It was told us that desire is the obstacle, and it is again told that desires are so powerful that they cannot be easily subdued unless we resort to the Atman, the great Reality. Is this an easy method? Is anyone going to succeed in this practice? We are weak in our understanding, no doubt, feeble in our will, and forceful in our desires. Under these circumstances, which are obvious to everyone, is there a hope at all of any substantial achievement, spiritually? Or, are we merely groping in darkness? Is it a hopeless case ultimately, if we are so fragile in our understanding and the powers of the world are so far above our head and shoulders?

Now comes a highly solacing message in the Fourth Chapter, where we are consoled by the paternal instruction and secret that things are not so bad as they appear. All this tremendous technique of the practice of Yoga detailed in the Second and Third Chapters may appear to be hard for everyone of us. But we need not be disappointed or dejected in our moods. God is the Supreme Viewer of the whole Cosmos. The Omniscience and Omnipotence of God are of such a nature that we as units inextricably involved in the Being of God will have the occasion to receive His Grace, for God moves in this world in the form of His Incarnations, manifestations, expressions, functions and activities. There is a great truth behind the working of things, which is more incomprehensible than what is available to our understanding. We are reminded of the interesting exclamation of Hamlet that there are more things in heaven and earth than our philosophy dreams of. We may rack our heads and try to understand the mysteries of things, and find that everything is a hopeless affair. We can understand nothing, finally. Yes, this may be true when we view things from one aspect, but there is another aspect; which is equally important, if not more important than the other one, viz., the power of God which surpasses the force of anything in the world. And the presence of God is immediate, and not just a remote possibility, as it may appear to our present way of thinking. God is not a future, distant, possible achievement. He is not a transcendent Creator, unreachable, unthinkable and ununderstandable. God is also deeply present inseparably from our essential essence; our soul, our self, is basically related to the Supreme Absolute. So, the law of the Absolute operates in ourselves and equally so in all things everywhere. The manner in which God works in this world is what is known as the Divine Function of the Incarnation. The way in which God descends, as it were, to the levels of the various degrees of the cosmos is the Incarnation of God, whose function is to trace back all particulars to the universal, the Absolute.

The Incarnation is a symbol of universal integration. The Divine Incarnation is the individual symbol of a universal purpose. Divine Incarnations are considered apparently as individuals but really they are universals. We are told often that they walk on earth with their feet planted on the physical level, but their heads move in the heavens. The Incarnations are universal beings and they are super-human in their knowledge and power. The distinction between an ordinary individual and a Divine Incarnation is this, that while the individual is confined in its consciousness to the operations of the sense faculties, the mind and the intellect, the Incarnation has an intuitive perception of the inter-relatedness of all things and there is a vision of the Absolute perpetually before the eyes of the Incarnation, notwithstanding the fact that it appears to have descended to the level of the particular individuals. Thus, it is difficult fully to understand the meaning of an Incarnation. We do not know how it happens. Even today we cannot easily say what it actually is. It is a miracle. Finally, one would realise that the whole thing is a marvel. Our logic has to fail in the end, a very feeble prop, which appears to be guiding us to a certain extent, but in the end it leaves us as an unreliable support. And our search for God has to be a function of our soul within, rather than an activity of the intellect or the empirical understanding. Religion is an operation of the soul, it is not philosophical or academic intellection. When we come in touch with God’s Presence even in the minutest manner we become religious, and we have been hearing oftentimes from great men that religion begins where the intellect ends. And religion in this sense is the working of God within us consciously, though, unconsciously, He works even now, in everything. We are asleep to the function of God in us. When we become awake to this working of God in ourselves, we have become religious. An unconscious movement is not to be regarded as religious action. It must be a conscious purposeful movement of the soul towards God, and a recognition of His presence in all things, as His Incarnations.

Whenever there is a crisis in the world, God is supposed to incarnate Himself. This is a ringing message of the Fourth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita, in verses which are often quoted by spiritual aspirants and religious practitioners. The responsibility of God over the universe is much more than our responsibility in regard to anything. And He is perpetually active, timelessly putting forth effort for the redemption of the universe into His Being. And what we are required to do is only to accept the Presence, ask for God, seek Him from the recesses of our being, and we shall find Him. We require faith rather than logic. And when faith is firm enough, when our search for God is sincere, when we believe in God whole-heartedly, and do not merely give a lip-sympathy to His Presence, when we cease to be professors of religion, but become embodiments of the religious consciousness, when our whole being accepts that God is, which is another way of saying that we should have faith in the working of God, religion takes possession of us, and this stage, where we become truly religious in the proper sense of the term, is the condition of the Saint, the Sage. Here we have the highest religious message given to us in a few verses in the Fourth Chapter, touching upon the compassion of God upon humanity, the universe in its entirety, the mercy that God showers upon every being and the instantaneous action of God at moments of crisis, suffering and extremist movements in the wrong direction, away from the centre of God’s Being. Whenever such a catastrophic direction is discovered anywhere in the world, God takes an instantaneous action in a timeless manner. That is how an Incarnation works and we need not be disappointed that we are weaklings and that we cannot understand. More than understanding is an acceptance of this feeling for God, the Presence of God. Faith transcends reason in a way, and religion is finally a faith of the soul, a spirit, a surrender of one’s self, which shall be the final message of the Gita when it concludes in the Eighteenth Chapter, a total submission of ourselves to the Presence of God by an acceptance of His being whole-heartedly, from our soul. This is the highest religion, and God’s Grace shall be bestowed upon us as a matter of right, and we need not be in a mood of melancholy or dejection of spirit.

Now, with this solacing religious message which is offered us in the Fourth Chapter, at its beginning, we are also introduced into the need for activities in consonance with this message, with this state of religious living. The emphasis that we find laid everywhere throughout the Chapters of the Bhagavadgita is that we should not suddenly imagine that we are in the topmost level. We have to be cautious in recognising where we stand at any given moment of time. And the Gita makes it clear that, according to it, Yoga is the establishment of harmony in all the levels of being. There is nothing superior or inferior in this world. Everything that God has created has a value in its own level, or stage. And the level in which we are now is also equally valuable, and its value bas to be recognised by us; we cannot reject it as if it is not there. Our action, our conduct, our movement, our behaviour in the particular atmosphere in which we are placed has to be one of harmony with that atmosphere. This is Yoga and the need to understand the way in which we can conduct ourselves in harmony with the atmosphere is stringent. And what is this action which has to be performed in such a manner that it is in harmony with the movement of things outside in the given atmosphere? When the harmony is established between ourselves and the environment outside, our actions cease to be actions, they become movements of Cosmic Power. Action, then, becomes non-action; one can see action in non-action and non-action in action. Our intelligence has to rise to that level where we should be able to recognise inaction in action and action in inaction. When our action is set in tune with the movements of things outside, action becomes non-action. It is as if we are doing nothing, because we are moving in harmony with the whole pattern of the environment outside, with which we are connected, and of which we are a part, organically. When we are in union with the laws of the universe, our actions are not our actions. They are laws operating in themselves in an impersonal manner.