for a universal approach to things, the Bhagavadgita gospel brings into high relief the daily operation of this thought in every nook and corner of the world through each and every action of the individual.

The problem of Arjuna was a sentimental and an emotional one, sentiment and emotion having overpowered his understanding, preventing him from thinking in the right direction and urging him to take a decision contrary to what was justifiable under the circumstances. How are we to decide upon the yes or no of an action? Is an action right or wrong; how are we to know? This is the question that the Bhagavadgita tries to answer. Whenever we embark upon a line of action, we are likely to think that it is the right course. Each one thinks that he or she is right and others who oppose that line of action are wrong. Now, is this a permissible course of thinking? Can I say that whatever I do is right and anything contrary is wrong? If each one starts saying this, who is right and who is wrong?

For this, a standard of reference is provided by the Bhagavadgita. Whenever we say that something is right or something is wrong, we have a standard of reference in connection with which we pronounce this judgment. How do we know that something is wrong? Because we have in our mind an idea of the right. Wherefrom has this idea of the right arisen in our mind? This idea might have arisen on account of various factors, but those factors should be based upon an unshakable principle. If the very principle itself is to be shaken and if it is going to be susceptible to changes in the course of time, then our idea of the right will also go on changing every day. The Bhagavadgita provides a permanent standard of reference for judging whether a particular course of action is right or wrong. From this standpoint, Arjuna could decide whether what he thought in his mind was proper or otherwise.

The rightness or the wrongness of an action does not depend upon the pleasure or the pain of the individual concerned in the action; this is the first warning given to us in the Bhagavadgita. We are likely to think that what brings us satisfaction is right and what brings us sorrow or grief, unhappiness, is wrong. This is an unfortunate, hedonistic approach which cannot be ultimately justifiable from the scientific point of view. A scientific principle does not care for our pleasure or pain. When we talk of a scientific principle, we speak of a truth that holds good for every person under all circumstances, irrespective of the emotional condition of the individuals concerned. So our joy or sorrow, personally and individually speaking, cannot become the standard of reference for the rectitude or otherwise of an action.

Arjuna thought that it was a horror before him in the form of a war presented before his terrified eyes. He was not happy. “Krishna, I am very sorry. I think what I am going to do is wrong.” He thought that the action upon which he was about to embark was going to be wrong, inasmuch as it shook his emotions and tore his personality. He was intensely grief-stricken. So you intend to judge actions from the point of view of your personal happiness – if you are happy, it is all right; otherwise, it is not all right. This is not the correct approach, says the Bhagavadgita.

Now, again we go back to the Upanishads. Why should the rectitude or the otherwise of an action not depend upon the pleasure of the individual or the otherwise? The Upanishads give an answer to it. The nature of existence itself is contrary to holding such an opinion. The structure of all phenomena is of such a character that it will not permit us to hold such an individualistic opinion in respect of any action whatsoever. The universe does not belong to you or to me particularly. It does not belong to anyone. As such, we can say that nothing in this world belongs to us because everything belongs to the universe. It is a part of the world. And as the world is the basic repository of even our own personal existence – we belong to the world rather than the world belongs to us – nothing can belong to us. If nothing can really belong to us in the proper judgment of values, on an impartial judgment of things, how can anything give us pleasure or pain? The pleasure or the pain that we seem to be receiving from the context of particular objects or groups of objects outside – this pain or pleasure which is a reaction to the stimulus from objects outside – arises on account of our possessiveness or the establishment of a specific relationship in respect of the objects of the world, which is unjustifiable, scientifically speaking. We are not permitted to establish particular relationships with anything in the world, as nature is a wholly unselfish entity bearing no positive or negative attitude towards any content thereof.

If the world is a single unity, of which we are also an integral part, accepted, no object or person in the world relates to us in any personalistic fashion and, therefore, no one in the world can bring us happiness or sorrow. Our individualised happiness or grief is an immediate outcome of our so-called relationship with certain persons and things in the world which ultimately does not exist, and cannot be justified.

The Upanishads speak of the ultimate truth of things. Yo vai bhūmā tat sukham: The Plenum is felicity. And what is the Plenum? What is this Bhuma which is the source of real bliss? The Chhandogya Upanishad tells us: yo vai bhūmā tat sukham, nālpe sukham asti (Chhandogya Upanishad VII.23.1); yatra nānyat paśyati nānyac chṛṇoti nānyad vijānati sa bhūmā (VII.24.1). Where you are not permitted to look on any object as an external something, that is the Supreme Plenum. But where you are drawn down to the level of an individualistic perception of such and such a thing being personally related to you, that is finitude of consciousness. It is not the true nature of things. Satyam eva jayate nānṛtam, satyena panthā vitato deva-yānaḥ, yenākramanty ṛṣayo hy āpta-kāmā yatra tat satyasya paramaṁ nidhānam (Mundaka Upanisahd 3.1.6), says the Upanishad. Truth succeeds; untruth will never succeed. And what is the truth? The Plenum is the truth. And what is the Plenum? Wherein you are not to look upon anything as an isolated something or a disjointed object separated from your own existence, that is the Plenum.

If this is the truth, all your pleasures and pains should be untruth. Therefore, Arjuna, pleasure and pain cannot become the standard of judging the rectitude or otherwise of an action. That would be to base the action on a false foundation. You have to base your action on the concept of duty rather than on the concept of pleasure.

Now, what is duty? Duty is the obligation that an individual owes to the world outside, and we cannot know what our duty is unless we know what the world is because, as I mentioned in this simple definition of duty, it is an obligation that we owe to the world as a whole. But how do we know what is our obligation to the world if we do not know what the world is? The world is not made up of mountains and rivers. It is not a conglomeration of earth, water, fire, air and ether, sun, moon, stars. The world is a fabric of forces. It is a pattern of energies which work everywhere uniformly both in organic and inorganic substances. We are told today that the universe is made up of energy. It is not made up of substances or things. The world is not made up of things of our taste. The ultimate stuff of the world is something different from the tasty, delightful objects that the senses behold in the structure of space and time. The world is different from what the senses perceive, and therefore we cannot understand the world by merely opening our eyes and seeing it. The five senses of perception cannot give us an understanding of what the world is made of.

Arjuna looked at the world with the five senses. This is not Sankhya, as the Bhagavadgita tells us. Arjuna, you have to look upon the world with the Sankhya knowledge. The Second Chapter of the Bhagavadgita is an exposition of the Sankhya understanding that is to become the basis of our attitude towards the world. And without this Sankhya, yoga will not come. Yoga is the practical application of Sankhya or, in the terminology of the Bhagavadgita, Sankhya is knowledge, yoga is action. So unless you have a knowledge of the nature of the world, you cannot act in the world properly. You will make mistakes in every one of your approaches. Now, this Sankhya which the Bhagavadgita speaks of is the knowledge of the world, which is going to be the foundation of the methodology of action in the world in every field, in every occasion.

Arjuna’s standpoint of knowledge was erroneous because it was sensory, empirical, externalised, personalistic and, therefore, false; so he was in sorrow, whereas Sri Krishna expected Arjuna to rise to the level of the Sankhya, which means to say the uniformity of knowledge which is at the basis of the structure of the world. We are under the impression that the world is outside us; therefore, we have a peculiar attitude towards things which is, again, to come down to the level of our own perception, the attitude of pleasure and pain in respect of things.

“This is wonderful.” “This is very nice.” “This is no good.” We pass such remarks on persons and things on the basis of a sensory evaluation of them. But this is an incorrect attitude. The world is not made up of good things or bad things, pleasurable things or miserable things, our things or other things. It is made up of things in general. It is not our things. They are there even if we are not there. We too belong to it. It is very difficult to conceive what the world is. When the world starts thinking, it is not you or I who thinks. This is Sankhya – the nature of the world in its essential being, quite different from what it appears to us in our sensory perception.

“The world is not outside us,” says the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita in a very pithy, pointed half verse: guṇā guṇeṣu vartante iti matvā na sajjate (Gita 3.28). The perception of the world is not the perception of an object, really speaking. The world is not an object. It is a set of forces impinging upon another set of forces within us, called the senses. A group of fabricated structure, a bundle of energy outside, produces an impact of another bundle of energy in our own individuality, called the sensory structure. The colliding of forces from outside in respect of the very same forces inside produces a reaction. That reaction is called perception. The gunas are nothing but forces of nature, prakriti’s attributes – sattva, rajas, tamas, as we call them – present equally in objects outside and the senses inside, and these gunas present in the individual as the forces of sense and mind become responsible for the cognition of the objects outside, whose embodiment are also the very same gunas.

The gunas perceive gunas. We do not perceive the world. Forces come in contact with forces. Energy collides with energy. Nature perceives itself. We do not perceive nature. Therefore, in this cognition of nature by its own self there cannot be any such thing as pleasure or pain. There is only an impersonal demand for duty on the part of every individual, irrespective of caste, creed, colour, sex, age, etc. What nature demands of us does not depend upon our age, our culture, our understanding, etc. It is universally applicable, like the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation does not apply only to old people or young people or learned people, etc. It is for all and sundry. The law of gravitation is one of the forces of nature, and hundreds of others exist in its bosom.

Thus, on the basis of this Sankhya knowledge of the uniformly applicable structural pattern of nature, our actions have to be gauged. Arjuna became giddy. “Very difficult, sir! What are you saying? I cannot act. My mind is giddy. I cannot understand what you are saying.” Then Arjuna’s thoughts are raised step by step from one stage to another stage through the various chapters of the Gita until the apotheosis or the apocalypse is reached in the Universal Viratsvarupa in the Eleventh Chapter. Unless we have the cosmic vision of the Absolute, we cannot understand the world. “Arjuna, you cannot even lift your finger unless you see the Universal Form.” And after the Universal Form was visualised, the proper location of the individual was known. The correct position of each person in respect of the Universe was understood. My status is known only when I know what the Universal is. So Arjuna could not take a single step until the Vision Supreme was bestowed upon him – Sankhya, knowledge, melting into an experience of the very basic creative will and power of the cosmos.

It is in this basic foundation of the cosmos that we have an answer to the question of the relation between matter and spirit of the individual and the world and society. All antitheses get reconciled in the Vision Supreme. The Bhagavadgita takes us through action to knowledge, though it goes from knowledge to action, thus blending knowledge and action in a beautiful synthesis so that knowledge and action cease to be two different approaches. We have not here the conflict between knowledge and action, as both mean one and the same thing. When action understands itself, it is called knowledge; when knowledge starts moving, it is called action. They are one and the same.

Such is the basic implication of the Bhagavadgita gospel, knowledge and action combined, providing a simple rule of judgment of values in our day-to-day life – God speaking to man and God blessing man perennially with an inspiration that can be explained only in terms of that vast unfoldment of Realisation we have in the Eleventh Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. This unfoldment of Realisation concretising itself into manifold activity is expounded in the remaining chapters from the Thirteenth onwards until it reaches the Eighteenth Chapter where all social problems are also touched upon and explained, concluding with a resounding message that God and man should work in unison. Yatra yogeśvaraḥ kṛṣṇo yatra pārtho dhanur-dharaḥ, tatra śrir vijayo bhūtir dhruvā nītir matir mama: Human effort and divine existence are to work in synthesis, in collaboration, in unison, so that when man thinks, God thinks, and when God thinks, man thinks. They are not two different thoughts. When one acts, the other also acts. Where such unity of action rises from a correct understanding of the structure of creation, success is bound to come. “You will certainly succeed in your life; there is absolutely no doubt,” says Sanjaya towards the end of the Bhagavadgita gospel.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad

Commentary on the Isavasya Upanishad by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Sunday 1 December 2013 15:40

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Part 1

The first two mantras of the Isavasya Upanishad are supposed to give us in a few words a perfect philosophy of life. There are thinkers who feel that if none of the Upanishads becomes available at any time, and if only these two verses remain, that will sustain the world of philosophy.

What this Upanishad in its commencing mantras tells us at the very outset is something which we always forget, but which has to be kept in mind constantly if there is to be any meaning in our living in this world. What it makes out in the beginning is that there is the same invisible content pervading all things, connecting everything with everything else, and bringing about a relationship of all diversity, whatever be its nature – organic or inorganic, living or non-living. Whatever be the nature of the diversity of content, irrespective of this nature of diversity, a mysterious link brings them together into a perfect formation and leaves nothing unrelated. Right from the highest heaven to the lowest atom conceivable, everything is taken notice of, and all these things are put in their proper position.

The manner in which things are put in proper position is called organisation. Where such a thing is not done, it is chaos and a medley, a pell-mell, a presentation of meaninglessness. The relation that this unknown content manages to maintain is proportionally manifested. It does not strike everything with the same blow. The prick of a needle by a physician varies in its intensity from the hammer of a blacksmith or the axe of a woodcutter, etc. We have examples of difference in the manner of the placement of values. Yet everything is connected. The brain, the heart and the lungs, and the limbs of the body are placed in a position of unitedness. This is something known to us in our daily life. But they are not just chaotically related. They are in their different particularities placed in the proper context. The different limbs of the body perform different functions, one not overlapping the other, one not repeating the function that the other does, yet not contradicting the function of the other.

Such a relation is maintained throughout the variety of creation, presenting a beautiful picture of perfection that this creation really is. The different kinds of work that the limbs of the body perform do not create ugliness in their performances. We know what the teeth and the tongue do, the ears and the eyes do, and the legs and the feet, fingers, and so on do. Even the hairs on the body have some function to perform. But irrespective of a distance apparently being there between their functions, all of them look perfectly all right. The feet are as beautiful as the nose and the eyes and the face. Their position is the one that is intended for us. When a particular thing occupies a position intended for it, it looks beautiful. When it does not occupy that position and occupies somebody else’s seat, it is not beauty.

Incidentally, it appears to us that beauty is not a solid substance which we can touch with our fingers. It is an arrangement, a pattern, a relativity of adjustment and a proportionate recognition of values, bringing all these values into a completion, such that the whole which they constitute gives a magical touch of perfection to every little part of which the whole is made. The whole gives its beauty in a requisite proportion to every part which belongs to it, and of which it is constituted. The different limbs of the body look beautiful because they cooperate with the wholeness of the organism, which we call this body. Any particular part of the body which does not so cooperate hangs unconnectedly with the system. Its beauty vanishes in a second. A hair that is severed from the head has no beauty. It has a beauty only when it is stuck to the head, in the place where it has a position. Even the nail on a finger has its beauty. It loses its beauty when it is cut off from the finger. Isolated parts, unrelated to the whole to which they really belong, become ugly, redundant, unnecessary things, contingent aspects, and not anything contributing to vital life.

The meaning of life, in this light, appears to be a participation that is called upon everyone in relation to that organisation to which each one belongs. Extending the analogy of the physical body to larger organisations, we will feel that we live only when we participate in a larger-than-ourselves. When we do not participate in a system to which we necessarily belong, we do not really live. We just hang on. There is a difference between hanging on and actually living. A paralysed part of the body may hang on, but it is not living. It is not a part of the body. It exists. We can see it hanging lifelessly, as it were, to no purpose.

The life of a person comes to no purpose when the participation expected of that person in the context of the whole to which that person belongs is absent. The society of human beings is an organisation, and everyone belongs to human society as long as one is a human being. The very finitude of human organisms compels them to participate in a system known as society. There is no necessity for a perfected individual to participate in anything. But the perfected individual is a misnomer, because that which is perfect cannot be an individual. Anyone who is an individual, human or otherwise, is, therefore, not perfect in any sense of the term. Thus, considering even the lowest category to which one belongs in a conceived wholeness, the human individual has to participate in the organic activity of society.

The word ‘society’ has several connotations. It includes within its compass any activity, performance or evaluation necessary for the maintenance of this group called society. We need not go into the details of the issues that may rise from its definition. In every endeavour, project, adventure, work or activity necessary for the continuance of the human individual to sanction the survival of the human personality in order to achieve this perfection, the participation of the individual in society is necessary. An anti-social person cannot be a happy person. An unsocial person will be privately suffering the sorrows of finitude, and cannot enjoy the delights of participation.

Why should we feel happy in participation and feel miserable when we do not participate? The necessity for participation of the limbs in respect of the organism arises because of the necessity for the survival of the body itself. Disorganised limbs of the body disintegrate the body; the organism perishes. It decomposes itself, and is no more there after some time. The parts also die together with their non-cooperation with the whole. It does not mean that a non-cooperating individual will survive, even as a non-cooperating part of the body will not survive, together with the death of the whole to which it belongs, and with which it does not cooperate.

In this analogy, human society becomes an organism of a larger type, wider than the physical body which requires to be maintained by this cooperative participation of individuals for their own equanimous welfare. The participation is not complete merely with a social participation. It is not true, finally, that we live only because other people help us and our friends are charitable to us. It may be that in a social organisation, in a setup of human society, there is a mutual give-and-take policy of people, and they appear to be contributing to mutual survival and existence in a satisfactory manner. But this is only a surface view of things. Irrespective of the fact that social cooperation is necessary for our existence, that is not the whole truth. We do not live merely because of the goodwill of other people. There is something more about things, which escapes the notice of the common eye.

The geographical system of the universe, the astronomical pattern, the solar system, to take only one instance among many other things, conditions us. Human cooperation or no cooperation is irrelevant to the working of the planets and the operation of the solar system – which gives breath to our life, which pumps blood through our veins, and makes the heart pump and the brain think. Cosmic mysteries are beyond human imagination. Who pumps the blood and works the heart? Incessantly there is operation. Even when we are in deep sleep, the breath does not cease. Who pushes the prana like bellows even in the state of deep sleep, when we contribute nothing to the working of the breath? We are nowhere there. Who moves the breath and keeps the body warm and alive, even when cold sleep supervenes? Have we ever thought about the mysteries of the working of the heart? Why should it work? It moves without rest even for a moment.

Have we ever seen motion without a momentum? Unless there is something to propel the motion, motion is inconceivable. Where is the propelling force behind the motion of the heart and the action of the brain? We may be under the impression that the brain thinks and has knowledge. If the brain has plenty of knowledge inside of it, the skull of a dead man also will have knowledge. The propulsion of intelligence is elsewhere than in the cells of the brain, or the parts of the body.

Social life is transcended by universal life. That organisation is a larger society than the human society that we can imagine in our minds. The larger world before our eyes is itself a society of its own kind. The mountains and the rivers and the trees, the shrubs, the flowers, even stones and particles of sand, are not there unnecessarily, for no purpose. To consider these as unnecessary things would be to regard the tip of a fingernail as an unnecessary encumbrance of the body. The nail is not an encumbrance, though it is not doing great work for us. Yet it does some work, if we carefully think over the matter.

Unnecessary things cannot exist in this world. Their importance can be recognised and visualised only when we have the insight to probe into the circumstances of their existence, and the part that they play in a larger society of life – wider than the human, and even the organic as it is conceived – in a cosmical setup. The wind that blows, the rays of the sun that impinge upon the earth, the cool balming radiance of the moon in full-moon night, the scintillating movement of water in a flowing river, the waves of the sea, are not inconsequent occurrences. They are tremendously responsible performances taking place, as is the case with the performances in our own body. This system, which is physiological, sociological, cosmological, can be understood only on the acceptance of a living principle pervading all things, a life that is indwelling the parts, which look like physical entities.

Do we know that the life we seem to associate with our own selves is not capable of identification with any part of the body? I live, you live, and someone lives. I am alive. It is a great joy to feel that I am alive. This joy of the feeling that one is alive does not come from the nose, from the fingers, from any part of the physiological system. This is an instance of the presence of an unknown content operating beneath and behind visible particulars, which are otherwise physical in their nature. Our own personality is an example here. Our feeling, our joy, our satisfaction of having lived in this world, or of living in this world, is an unknown thing operating within the physiological setup we call the body. This very same link is bringing satisfaction in human society in the form of friendship, cooperation, a system of coming together or a get-together, a larger organisation of a nation.

International organisation, whatever it be, gives a satisfaction. It gives a satisfaction not because of the heaps of bodies that form that organisation, but because an unknown element operates in and through the media of these individuals which appear to form the members of this organisation. An organisation is not a bundle of members, just as our life is not a heap of these physical parts. Many people sitting together do not make a society, just as a heap of legs, hands, noses and eyes do not make a man; and so is the case with international organisations and world systems. The physical part is the secondary aspect thereof. There is an unknown element pervading everything.

Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam: a ruling principle pervades the whole Cosmos. ‘Isa’ is the word used in the Upanishad. A controlling, restraining, determining, harmonising, and satisfying principle is Isa, or Isvara. All these aspects are present in it. It gives life to all things. To be alive is the greatest satisfaction, and minus life, nothing can be called satisfaction. Merely to exist is a joy. Sat is chit, as they say; existence is consciousness. Consciousness itself is joy, as it is told us. The gesture of conscious participation in this working of a cosmic content is itself a joy unknown to the sense organs.

The joy of living is not a sensory happiness. Suppose we are sick for some days and suddenly we regain health; don’t we feel a satisfaction? The regaining of health is felt as a kind of jubilation, “Oh, I am happy today. My disease has gone.” A new life has entered into us when we are healthy. That new life is joy. That joy has not come from contact with sense objects. The joy of healthy existence is not a sensory joy. It is super-sensory in the sense that it arises from the totality that we are, the organism that we are, and not the contact that we have. Mostly we think that we can be happy only if we come in contact with things. Where is the contact in being alive? Minus all contacts, a healthy man is happy. A strong man is happy, a powerful man is happy, in spite of the absence of any kind of external contact. This joy, this satisfaction, this delight, arises not because of the limbs which constitute the organism, but because of a life that is present in the organism.

This life, the so-called ‘I’ or ‘me’ that we speak of in our own selves, is not any of the parts of the body. No limb of the body has the right to say ‘I’. “I am coming.” When we make a statement like this, no limb of the body is making the statement. It is a principle that is making this expression. That is what we are! We are a principle rather than a person, an operation rather than a solid existence, a force rather than a material content, an invisible thing rather than a visible thing.

We will be wondering, that we are really an invisible thing. This so-called person sitting here, apparently visible to the eyes, is really an invisible something, making itself felt through the so-called physical body. Such a thing pervades the whole cosmos. It does not pervade merely living bodies. Even the so-called inanimate elements are sustained in their existence by the operation of this force. It is inactive in some forms, active in some other forms, and merely equilibrating in certain other conditions. These three states are called sattva, rajas and tamas.

A mere participation in existence, as in the case of a stone or any inanimate matter, is tamas predominating. Yet the aspect of existence is present there, which is the characteristic of that connecting link pervading the universe. It is existence. The stone exists. At least to that extent, it participates in the Cosmic Reality. But it does not know. In the higher species, the aspect of understanding manifests itself gradually; dimly in plants and animals, and more perspicaciously in the human being. Human beings like us exist like a stone, but we also know that we exist. The stone exists without knowing that it exists. A human being exists with knowledge that there is such an existence. I am aware that I exist. Now, mere knowledge of the existence of something also is not adequate to the purpose. We cannot survive for a long time merely by being aware that we exist. We should also be happy, delighted, composed, satisfied, and feel a sense of freedom inside. If the sense of freedom and satisfaction is absent, but we are simply aware that we exist, it is not sufficient.

So the whole Reality is not manifest in existence such as a stone or a rock, though some part of it is manifest there. But in us, a larger degree of Reality is manifest, because it is known that it is. There is rajas – intellect and rational activity. We may be full of education, knowledge, information, academic qualification, but we may be incomplete persons nevertheless, due to absence of peace inside the mind. An educated person may be bankrupt in inward peace because while the tamasic element of existence and the rajasic element of understanding are there – the fact of this individualised existence is there – the sattvic quality of joy is absent.

The ananda aspect of Reality, the bliss aspect of Truth, has also to manifest itself in order that this consciousness of existence can fulfil itself and become complete. So we have to exist. We also have to know that we exist, and we also have to be happy that we know that we exist. This happiness of knowing that we exist is the bliss of the consciousness of existence. Here we are face to face with the great dictum, Reality being sat-chit-ananda.

Such a thing is pervading the whole Cosmos: īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam yat kiṁ ca jagatyāṁ jagat. Living or non-living, known or unknown, visible or invisible, potential or manifest, whatever be the nature of existence, everything is linked together by this unknown content, the supreme organisational principle, call Him God, Isvara, the Supreme Absolute, or the Universal Atman.

Be happy by knowing this. The Upanishad says, merely by knowing this, be happy. But puny man, with his frail intellect, will ask the question, “How can I be happy by merely knowing this matter? I want to enjoy the objects of sense. I want wealth. I want property. I want a house. Without this, where is joy? A mere knowledge of what you have told me cannot make me happy. I want to grab, possess, hold as my own, and become a property-holder.” Do not make the mistake of imagining like this.

Possession does not make us happy. It is the consciousness of possession that makes us happy. Unconscious possessions are no possessions. Do not covet wealth in this world, because wealth, the so-called property, is nobody’s actually. We want to grab somebody’s property and make it our own. How can we say that anything is ours, and make a statement that we have to possess it in order that we may enjoy it? What made us feel that something is ours? On what grounds is this statement made? No part that belongs to a whole can belong to another part that also belongs to the same whole. This is the logic behind the mistake that we make in desiring any property. As all things are part of a whole, all parts necessarily belong to the whole; but one part does not belong to another part.

We are friends because we are commonly placed in the position of participants in a cosmic purpose. Individually we cannot be friends. Sometimes the individual character asserts itself, and we behave like enemies. We hate each other. We do not always participate and love. The trait of dislike or hatred arises when the individuality in us asserts itself minus its position of participation in a cosmic whole. When we are awakened to the fact of the necessity to participate in a larger whole, we became friends, we smile at each other. But when we forget this aspect and assert this bodily individuality only, we begin to hate each other. Love and hatred, the positive and the negative aspects of psychological operation, arise on account of two different attitudes altogether, organisational and anti-organisational.

The Upanishad is very brief. It does not give us a large commentary. Know this, and grab not property, and covet not any wealth. Be happy. Anyone who has a little common sense, who has the leisure to think deeply over this important issue, will appreciate the meaning of this dictum of the Upanishad that merely by knowing this, we will be happy. Knowledge is bliss. Chit is ananda.

We are not accustomed to this kind of thinking. Our thinking is commercially oriented. It is conditioned by a give-and-take policy, exploitation, and possession of property, as I mentioned. We do not know any other way of thinking except this kind of crude materially-oriented thinking. But divine thinking is free from this trait of the desire to possess external objects.

Is God happy? Or do we think that He is an unhappy person? In Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’, Adam raises a question, “Lord, Thou hast created comrades for animals. Even trees live together. I, poor fellow, have no comrade. You have left me alone.” God, in the world of Milton, says, “Do you believe I am alone? I have no friends. I have no partner. Since eternity I have been alone. Adam, do you believe that I am happy?” This question of God to Adam in Milton’s poem is a question before us.

How can God be happy if He has no property? He has no money. He has no land. He has no house. He has no family. What kind of existence is God’s, if we conclude that it is these things that make a man happy, and minus these he is a wretched individual? God possesses nothing except the awareness of being complete and inclusive of all things. If we can accept for certain reasons that God can be the highest state of bliss irrespective of possessions, connection with property, etc., and just being aware of that perfection only – if only this awareness of being complete, excluding any other external contact, can make God perfect – anyone who wishes to be perfect, likewise has to be godly. And anyone who wishes to be godly, also has to be perfect.

It is futile to imagine that external property can make us happy and enable us to live long. It is the breath that conditions our joy. Have all the gold and silver of this world and let your breath be choked, you will see how happy you will be. Let the organism not work properly. Even the little stupid joy that we seem to be enjoying in this world does not come from the house that we have or the land that we own. It is from an organic, harmonised, aligned function of the body that is the reason for our happiness. The life that is inside us, the principle of life that we really are, when it is operating in a perfectly harmonised way, makes us happy. If disorganisation takes place inside, life struggles to maintain itself in a disorganised society of physical limbs, what can property do? What can friends do? What can anyone do in this world, when we are disarranged in ourselves? How can any kind of arrangement outside help us?

The greatest arrangement is God’s existence. Whoever moves in the direction of this perfect arrangement, which is universal in its nature, also becomes comparatively happy in larger and larger dimensions. A spiritual seeker is happy in himself, in herself, in itself. The confidence has to be there that the perfection that we seek does not come to us by our contact with external things, because externality and perfection are contraries. Perfection is an inwardness of comprehension, and not an externality of contact. A spiritual seeker, a yoga student, should always be aware and be confident of this great truth, and keep it before one’s mind’s eye that the more we grow spiritually, the less we would need external appurtenances for our existence. The less we require friends, the less we require money, the less we have the desire to live in a house, the less we wish to own anything by way of land, etc., the larger we become in our inward dimension and the narrower becomes our contact with external objects. The narrower we become in our inner dimension, the larger seems to be our need to come in contact with external objects. The poorer we are inside, the richer we are outside; and the richer we are inside, the poorer we may appear to outside eyes.

The poorest man is God Himself. One of the qualities of God is utter dispassion. God is known as Bhagavan, one who is qualified with bhaga, dispassion. Many qualities are mentioned. One of them is total dispassion, unconnectedness, unrelatedness to anything, non-possession. ‘Bhole Baba’ is Lord Siva, as people say. Bhole Baba means like a fakir, as God sometimes is portrayed. In a poetic fashion, saints and sages sometimes portray God like a beggar in order to depict this truth of total freedom from the sense of possession and utter disconnection from externality of any kind of space-time objects. Can we believe that such a Being is the happiest of all beings? And can we believe that we also would be equally happy, if we move in the direction of that Perfect Being?

Confidence is lacking. Perseverance is lacking. Power of will is lacking. The powerful senses drag the mind again and again to old ruts of thinking in the direction of old, old habits. “Indriyani pramathini haranti prasabhaṁ manah” (Gita 2.60): A wild tempest may throw a boat on the sea hither and thither by the powerful winds of sensory desire. Covet not; remember this truth. The universe is animated, controlled, directed and sustained by an invisible element, totally unknown to any sensory perception, which is that which makes us feel happy that we are alive. Can we imagine that finally we want nothing in this world except the permission to exist and live? Larger and larger dimensions of this harmony have to be achieved. The physical body is a harmony. Larger societies have been mentioned as organisations. The largest dimension is Universal Existence. The happiness that we can derive by merely being aware of our unitedness with that completeness is unimaginable, unthinkable, beyond the conception of the intellect. It passeth all understanding.

So much magnificent treasure is hidden in a few words of the first mantra of the Isavasya Upanishad. Īśāvāsyam idaṁ sarvam yat kiṁ ca jagatyāṁ jagat, tena tyaktena bhuñjitha: unattached, enjoy. Unattached, enjoy – that is what the Upanishad says. It does not say, get attached to things and then enjoy. No, tyaktena, by renunciation, by abandonment of the greed to possess things, be happy. Ma gṛdhaḥ kasyasvid dhanam: covet not the wealth of anyone, because the wealth of the world is nobody’s, and no one has the right to posses it. Possession is a misnomer. There is no such thing as property, finally; and one does not want it, also. What we want is a harmony of our life-principle, which appears to falsely get increased in its dimension by contact with external possessions – falsely, not really, because what we can possess can also be taken away from us. When we can be possessed of something today, we can be dispossessed of it tomorrow. What is the guarantee that we will possess the whole world every day? We will be dispossessed of even this body itself. Where is the guarantee of possession?

Concentrate on this great truth, meditate on the great reality of utter perfection, completeness, knowledge and bliss in this universe, inside and outside flooding you through every vein of your body, every cell of your personality, every breath that you breathe. The joy of your life is actually the joy of God that is permeating through you. Reach it with effort, with daily meditation and wanting only That – wanting nothing else.

This is the first mantra of the Isavasya Upanishad.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

The Bhagavadgita’s Message of Knowledge and Action

The Bhagavadgita’s Message of Knowledge and Action by Swami Krishnananda

Created on Saturday 30 November 2013 19:27

*READ MORE \* The Bhagavadgita’s Message of Knowledge and Action

(Spoken on Gita Jayanti in 1974)

In the history of the culture of the world, the Upanishads and the Bhagavadgita may be regarded as the central spiritual message to mankind. These two gospels of the spiritual ideal offset each other, as it were; they give us the art of life in consonance with the eternal on the one hand, and in consonance with the temporal on the other. The problem of the human being is principally one of reconciliation between the eternal and the temporal or, to put it in modern terms, bringing about a harmony between the religious ideal and the secular call of duty. This has been an age-old problem, a question that has never been adequately answered. And the Upanishads, while holding aloft the banner of the magnificence of life eternal, seem to absorb into their bosom all the values that may be regarded as secular and temporal – so that we are faced with a lion’s den, as it were. The values that we regard as dear and near in this world of visible perception all seem to be transmuted into the heart of that Reality which is the central theme of the Upanishads. But man is man, whatever may be his ideal.

Now, while idealism is good and it has to always be there before us, it is essential that the ideal never remain as a future. One of the errors that we may commit in any type of endeavour or effort in day-to-day life is to place an ideal in the future so that the present stares at us and demands recognition in spite of the fact that the ideal is there before us transcending the values of all that is immediately real to our senses, our body, and our social life.

We have to reiterate here that our mistake lies in regarding an ideal as a future. “Then what about the present?” is the question. If an ideal is ahead of us in the far-off future, what has happened to us at the present moment? The conflict that apparently seems to be there between the ideal and the real is born of a miscalculation of religious values, a misinterpretation of the spiritual sense in life, and a thoroughgoing lack of understanding in respect of that which can be regarded as the organic structure of the values of life.

We as human beings are born with a prejudice. The prejudice seems to have entered into our very blood and vitals, the prejudice which insists that the present and the future are divided by a large and vast gulf which cannot easily be bridged, and this gulf that yawns before us between the future and the present is also the gulf that is between the world here and God above.

As I mentioned, in one sense the Upanishads may be regarded as a complete gospel, but the temporal values which necessitate a particular type of action or activity on the part of man seem to assume a new orientation altogether in the light of the Upanishads, and we are faced with a similar predicament as a child would be faced when confronted with a genius of mathematics, physics or philosophy. We cannot say that the child’s values are ignored by the genius, but the child cannot understand the genius, notwithstanding the fact that all the values of childhood are comprehended in the values of a genius. Likewise, the values held as ultimately real by the Upanishads seem to go over our heads and speak a language which we cannot understand. We want to be told in our own language, in the tongue that we speak, and with a sympathy that is consonant with that which we regard as valuable and dear to our heart.

Here comes the Bhagavadgita to comfort us, to console us, to solace us, and to tell us that everything is all right. Nothing is wrong in this world and there need not be despair either in the religious attitude or in the secular attitude. It may be emphasised that here in the Bhagavadgita we have an eternal message of the reconciliation between the empirical and the transcendental, the secular and the religious, the human and the divine, the relative and the Absolute, the visible and the invisible, the matter of fact that is before us and the glorious ideal that is beckoning us with its relentless and resistless force ever since the creation of the world. Now, what is this reconciliation that the Bhagavadgita offers us? What is its message to mankind, to humankind, to everyone? The message is precisely the message of duty because we are faced with a problem of what we are expected to do in this world after we are born.

The whole of our life is one of action. From birth to death we are in a network of activity, some meaningful, some appearing to be meaningless. Even babies we active, though to the adult it may look childish, senseless, idiotic and meaningless. It is activity that seeps into the very essence of our temporal being and we are expected to do something; we are impelled to act and do something or the other from morning till evening, whether or not we are inclined to intelligently understand the implications of an action.

This was exactly what Bhagavan Sri Krishna told Arjuna: You have to act and you will act, whether or not you have an inner inclination to be for it or against it. You have not the right to say, “I shall act”; you also have not the right to say, “I shall not act.” And in a similar vein, the great lawgiver Manu tells us in his Smriti: Neither are you to say, “How beautiful is life, how grand is life, how dear is life,” nor are you to say, “How stupid is life, how idiotic is life, how ugly is life,” because both these statements are born of a misunderstanding. Life is neither beautiful nor ugly, it is neither dear nor dreadful; it is an impersonal presentation of values which we have to take in the way in which it is presented before us at any given stage of life under any given moment or circumstance.

One of the difficulties in understanding the gospel of the Bhagavadgita or any such message is that we are expected to think here in an absolutely reoriented fashion. A new educational value is presented to us. One of the things, or perhaps the most important thing that the Bhagavadgita tells us is that we have to think in a new fashion altogether, and the greatest knowledge conceivable is perhaps the art of thinking correctly. Knowledge does not mean the study of Plato or Kant or Sankara or Ramanuja. Knowledge is the system of thinking correctly, and we are masters of not thinking correctly. Why? Because we have been caught up in a muddle of circumstances whose values we cannot properly understand; and the relationship we bear with whom, we understand much less.

To come to the crux of the whole matter, we cannot easily understand our relationship with the world. This is our difficulty; and therefore, we cannot understand our relationship with other people in the world. Therefore, also, we cannot understand our relationship with God. Everything is a confusion, and this confusion is called samsara. In Sanskrit we have a very beautiful word – samsara. “I am caught up in samsara” means, “I am caught up in a mess, a muddle, a mire, a confused state of affairs,” which is what Arjuna cries out at the very outset in the First Chapter of the Bhagavadgita. “I am confused. I cannot understand what is right, what is wrong, what is proper and improper. What am I to do now?” This is the question which Arjuna posed before Bhagavan Sri Krishna, and every one of us is posing the very same question. What is my duty here? There is only one question before us into which we can boil all other questions of life: the question of what we are supposed to do in this world after we are born. What am I to do, what are you to do, what is anyone to do?

The Bhagavadgita is the answer. It is very difficult to give a complete conspectus of everything the Bhagavadgita says, but we can pinpoint the essential emphasis of the Bhagavadgita in this context, namely, our duty is to harmonise ourselves with the environment in which we are living. Harmony is called yoga – samatvaṁ yoga ucyate (Gita 2.48) – and the action that proceeds from our personality on the basis of this understanding is called karma yoga.

What is karma yoga? It is an intelligent action, not a foolish action; it is an action that is engendered by a correct understanding of all the factors involved in our relationship with the entire atmosphere in which we are placed. This is a very difficult thing. You may be thinking, “What is it that you are saying? How am I to understand the implications of all the aspects of my relationship with the total atmosphere in which I am placed? What is this atmosphere?”

The Bhagavadgita tells us sankhya is to precede yoga or, in other words, knowledge is to precede action. In the terminology of the Bhagavadgita, sankhya means knowledge and yoga means action. We should not do anything without understanding what we are doing, but how are we to understand what we are doing? What is the meaning of understanding? Everybody understands what he is doing. Don’t we know what we are doing? When we get up in the morning, take our tea, go to the bazaar and purchase something, quarrel with somebody, we are doing so many things with an understanding of what we are doing, so what is the Bhagavadgita for? Everyone has knowledge of what he is doing, so in that sense the Bhagavadgita is useless.

Well, this is not the type of understanding that is expected of us. Whenever there is tension in our action, it means we have not understood the nature of our action. If an action that we perform, even if we regard it as a so-called duty, brings about an adverse reaction or sorrow as a result, it means we have not understood it, because the good cannot bring a bad result. Similia similibus curentur, as medical people tell us. There is similarity, harmony, between the means and the end. If good proceeds from us, how can the result of it be bad? How can we cry and grieve as a consequence of what we have done? “Oh, I have done so much good and yet people are abusing me and throwing stones at me.” We have not done good. We may be thinking that we have done good, but there has been a small error creeping into our goodness, on account of which Nature has revolted against us.

The Bhagavadgita says that we must act in such a manner that there is no revolt from any side as a consequence of the action that we perform. What type of revolt can we expect? God Himself can revolt against what we are doing, Nature can revolt, our own conscience may revolt, and human society may revolt. These are the four types of opposition that we can have. We must be harmonised: samatvaṁ yoga ucyate. What is the meaning of samatvam? What is harmonisation? We have to be harmonised with what is visible as well as invisible. The principle of right action is mentioned in the Eighteenth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, which also tells, at the same time, what is wrong action.

As we are concerned with the principle of right action, we may consider what the Bhagavadgita tells us in respect of this issue. What is right action? It is that motivation and activity which is based on a proper assessment in proper proportion of the factors that are involved, factors that are contributory to the success of an action. An action becomes successful when the causes of that action are properly harmonised. If the causes of the action are not properly harmonised, there will not be success of the action. There will be only failure.

What are the causes of an action? The Eighteenth Chapter tells us this in one of its verses. We are wrongly under the impression that we are the causes of the action. Everyone thinks, “I do this work. I go there, I come here, I say this, I want this, I do not want this,” and so on. This is egoistic action, as the Bhagavadgita tells us. If we are convinced that we are independently, individually the source of all the activities that proceed from us, we are egoists because we have disregarded all the other factors that were contributory to the action.

Medical people know that 450 or so muscles are working when we stand up on our two legs. When we stand up, these 450 muscles are very active and very conscious that we are standing; otherwise, we will fall down. But who is aware of this fact? We think we are standing, but it is not so simple an affair. Not merely this, the brain is active, the heart is active, the lungs are active, the alimentary canal, the respiratory system – everything is active when we are merely standing up. In that simple act of standing, so many factors are involved that we are unaware of. And to understand the various factors of an action is even more difficult.

The Bhagavadgita tells us that action does not wholly proceed from our personality, though our personality is the channel of the projection of the action. It is only a channel of the motivation of a wider force which is invisible to the senses. An electric bulb is shining here. Can we say it is only the bulb that is responsible for the light? There is a filament inside which is heated up by a force which is called electricity. Where is the electricity? It is coming through a wire. From where has the wire come? It was manufactured by somebody. And who has fitted it? Somebody else. What is its connection with the powerhouse, and who is working there? So many people. What are they doing? With so many machines, many things are done. And how is electricity generated? So many other scientific factors are involved. With all these considerations, we have a little twinkling of light here.

And the Bhagavadgita tells us, “My dear friend, so many things are involved in a single action of yours, of which you are unaware; therefore, you are mostly not successful in your actions.” Adhiṣṭhānaṁ tathā kartā karaṇaṁ ca pṛthagvidham, vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭā daivaṁ caivātra pañcamam (Gita 18.14). At least five factors are mentioned among the many others that can be conceived in this context. Adhisthana is the complex of this psychophysical organism. That must be in proper order. The body should be healthy, the mind should be sane. If there is a sick body with jaundiced eyes and an insane mind, what will happen if activity proceeds from it? We know very well the consequence. The adhisthana, or the basis or repository, should be well prepared. And karta is the individualised form of consciousness which is the medium through which action is manifest. In our case it is the intellect from which the ego is inseparable. The intellect should have made a proper judgment beforehand, prior to the conclusion that such and such a step has to be taken in the form of an action. Judgment precedes action. We do not suddenly rush in where angels fear to tread.

Karaṇaṁ ca pṛthagvidham: The various instruments of action are also to be correct. Suppose a scientist in a laboratory is using a very powerful microscope in order to study atoms, electrons, and so on, and goes on peeping into the microscope very carefully throughout the day. But if the microscope is not properly made, and he himself has cataracts in his eyes, what will he see through the microscope? He will come to a very wrong scientific conclusion, and will proclaim this wrong conclusion to the newspapers. Blunderous results will follow. His eyes must be healthy, and his instruments should be properly fitted. Karana is the instrument. It should be healthy and properly made.

Vividhāś ca pṛthakceṣṭā: The motive behind the action also comes. Why are we doing this action? The motive is the moral force, meaning or significance that is behind an action, and it colours the action to a large extent, if not entirely.

Daivaṁ caivātra pañcamam: There is a very, very important fifth factor. As Shakespeare has put it, there is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how you will. Whatever be our effort, whatever be our sweating, there is something else that decides the fate of our action. Whatever be the argument of an advocate in a court, the deciding factor is the judge. The judge will hear the arguments from both sides and finally, he is the deciding factor. Now, we will have a doubt in our mind: “Will God decide against my motive? Then it is very pitiable. Suppose I do something and God simply disposes of the entire motive of my action; what is the good of my doing anything? This is a sorrowful state of affairs.”

Samatvaṁ yoga ucyate: Again the same principle of action, harmony, is here called yoga. Harmony is the will of God. This is an essential factor in any kind of successful action. God will not act against us if our will is united with the divine will. The law will not punish us if our action is in consonance with the law. Why should the law punish us? It is because we go against it. We curse the law. “Oh, stupid thing, the law is harassing me.” Why does it harass us? Because we do not know what it means and we do not want to follow its mandates. We have a law of our own, contrary to the prevailing law, so why should it not trouble us? Whose mistake is it?

Therefore divine will, God’s dispensation, is not against man’s motivation of action, and God’s will is the ultimate fruit-yielding factor in all activities of the individual. We sow the seed, manure the sapling, take care of the plant and see that the tree grows, but the fruit comes out of the tree due to the will of a universal power, with which our will has to be united.

What is meant by saying we must be in harmony with the atmosphere and environment of our action, with all conceivable factors, in order that our action may be successful? Can we conceive all the factors? No. We are not sufficiently educated. Therefore, we fail in our action. We cannot exercise our mind to such an extent that we can understand the operation of all the factors involved in an action and, therefore, many of our actions go abortive, producing no result whatsoever. Not merely that, sometimes the result of the action that we performed comes back upon us like a boomerang and we cry, “Oh, what has happened to me? Is this the result of my good deeds?” Well, we must have done a very good deed from our own limited point of view, but we have forgotten to put on the ultimate switch. The powerhouse is working, the wire is there, the bulb is fitted, but we have forgotten to put on the switch, so how will there be illumination?

The ultimate switch is the will of God, and the function of God’s will may be hampered by the obtrusive factor of our egoism. This is what we call Satan in religious language, Mara in Buddhist terminology, or Maya in Hindu parlance – self-affirmation. In biblical parlance we are told that Satan fell from the Garden of Eden. How did he fall? By the affirmation of his ego. “I am equal to God, if not greater than God.” He immediately fell into the nether regions. The greatest devil conceivable is the ego. The Yoga Vasishtha says that ahamkara is the self-affirmation of the individual, contradistinguishing it from the universal will of God. But why should we forget the simple truth that anything that is universal should be inclusive of all that is particular? How comes the need for the affirmation of the individual factor called egoism when the universal is operating? Do we want the ego to operate independently of the universal? Wonderful is this knowledge.

What do we mean by universal? That which is inclusive of all the particulars and individual factors is the universal. When that is operating, why should the individual assert itself separately? That very fact of the operation of the individual independently is a denial of the operation of the universal. This is the mistake that we commit in the performance of any of our actions.

So the gospel of the Bhagavadgita clinches the matter by telling us in its clear-cut language that ignorance of the law is no excuse. “Oh, I did not know it. I am sorry.” We should not say that. If we are sorry, well, we have to bear the fruit of it. We touch the live wire and say, “I am sorry; I didn’t know it is a live wire.” Well, all right, if we didn’t know it is a live wire, now we know it.

To reiterate the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, knowledge, sankhya, should precede yoga, action. The reaction of good and bad does not impinge upon the individual when there is rootedness of the individual in buddhi marga, the yoga of understanding. But we do not want to understand because an understanding in the correct or proper manner goes against the pleasures of the ego and the senses. We are more slaves of the senses and the ego than devotees of God. Though we are chanting through the lips, “O Lord, Thy kingdom come,” how will it come? Nothing will come. Only our sorrow will come. Why? Because what we have sown, that alone can we reap. We sow the seed of thistles and expect a beautiful mango to come out of the plant. Nothing will come. Śreyaś ca preyaś ca manuṣyam etas tau samparītya vivinakti dhīraḥ (Katha 1.2.2) says the Katha Upanishad. Sreyas and preyas are two different things altogether. The pleasures of the senses and the satisfactions of the ego are not always in consonance with the delight of divinity or the bliss of God.

The last verse of the Bhagavadgita, which figuratively tells us that Bhagavan Sri Krishna and Arjuna jointly take up arms against the evil forces of the world, incidentally points out that the individual should be united with the universal. In every one of its actions, in every stage of its evolution, at any given moment of time, we are always in a state of yoga. Yoga is not only in the temple or in the meditation hall. It is also in the marketplace, in the shop, and in the bathroom because we may die in the bathroom itself. Do we think we will die only in the meditation hall? That is a very good thing if it happens, but we may die in the marketplace. What will happen then? We are thinking of stupid things in the shop and at that time our prana goes. What will happen? They say the last thought determines the future life of a person.

Nityayukta is the word used in the Bhagavadgita: Permanently united with that which is true, such a person is called a yogi. Who is a yogi? That person who is hiddenly, perpetually united with the real, that which is true, is a yogi. What is true? What is it that we call the true with which we are supposed to be permanently united? Anything that is contributory to the revelation of the next higher stage of the universal in our consciousness, that is the true as far as we are concerned.

There are stages of truth. There are degrees of reality. And every next degree, every higher stage of it is to be regarded as true from the point of view of the immediately lower one. Ultimately, the largest universal is God-consciousness which, again, is not a bifurcation of the religious or the spiritual from the temporal but a recognition of the union of the transcendent and the immanent at the same time – a difficult thing to conceive, once again. Our culture, our religion, our spirituality always insists on a union of the transcendent and the immanent, God there and God here. He is not only in the heavens or in Vaikunta, He is also in every atom of creation. He is the farthest of the far and the nearest of the near. Tad dure vad antike (Isa 5), says the Isavasya Upanishad. And unless we learn the art of this reconciliation, which is the most difficult thing to do, there will be no joy in life.

Samsara becomes moksha. The very thing that is before us becomes divinity shining before us. The veil is lifted when the sensory interpretation of values gives place to a spiritual interpretation of the very same values. The particularised interpretation gives place to the universalised interpretation. ‘I’ and ‘my’ vanish; He or It takes possession of us totally. Like camphor vanishing in the radiance that its flame shoots forth, leaving no residue, the individual will melt into the Universal. Arjuna will melt into Krishna so that he may finally be the only deciding factor and the Reality. Paśya me yogam aiśvaram (Gita 11.8) says the Viratsvarupa: Look at Me. I am everywhere, and in Me is everything contained. Both the Pandavas and the Kauravas are also there – the friends and the enemies are included, the positive and the negative factors are all fused into a single focus of divine radiance.

Thus, the outcome of all this seems to be that yoga is a very difficult thing. It is not for Tom, Dick and Harry. It is a tremendous sacrifice that we perform and a dying to our little self so that we may live in the Eternal that is in us. Die to live, as Sri Gurudev used to say. And we need not despair in a mood of misunderstanding that when God takes possession of us we shall lose the joys of life. Nothing of the kind. The joys of life are reflections of the eternal bliss, and the reflection is naturally contained, if not completely transmuted, in the original.

The Bhagavadgita anticipates, as it were, the famous saying of Jesus Christ: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” All these things shall be added. They are not going to be removed from us. This is the gospel of true religion, the real spirituality of godliness manifest in humanity, the implanting of the Universal values in every little bit of particular action, mode of thought and speech. This is to bring God down to the Earth, as it were, and to live the life spiritual in the most secular conceivable form of our life. In this sense it is that it can be said that the Bhagavadgita is a universal gospel, not meant for any particular ism or religion but for every created being which aspires to go back to its original source – the gospel of God to man.

With these few humble words may I conclude, simultaneously offering my prayers that the invisible seeing multiple eyes of the Supreme Being bless us all with His abundant grace that we live true to our own selves, which is at once to live true to the values that everyone else also holds as dear, and to the ultimate value that God Himself regards as finally Real.

[Extracted from Swami Krishnananda Maharaj’s discourses Divine Life Society]

The Gospel of the Bhagavadgita

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