THE RELEVANCE OF THE BHAGAVADGITA TO HUMANITY SWAMI KRISHNANANDA The Divine Life Society Sivananda Ashram, Rishikesh, India Website: www.swami-krishnananda.org Publishers’ Note This is a series of 31 discourses on the relevance of the Bhagavadgita to humanity that Sri Swami Krishnanandaji Maharaj gave to the students of the Yoga Vedanta Forest Academy between November 1984 to January 1985. The Bhagavadgita was a favorite subject of Sri Swamiji Maharaj, and he never tired of speaking on it, yet every series of discourses that Swamiji gave is new and fresh, taking a different approach from other series that have been given on this subject. 2 Table of Contents Publisher's Note Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: The Sabha Parva of the Mahabharata Chapter 3: The Aranya Parva of the Mahabharata Chapter 4: Stories from the Aranya Parva Chapter 5: The Udyoga Parva of the Mahabharata Chapter 6: Beauty and Duty in the Bhagavadgita Chapter 7: Can War Ever be Justified? Chapter 8: The Realism and Idealism of the Bhagavadgita Chapter 9: The Classification of Society Chapter 10: The Need for Sankhya Chapter 11: Participating with the Intention of the Universe Chapter 12: Control of the Senses Chapter 13: The Supremely Friendly Power Chapter 14: The Coming of God as an Incarnation Chapter 15: Seeing the Eternity in the Temporal Chapter 16: Understanding the Essence of the Mind Chapter 17: The Meaning and Purpose of Sacrifice Chapter 18: Reconciling Knowledge and Action Chapter 19: Knowledge and Action are One Chapter 20: The Arising of the Concept of Unity Chapter 21: The Two Ways of Yoga Chapter 22: The Integration of Sannyasa and Yoga Chapter 23: Introduction to the Sixth Chapter Chapter 24: Sannyasa and Yoga are One Chapter 25: The Lower Self and the Higher Self Chapter 26: Being Spiritually Alone to Oneself Chapter 27: The Practice of Meditation Chapter 28: Sitting for Meditation Chapter 29: The Yoga of the Bhagavadgita Chapter 30: Communion with Eternity Chapter 31: The Message of the Sixth Chapter 3 Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION We are assembling here to form a system of what we may call a refreshing of ourselves in the art of thinking along the lines which may lead us to a satisfaction that we have lived our life properly, because one day the earthly life comes to an end and we are likely to enter into a field of a new way of living, for which we have to be prepared. The possibility of entering into that new field is not necessarily a distant event, and no one knows the nature of one’s tomorrow. Hence, it is incumbent on every one of us to be prepared, at every moment almost, to receive the call of life, we may call it the call of God, because any moment can be the last moment of a human being. Why we do not believe it is a different subject, which we may have time to consider at some time in the near future. Why is it that in spite of it being possible that any moment can be the last moment, no one can accept it? That is a secret that is hidden behind this phenomenon of the transiency of all things. This is an ashram where an atmosphere has been created by its founder for providing psychological, intellectual and spiritual facilities for the purpose of awakening oneself to this fact, and living that mode of life which is acceptable to the law that is operating everywhere. It is generally said that he who obeys the law has no fear of the law. Law is a source of fear when it is disobeyed. It appears that we are mostly in a state of fear due to our not knowing what is going to be our fate in the future, and fears and anxieties of this type may be attributed to our not being fully confident that we are aware of the nature of the law that operates in the world. A person who does not know what law is operating is likely to make a mistake. An ignorance of law may breed a particular kind of problem. A visible problem may have to be encountered by a person who is uneducated in the operation of law. There is only one law operating in the whole universe, though we have different laws operating in man-made national situations. National laws differ; country laws differ. There are even minor laws of communities and small societies which differ from one another, and these differences can be attributed to the habits, traditions and customs of a group of people in certain regions. But these are all conditioned laws, conditioned to circumstances which may be anthropological, historical, geographical, and the like. But there is a superior law which envelops all these laws, in the same way as the law of the nation, as laid down in the central constitution and its further regulations, determines, conditions, and presides over every other little law which one may have in one’s own family or community, in one’s house, in the little provinces, and so on. We may have little customs and systems and regulations of living which may not be identical with those that are prevalent in other areas in the same country, yet, nevertheless, they are all ruled by a single administrative law of the whole nation. 4 In a similar manner, there is one law which decides the way in which subsidiary laws should be framed. Even our eating habits and our modes of behaviour, conduct and relations are conditioned by it. It is not that we can live as we like. We have a freedom, and every citizen in a country has a freedom. We are all free people. Everyone is free. We do not look like criminals or shackled persons. Everyone is aware of some sort of freedom. We can do certain things according to our wish and according to our freedom. But this free will of ours, this freedom that is sanctioned, is conditioned by certain norms of behaviour which we cannot violate. So even freedom can be limited by certain sanctions. In a sense, we may say there is limited freedom. But we need not be very much concerned over this limitation that is set over our freedom because it is necessary that individual freedom should be so limited in the interest of a larger welfare, because if this limitation is not to be imposed on the sanctioned freedom of the individual, there would be a tendency to assume an infinitude of that freedom. Infinites cannot be two; there is one infinite. If we assume an infinitude of our freedom, another person cannot exist, because our freedom will swallow everybody else. This erroneous tendency is sometimes visible in morbid thinkers like tyrants, dictators and despots who assume a kind of infinitude of freedom, by which behaviour they are erroneously united in that everyone else is subsumed under them as their satellites, as it were, and one man can do anything to anybody else. This is a kind of Caesarean despotism, as they call it, which is freedom going amok. No individual can be free in that sense, because infinitude of freedom sanctioned to a particular individual may defy such a necessity felt by other individuals. Then existence would be nothing but chaos. Now, inasmuch as everyone is aware that the welfare of each person is, to a large extent, determined by the welfare of other people also – we are sure that the welfare of other people is also, in some way, a deciding factor in our welfare – it follows from this that there is limitation on the freedom that we exercise by the mere fact of the existence of other people who also are free, as we are. The freedom of another is the limitation on our freedom. This is simple to understand. If another person is free, that freedom of that person is a limitation set on our freedom. Now, we cannot complain that this is a bad state of affairs. It is good to limit our freedom because, in a very strange way, we will be able to appreciate that the freedom, even apparently limited in that manner sanctioned to all people, will bring about a larger security of all. Actually, cooperation or coordination of people is nothing but a sacrifice, on each one’s part, of one’s freedom to the extent that it is necessary to allow that kind of freedom to other people also. This is a generous way of thinking, a liberal way of thought, and a charitableness of feeling, which is not merely a niggardly concession that we are giving to other people, but it is essential for our own welfare also. When we are good to another person, we are not showing a high-handed, royal gesture of charitableness. It is not a superior attitude that we are assuming by our charity to other people. It is a necessity on our part, because we also expect charity from other people, so we cannot assume an air of importance in 5 this world of coordination and cooperation. There is no one important in this world and, therefore, there is also no one unimportant. The world is a community of ingredients, components, who are equally essential for the working of the machinery of this largely pervasive law of the cosmos. Some modern thinkers consider the whole administration of creation as a kind of management of a cosmic society. I saw an advertisement of a book written by an American scholar.