Gitasatsangh

[Guest guest]

Friends

I am happy to know that the Gitasatsangh will start again. During the

last round (Chapters 1 to 7) I was in India and I was not able to

benefit by it because of poor internet connections. Now that I am in

the U.S. I look forward to fully benefit from it. Just to add my 2

cents. worth, I am reproducing below a half-hour lecture that I gave

on Channel 28 on the TV in New Castle, DE three weeks ago. As it was

intended as a quick summary of the entire Gita for the lay American,

it was called Gita in a single capsule. Maybe this can be treated as

a jumping board for the ensuing satsangh which however will start

with the eighth chapter. So here it is:

 

Gita in a single capsule:

 

Bhagavad-gita in a single capsule

 

We are going to talk about the Bhagavad-Gita. Bhagavan means the Lord

Absolute. Gita means The Song. It is the Divine Song of the Lord. It

is a poem of 700 verses in Sanskrit. It occurs in the largest epic of

the world, known as the Mahabharata. The events described in this

epic are historical events that happened five thousand years ago.

They were chronicled in the form of an epic some time after that.

The latter half of the epic describes the Great War that took place,

in which almost every king in India and his army were involved.

Arjuna the foremost warrior of the younger generation of the times

and his four brothers and their allies were on one side. On the

opposite side were aligned the one hundred cousins of Arjuna, their

allies, their massive armies, as well as their grandfather-symbol

Bhishma, the famous veteran whom the entire country feared and

revered. He was also the grandfather-symbol of Arjuna. Preparations

had been made for this war months in advance and Arjuna himself had

been getting ready for this war years in advance. But at the crucial

moment, almost at the time of the blowing of the whistle, he decides

to retreat. He says it is wrong to fight with elders, the

grandfather, the teachers, and all these relatives. Compassion

overwhelms him and he declares that he would rather retire to the

forest as a renouncer, than kill his own kith and kin and his elders.

Let me be killed by them, says he, and he throws away his bow and

arrow. Lord Krishna was his charioteer. He tries to put Arjuna back

on the track by saying elementary things like: Arjuna, this is not

the time to retreat, people will think of you as a coward, you are a

great warrior, get up and fight. No, says Arjuna, I won’t. Let me

entreat you, Oh Lord, tell me clearly what is good for me. To fight

or not to fight, that is the question. Teach me O Lord, as to what is

right.

Krishna begins his long sermon with a philosophical note. Do not

grieve, Arjuna, over things which are perishable. The soul is

imperishable. It does not die. Nobody can harm it or damage it. What

you see before you is only the outer self of everybody. Only the

outer self dies. The inner Self is the imperishable soul. If you are

in oneness with your Inner Self, then no grief can affect you. No sin

will touch you. Merits and demerits touch only the outer self. Your

outer self belongs to the warrior class. By nature you are a

warrior-king. Your duty is to fight on the side of justice. You know

you are on the side of justice. So you have to do your duty. Your

duty now is to fight. You cannot retreat from that duty. But while

doing your duty, let me tell you, never bring in any of the attitudes

of the outer self. Anger, hate, jealousy, attachment, all pertain to

the outer self. Do not be angry, do not hate, do not be clouded by

attachment to things of the outer world, do not think of revenge, but

fight. Do your duty of fighting as if you are an actor on the stage.

What happens on the stage because of your action on the stage should

not worry the real you. The real you is your Inner Self. It is known

as the Atman. Pleasure and pain, like and dislike, happiness and

misery, heat and cold, friend and foe, honour and dishonour– all

these dualities are only for the outer self. Your Inner Self,

namely, the Atman, is never affected by these dualities of life or of

the world.

When Krishna goes on in this fashion, Arjuna asks a relevant

question: If I am supposed to be in oneness with my Inner Self, why

do you then ask me to fight? Let me go and sit quietly in oneness

with my Inner Self. Krishna says: That will never happen. Sitting

quietly, you will be thinking about all the happenings in your life.

That is not oneness with your Inner Self. No man can sit quietly

without even thinking. If you just make a show of physical

renuciation, but keep on mentally dwelling on everything of the

world, then you are only a hypocrite. What is wanted is mental

renunciation. Though you are involved in all actions of the world,

you should be mentally away from them. This means you should not

attach yourself to any of your thoughts or actions. This is the great

yoga of action. Yoga means the most efficient way of doing things.

I taught this yoga to the Sun-God long ago, says Krishna. Arjuna

immediately jumps on him and says: Krishna, you were born only two

years before me; do you want me to believe that you taught this to

the Sun-God? At this point, namely the fourth chapter of the Gita,

which has 18 chapters in all, the Lord begins to talk in an inspiring

style. Upto this point the Gita reads like a philosophical discourse,

carefully recorded by the recorder. But from here onwards it becomes

a revealed scripture, given out by the very Lord Absolute. Arjuna,

says the Lord, you do not know it, but I know, that you and I have

taken many births and I know them all. Every time Good suffers

terribly and the Bad predominates heavily, I come down on earth in

person and manifest myself for the protection of the good and the

destruction of evil. Know that I am the Absolute. I created this

world and all the diverse varieties of nature. But know also that

nothing touches me nor am I attached to any of my creations. You also

be like Me. Be in oneness with your Inner Self and do all of your

duties; nothing will touch you or pollute you. This living in

identity with your Inner Self will give you the attitude of

equanimity. An equanimous view of everything that you come across,

whether it is men or material, is the ultimate goal of life.

To obtain a firm hold of this equanimous view for ourselves, sit in

meditation, says the Lord. But Arjuna points out: How can one control

the mind and sit in meditation? The mind is so fickle that it does

not stay with one object consistently. The Lord replies: Yes, you are

right. The mind is fickle; it is in fact villainous, it won’t obey

you. Know therefore that you should be in the driver seat of this

vehicle, that is the body-mind-intellect. Every time the mind

misbehaves, bring it back to the equanimous position by using your

discretionary intellect. You have to do this constantly and

continuously. Never chicken out. You may have to carry on this

struggle life after life until you succeed. Succeed you will, if you

have My Grace.

To obtain My Grace, says He, you have to first recognize that

nothing moves in this world except by My Will. I am the

Master-Director of this universe. Everything has arisen from Me and

everything will come back to Me at the time of dissolution. I am the

One that exists ever, before and after. I am the Father of this

Universe. What you see as this universe is only my show. It is only a

projection from My Power. It will vanish in due time.

Arjuna is curious. If you are everything, My Lord, show Me your form

where I can see everything. The Lord says you cannot see that cosmic

form of Mine with your physical eyes but I will give you temporarily

the spiritual eye that will open up to you My cosmic Form. And Arjuna

is blessed. He sees the Cosmic Form. A little while ago the Lord had

said: He who sees Me in everything and everything in Me, he is the

one who has the right vision. Now He shows to Arjuna that form which

proves that everything is in Him. Arjuna sees the five elements

emanating from the Lord’s form. He sees, in that form, the entire

universe with all its noblest expressions as well as the filthiest

mundane horrors. The whole vision is fantastic no doubt, but also

scaring. So Arjuna prays to the Lord to get back to his normal human

form and the Lord does so.

Now the Lord begins to explain some technicalities about how the

Absolute which is nameless and formless expresses itself as the

different multiplicities of this universe. He warns Arjuna and

through him the rest of humanity, not to see the multiplicity before

us but to seek the Oneness behind this multiplicity. It is the basic

Oneness that should be at the bottom of our minds. It is the Lord

that we should see in everything and in particular, in every being.

Once the Spirit within you and the Spirit within the other man is

realised to be the same, then there is no difficulty in loving each

other. Jesus says: Love your neighbour. Here is the reason for that.

Your neighbour and You are the same in spiritual essence. The basic

Oneness is easy to recognize if one transcends the three basic

qualities of Man. When in your bone of bones you feel a sense of glow

that gives you satisfaction, like when you have done a noble deed,

know that the divine quality is uppermost in you. When tendencies

like greed, jealously, lust and anger shoot up, know that the

dynamic vibrant qualities of Man are uppermost in you. When laziness,

disinterest, depression and ignorance are the order of the day in

you, know that the dull qualities of Man are uppermost. Each man is a

mixture of all the three tendencies: divinely noble, vibrantly

restless and indolently dull. But the Lord says: The wise man

transcends all these three qualities. He is the One who can see the

Oneness of the Lord amidst all the multiplicities of the Universe.

Immediately Arjuna asks the question: How does one know that one has

transcended the three fundamental qualities? And Krishna replies:

Whether it is enlightenment, or involvement or delusion one should

not hate what has come into one’s experience and one should not

desire what has been missed in one’s experience. Such a person,

Krishna says, is the one who is earmarked for ultimate Salvation.This

is the final teaching of the Gita.

Krishna himself sums up in the last chapter by saying: Each man has

gone through several lives and has picked up several mental imprints

of thoughts actions and experiences and has brought them to the

present life in the form of mental tendencies. These constitute the

man’s nature in this life. If this nature helps in doing good and

noble things well and good. If this nature only takes you into

undesirable channels of activity, then you have to fight it

internally. There is no other way. Arjuna, says the Lord, your

inborn nature is the nature of a fighter. You cannot overcome it, do

what you will. So do your duty of fighting. But transfer all your

responsibilities to Me by keeping Me at the bottom of your heart all

the time. In other words, surrender even your will to me. Then you

become the instrument of My will and your actions will not bind you.

Your actions will indeed turn out to be automatically good for the

rest of the world because they are thereafter actions according to My

Will. Once you surrender yourself like this to Me, I will take care

of you both here and hereafter.

This is the Gita. Arjuna, at the end of all this, had no difficulty

in saying ‘Yes, I will do as you wish’. The Gita is thus an unusual

scripture where God and Man have an inimitable dialogue about what to

do in our daily life and how to do it. It is therefore most relevant

even in modern times. It applies to all of us alike, irrespective of

age, sex, race, nation, or education. There are wonderful English

translations available. Just one verse every day will take us through

the gita in the course of two years. One who has done this will not

fall back spiritually; because, that is the nature of the

irresistible impact of the Gita.

We shall therefore end up with one verse, just one verse from the

gita. It is Chapter 11, Verse no.55, the last verse in that chapter.

It says: He who does all his actions as a dedication to the Lord

Supreme, whose only goal is that Lord Supreme, who is a devotee of

the Lord from his heart of hearts, who has thrown away all

attachments, and who has no sense of enmity towards any one – he

reaches the Lord. Dedication of all actions to God is the yoga of

action. Keeping the Lord Supreme as the only goal is the Surrender

concept. Being a devotee of the Lord is the yoga of devotion. To be

free from attachments is the purpose of control and monitoring of the

senses and the ego. To bear no enmity towards any one is the

equanimous view. Thus this verse has all the five major teachings of

the gita in it. In this sense this sloka maybe taken as Gita in a

single capsule. We shall just state it in original Sanskrit just to

honour what we said just now.

 

Mat-karma-kRn-mat-paramo mad-bhaktas-sanga-varjitaH /

Nirvairas-sarva-bhUteshu yas-sa mAm eti pANDava //

 

praNAms to all advaitins,

profvk

 

 

=====

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

My website on Science and Spirituality is http://www.geocities.com/profvk/

You can access my book on Gems from the Ocean of Hindu Thought Vision and

Practice, and my father R. Visvanatha Sastri's manuscripts from the site.

 

 

 

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