Bhagawad Gita Ch2. Verses: 26-32 [Swamy Chinmayananda]

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[Commentary By Swamy Chinmayananda - Typed text provided by Prof. Prabhakar

& his colleagues from IIT, Kanpur. Special thanks to Central Chinmaya

Mission Trust (CCMT) for their kind permission in using this text]

 

GRANTING THAT THE SELF IS NOT EVER-LASTING, THE LORD PROCEEDS TO

GIVE THE MATERIALISTS' POINT-OF-VIEW:

 

atha cAinaM nityajAtaM nityaM vA manyase mRtam

tathApi tvaM mahAbAho nAinaM Socitumarhasi 2.26

 

26. But even if you think of Him as being constantly born and constantly

dying, even

then, O mighty-armed, you should not grieve.

 

This and the following stanzas are arguments in which the materialists'

point-

of-view has been, for the purpose of argument, presented here by Krishna.

According to them,

direct perception alone is an authority for belief. With this standard for

their knowledge, when

they try to measure life, they have to accept it as a constant flux of

infinite-births and infinite-

deaths. Things are born; and they die away. This whirl-of-birth-and-death is

constant. And "this constant

change" is life to them. Krishna argues that, if life is but a constant

repetition of births and

deaths, then also, the hero (Mahabahu) that you are, you do not deserve to

grieve on this occasion.

ACCORDINGLY:

 

jAtasya hi dhruvo mRtyur dhruvaM janma mRtasya ca

tasmAdaparihArye 'rthe na tvaM Socitumarhasiq 2.27

 

27. Indeed, certain is death for the born, and certain is birth for the

dead;

therefore, over the inevitable, you should not grieve.

 

That which is born must die and after death things are born again. Here,

Krishna

continues to view the whole situation from the materialist angle. The

materialists take life

to be a constant flood of appearances of forms, arising from nowhere, and

disappearing into

nowhere. The theists believe that the embodiments are taken up by the

individual-ego in order

that it may eke out its experiences and learn to grow in its understanding

of life and

ultimately realise the Truth behind it all. Thus, this is a comon meeting

point of both the theists and the

atheists; that both of them believe life to be a continuous chain of birth

and death.

Thus, if life, be, in its very nature, a stream of births and deaths,

against

this inevitable arrangement, no intelligent man should moan. Standing out in

the blazing summer

sun, one must, indeed, be stupid to complain against its heat and glare.

Similarly, having come

to life, to complain against the very nature of life is, indeed, an

inexcusable stupidity.

On this score also, to weep is to admit one's own ignorance. Krishna's life,

is,

on the whole, a message of cheer and joy. His doctrine of life is an

insistence upon, "to weep

is folly and to smile is wisdom.Keep smiling" seems to be Krishna's

philosophy put in two

words, and that is why, seeing his dear friend weeping in life, the Lord

gets whipped up, as it

were, to an enthusiasm to save Arjuna from his delusions, and bring him back

to the true

purpose of life.

 

THE FOLLOWING TEN VERSES GIVE THE COMMON-MAN'S VIEW. SHANKARA

SAYS, "NEITHER IS IT PROPER TO GRIEVE OVER BEINGS WHICH ARE MERE

COMBINATIONS OF (MATERIAL) CAUSES AND EFFECTS; FOR":

 

avyaktAdIni bhUtAni vyaktamadhyAni bhArata

avyaktanidhAnAnyeva tatra kA paridevanA 2.28

 

28. Beings unmanifest in the beginning, and unmanifest again in their end

seem

to be manifest in the middle, O Bharata. What then is there to grieve about?

>From this stanza onwards we have a beautiful presentation of the whole

problem

of Arjuna from the stand-point of the man-of-the-world. In these ten verses

Krishna explains

the problem as viewed through the goggles of a common man of the world and

valued by his

intellectual judgement.

 

The material world of objects strictly follows the law of causation. The

world

of "effects" rises from the world of "causes." In a majority of cases, the

effects are manifest and

the causes are unmanifest. 'To project from the unmanifest to the manifest'

is the programme of

creation of a thing, strictly following the Law of Causation.

 

Thus, the manifest-world of today was unmanifest before its creation; and

now

for the time being, it is available for cognition as fully manifest, only to

fade away soon

into the unmanifest again. It amounts to saying that the present came from

the UNKNOWN and shall

return to the UNKNOWN. Even if viewed thus, why should one moan; for, the

spokes of a wheel

that turns eternally must COME DOWN only to RISE UP again.

Again, the dream-children, unmanifest before, and which came to

manifestation

during the dream, become unmanifest again on waking up. Why moan, you

bachelor, for a wife

whom you had never married, who had disappeared with your dream, the

children unborn, who

dissolved away with your dream?

 

If there be, as Krishna says, an Infinite, Eternal, Truth which is

Changeless

and Deathless, in which alone this drama of change occurs, this

whirl-of-birth-and-death spins,

how is it that we are not able to realise It even though it is explained to

us repeatedly?

According to Shankara, Lord Krishna here feels that He should not blame

Arjuna for his incapacity to

understand the Self.

 

SHANKARA SAYS, "THE SELF JUST SPOKEN OF IS VERY DIFFICULT TO

REALISE. WHY SHOULD I BLAME YOU ALONE, WHILE THE CAUSE,

IGNORANCE, IS COMMON TO ALL?" ONE MAY ASK: HOW IS IT THAT THE SELF

IS SO DIFFICULT TO REALISE? THE LORD SAYS:

 

AScaryavat paSyati kaScidenam AScaryavad vadati tathAiva cAnyaH

AScaryavaccAunam anyaH SRNoti SrutvApyenaM veda na cAiva kaScit 2.29

 

29. One sees This as a wonder; another speaks of This as a wonder; another

hears

of This as a wonder; yet, having heard none understands This at all!

 

The Eternal Absolute is explained to us as Infinite, All-knowing and All-

blissful. Our experience of ourselves is that we are finite, ignorant and

miserable. Thus, between the

Reality, which is our Self, and what we experience ourselves to be, there

seems to be as much

difference as between heat and cold, light and darkness. Why is it that we

are not able to recognise

the Self, which is our Real Nature?

 

In our ignorance, when we try to perceive the Truth, it seems to be a goal

to be

reached at some distant place, in a distant period of time. But in fact, if

we are to

believe the Lord's words, the Self being our essential nature, we are never

far from It. A mortal is as

far away from Immortality --- the sinner is as far removed from a Saint ---

the imperfect is

as far removed from Perfection --- as a dreamer is from the waker.

Man awakened to the Self's Glory is God; God forgetful of His own glory is

the

deluded man!

 

To the ego, the very existence of the subtler Self beyond the body, mind and

intellect is an idea that cannot even be conceived of, and, when a mortal,

through the techniques of

self-perfection, comes to recognise himself to be the Self, he is struck

with a wondrous ecstasy

of that supra-sensuous experience.

 

The emotion of wonder, when it rises in the mind, has the capacity to

black-out,

for the time being, all cognitions, and the individual who has been struck

with wonder,

forgets himself and becomes, for the moment, one with the very emotion. As

an experiment, try to

completely surprise somebody, and quietly watch his attitude. With mouth

open and his

unseeing eyes protruding out, every nerve in him stretched to the highest

tension, the victim-

of-wonderment stands fixed to the spot as a statue carved in moist, cold,

flesh. The same is

the thrilled hush of lived joy in the Temple of Experience, when the Self,

all alone with the Self,

comes to live as the Self. And, therefore, the great Rishis of old borrowed

the term 'wonderment' to

indicate to the student what exactly would be the condition of his

personality layers at the

moment when his ego drops off from the resplendent Infinite Form of the

Self.

True knowledge makes a man realise that he is "The Soul with a body," but

now in

his ignorance, he thinks that he is a "body with a soul." Those who LISTEN

well are

encouraged to REFLECT on what they have heard and to MEDITATE until they

realise the Self. The

unintelligent listeners also feel encouraged, by the very same statement

expressing the rarity of

this knowledge, to make repeated attempts at listening (shravana),

continuous

reflection (manana) and long contemplation (nididhyasana).

 

HERE THE LORD CONCLUDES THE SUBJECT OF THIS SECTION, THUS:

 

dehI nityaM avadhyo 'yaM dehe sarvasya bhArata

tasmAt sarvANi bhUtAni na tvaM Socitumarhasi 2.30

 

30. This, the Indweller in the body of everyone is ever indestructible, O

Bharata; and, therefore, you should not grieve for any creature.

The subtle Reality in each body, the indwelling Spirit in every creature is

Eternal and Indestructible. All that is destroyed is only the container, the

finite matter

envelopment. Therefore, Arjuna has been advised that he should not grieve at

facing his

enemies and in the great battle, even killing them, if need be. To bring out

this idea, the entire

earlier section has been used by Krishna wherein he argued so well to

establish the Eternal nature

of the soul and the finite nature of the bodies. Shankara rightly concludes

that this stanza

winds up the entire section opened in verse 11.

 

HERE IN THIS VERSE, IT HAS BEEN SHOWN THAT FROM THE STANDPOINT OF

ABSOLUTE TRUTH, THERE IS NO OCCASION FOR GRIEF AND ATTACHMENT.

NOT ONLY FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ABSOLUTE TRUTH, BUT ALSO:

 

svadharmamapi chaavekshya na vikampitumarhasi .

dharmyaaddhi yuddhaach{}chhreyo.anyatkshatriyasya na vidyate .. 2.31..

 

31. Further, looking at thine own duty thou oughtest not to waver, for there

is

nothing higher for a KSHATRIYA than a righteous war.

 

Arjuna's personal call-of-character (Swadharma) is that of a leader of his

generation (Kshatriya) and as such, when his generation is called upon to

answer a

challenge of an organised un-Aryan force (Adharma), it is his duty not to

waver but to fight and

defend his sacred national culture.

 

To the leaders of people, there can be nothing nobler than to get a glorious

chance to fight for a righteous cause. Here Arjuna has been called upon to

fight a righteous war

wherein his enemies are the true aggressors. Therefore, it is said that such

a chance comes, indeed,

only to a lucky few. That a king must fight on such an occasion is vividly

brought out in the

Mahabharata.

 

AND REGARDING OTHER REASONS WHY THE BATTLE SHOULD BE FOUGHT,

THE LORD SAYS:

 

yadR^ich{}chhayaa chopapanna.n svargadvaaramapaavR^itam.h .

sukhinaH kshatriyaaH paartha labhante yuddhamiidR^isham.h .. 2.32..

 

32. Happy indeed are the KSHATRIYAS, O Partha, who are called to fight in

such a

battle, that comes of itself as an open-door to heaven.

 

As used here, Kshatriya is not the name of a caste. It merely indicates a

certain quality of the mental vasanas in the individual. Those who have an

ever-bubbling enthusiasm to

defend the weak and the poor, besides their own national culture from all

threats of

aggression, are called Kshatriyas. Such leaders of men are not allowed to be

tyrants and aggressors

themselves, according to the code of morality of the Hindus. But, at the

same time, a cold,

feminine and cowardly non-resistance is not the spirit of the Hindu

tradition. In all cases

where the Hindu nation is forced to wage a war on principles of

righteousness (Upapannam) the

leaders of India are ordered to fight in defence of their culture and to

consider themselves

fortunate to get the chance to serve the country. Such battle-fields are the

wide-open gates to

Heaven for the defending heroes who fight diligently on the side of Dharma.

It is interesting to note how Lord Krishna, in the scheme of his

exhortations,

comes down slowly from the highest pinnacles of Vedantic ideologies to the

lower plane of material

philosophy, and still lower down to the point-of-view of an average worldly

man. From all these

different levels, he views the problem and presents Arjuna with the same

logical conclusion that

the war must be fought.

 

IT IS INDEED A FACT THAT IT IS YOUR DUTY, AND NOW IN CASE YOU

RENOUNCE IT AND RUN AWAY FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD, THEN: