The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

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.

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 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. The name of the book is Cosmic Society. I was very much happy to hear that there is such a thing called cosmic society. The whole of God's creation is a society, or we may call it a family, to make it more intelligible. It is easy to understand the way in which we have to live in this world if we can compare the whole universe to a family. We need not be too philosophical and metaphysical or abstract here. We can be simple, homely, and matter of fact in the understanding of what these things are.

We know how happy we are to be members in a single family of brothers, sisters, father, mother, and so on. We feel happy by our coordination with other members in the family, notwithstanding the fact each one has an independence. It does not mean that any member of the family will subjugate another. There is no such intention of any member in a house. One brother will not consider another brother as a subordinate. Yet, the very fact of there being cooperation, which gives them so much satisfaction and security, is an automatic restriction on each one's freedom. Each one is ready to sacrifice his or her freedom for the sake of giving that very kind of freedom to another member in the family, by which act of limitation of one's freedom, one does not feel unhappy, but more happy. We are one. So, there is a larger integration and a wider form of security and a sense of welfare sanctioned to each member in this coordinated family. By the very fact of the limitation we set upon our freedom in the family, we become more happy than we would be if we granted infinite freedom to ourselves, to the exclusion of everybody else's welfare. This is a little homely illustration of the way in which we may be able to live in this world.

But there is something hidden behind this little mandate and prescription that I placed before you to understand the cosmical set up. It is not true that we are always so much cooperative, even in a family. I am now placing before you an example of a hundred percent cooperative family. That is a wonderful thing. If each one understands everyone else one hundred percent, nothing can be better than that. But there are occasions even in a family when such a kind of one hundred percent understanding of another is not available due to various reasons, and there can be any number of reasons. The idea of the son may not be fully in harmony with the wish of the father, and two brothers may have different ideas in the performance of their daily vocations, and so on. There, a greater thought has to be exercised in the manner of running a good family. In fact, administration of any kind is not necessary if everyone is one hundred percent cooperative, and if one hundred percent understanding is available in each one in respect of everybody else. If that is the case, no government or administration is necessary.

They say this was the condition prevailing once upon a time in the Golden Age of creation; we call it Krita Yuga in Sanskrit. There are four yugas: Krita Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga and Kali Yuga. It is said that in Krita Yuga there was no government. It was not necessary at all, because each one was one hundred percent capable of appreciating the needs of another. It is very difficult to imagine such a state of affairs. Each one knew his duty or her duty. Nobody need say, “Do this”; nobody need say, “Don't do this.” Everyone knew what was to be done and what was not to be done. That was the golden age of humanity, called the Krita Yuga. But the Krita Yuga did not always prevail.

The intrusion of difference in ideologies, ideas and perspectives of life began to show its head in the Treta Yuga. Then there was felt a need to create a force which would bring all these differences into a state of harmony. If two people do not agree, a third person is appointed as a judge to decide their differences. If they agreed a hundred percent, why should there be a judge? This third element which was felt necessary to bring about a harmony among dissident factors was the king, the monarch. The need for a king or a ruler arose. Whatever be the way in which that king was appointed, elected, placed, etc., is a different matter.

Now, the subject on which I was supposed to speak a few words to the people who wanted to listen to me was 'the relevance of the teaching of the Bhagavadgita to humanity'. There was no need for the gospel of the Bhagavadgita if there was no occasion for conflict of ideas and ideologies. It was not a harmonious way in which people were thinking. There was a difference of opinion, and each one was sticking to his gun, as it were. Each one was saying, “I am right”; therefore, there was a necessity to decide what is actually to be done under those circumstances.

In a case that is brought before the court, for instance, the contending parties always hold that they are right. Each party argues the righteousness of the cause or the point that they make out, and both are right. This is what they are emphasising. Each party says, “I am right.” Now, if both are right, they cannot differ; but in their conception of the rectitude of their behaviour, they do differ. So the difference has to be bridged by a cementing link, which is the judicial pronouncement. Such a situation arose in humanity when the golden age descended into the denser form of human thought, when such recognition and appreciation of one in respect of the other was not possible. It was not accepted by a certain state of mind that such a one hundred percent cooperation with another is going to be for one's welfare. “My welfare does not lie in my totally agreeing with another. It mostly depends on my sticking to my own point of view.” This is the beginning of dissension among people. If each one starts thinking like that, there is tension in human life. This can lead to more and more concrete manifestations of the tension, which we call battle and war, which leads to any kind of consequence.

Such a state is pictured before us in the Mahabharata. It is nothing but a whole epic of the battle of human existence, which necessitated the bringing into the picture of human thought the gospel of the Bhagavadgita, which tells us what we have to do under a given condition. The whole of our life is a confrontation. Today we are living in a world in which we are faced with confrontations of different types, and our duties, our performances and execution of our daily vocations have mostly taken the form of a confrontation, rather than a smooth-sailing affair. It is not a happy thing, because we have to be cautious and vigilant in our daily attitudes and performances. This is the state of affairs today, especially in humanity at this moment.

Some such thing is before the mind of the great author of the Mahabharata epic. Similar is the Ramayana. These two standard epics present before us a portrait of the human predicament, which calls for certain deep thinking on the part of everyone as to what one should do under a given condition, and the given condition is some kind of confrontation, though the nature of the confrontation may vary. It is something like saying that so many people are ill; they are sick, but it does not mean that everybody is sick in the same way. One man has one kind of illness, another has another kind of illness, a third has a third kind. They may be different types of patients from the point of view of the varying categories of illness, but the fact that they are ill is a common factor that is ruling over all of them. So everyone has one kind of problem or the other.

Now, the Bhagavadgita is supposed to be a recipe for the solution of the problems of every person. This is something unique about it. It is not intended for me or for you or for anybody; it is supposed to be a universally applicable recipe for the ills of mankind. This is a speciality about it, and that makes it very difficult to understand what its intentions are, because we have never heard that one recipe can be prescribed for every kind of difficulty. Yet, there is a norm that can be prescribed as a basic precondition for individual steps that we may have to take in detail for day-to-day engagement.

There is what is called medical science, for instance. We cannot say that there are many varieties of medical science. The basic philosophy behind the prescription of medicine is uniform. It takes into consideration the structure and the constituents of the human personality, the conditions that are necessary to cause health, and those conditions which bring about disease. There is a general philosophy of medicine, notwithstanding the fact that different medicines are prescribed for different kinds of illness. These varieties in the prescription of medicine under given conditions of illness do not mean that the basic philosophy of medical treatment is variegated.

In such a way, we may say there is a final word about the fundamentals of human behaviour and conduct, which norm is laid down in the Bhagavadgita. It is true that the Bhagavadgita does not tell us how we can cook our food, how we can take a bath, or how we can stitch our shirt; but it lays down certain fundamental, basic principles of human conduct under confrontations and difficulties which are the irreconcilable elements in human society. There were dharma sankatas, as we call them. Dharma sankata means a quandary in dharma. 'Quandary' means a difficult situation, where we cannot pass an immediate judgment. Sometimes we are in a dilemma. Either way it is a difficult thing. We cannot go that way, and we cannot go this way. Sometimes we find ourselves in that state of affairs, and that is a dharma sankata. It is a quandary, a helpless state, a difficult confrontation where it is hard to make out what is the proper step to be taken, because it is a terrible tangle. That tangle was the background of the whole Mahabharata story. It was a tangle, a network, a difficult knot which could not easily be broken through. Very many questions arose in the minds of people, and they were not able to easily decipher the background of the answers for these questions. It required a superior understanding to throw light on these problems. As a judge in a court is considered to have a wider form of understanding, transcending the understanding of the clients, similarly, the person, the personality, the figure that spoke the Bhagavadgita stood above humanity.

So a superman spoke a superhuman gospel. It is necessary that a superman should speak to solve human problems. Man's problems cannot be solved by man only, just as a patient cannot treat himself. He requires a doctor. Man cannot help another man, because all men usually think alike and they are in a similar state of difficulty. A superior hand which has an impartial judgment and knows all the pros and cons of the difficulties and problems is necessary. Such a figure was the personality of Sri Krishna in the Mahabharata. The role that he played in the whole epic is an outstanding example of a judicious superhuman intelligence operating in difficult situations.

I mentioned that a superman has to come out of man, and though we may not be superhuman individuals in our solutions of the problems of life, we may have to be superhuman in our understanding, in some percentage at least. We should not stoop down to the level of an utterly selfish outlook of life where what is pleasant to me only is good, and the pleasant need not necessarily be the good. So the superhuman figure of Bhagavan Sri Krishna spoke a superhuman teaching for a superhuman good that is to befall all mankind if that law is to be followed.

Because of the fact that it ranges beyond human understanding, it is not easy to know all its implications. Therefore, many commentaries have been written on it, and every commentary seems to be good. There are so many commentaries written by lawyers on the Constitution of India. Every enactment has a commentary, and each lawyer who has a point of view attaches a kind of footnote to elucidate a knotty point in a particular enactment. Likewise, there are commentaries on the Bhagavadgita. All shed light on certain facets of the great light which is the Bhagavadgita.

Now, this is a great question which students who wish to live a higher life raise before themselves and try to answer. To find this answer they come to holy places of personages who are in a position to guide them – teachers, masters, Gurus or yogis, whoever they are. In this ashram of Swami Sivanandaji Maharaj, we are all here to seek an answer to this great question, to answer our own questions. I have to answer my question, and you have to answer your question. For this purpose, to receive guidance along these lines of answering our questions, we are gathered here. Hence, may we consider ourselves blessed that God has planted in us a little inclination to accept that it is necessary for us to live a better life than what we are living now – a higher life, if we would like to call it that. So goes today.