Samkhya – Right Understanding : 5.

The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita :-


The world is not disassociated from us, because originally we were all united in the Cosmic Self – the universal ahamkara. The world is not an object of the senses, truly speaking. Thus, the reports of the senses may not be considered as a final, reliable information given to us. There is an error sometimes involved mostly in sense perception, because there is an insistence on the part of the senses to consider the world as a total foreigner, without which concept we cannot deal with things in the way we are doing now in our daily life. We are suspicious of the world. Here is the root of all our troubles. 


We are afraid of the world, and our loves and hatreds for things of the world, including persons, are explainable only on the basis of our erroneous concept that the world is not vitally connected with us. It is not possible to hug onto, or crave for any object which is vitally, organically related to me, nor can I hate it for the same reason. Loves and hatreds in life seem to be out of point, totally, in the light of an understanding of our position, as we know, from a study of the cosmological process. There is lot of teaching in the religions of the world that love and hatred are not good things. Desire is not right – it is an improper attitude of the mind. Everyone says this, in all religions and philosophies. But why is desire bad? Why are loves and hatreds not considered as proper on our part? 

Because this attitude of like and dislike, love and hatred, implies a total misconception of our connection with the world. So, in a way we may say that our political philosophies, as they are working today at least, though they may not be always so, and our social concepts are totally misplaced, which perhaps explains the turmoil we are passing through in our lives, and the troubles of our psyche, the sorrows of our existence, and the insecurities we are facing from moment to moment. This was troubling Arjuna, and we are the same Arjuna seated here today, in the field of the Mahabharata of this world where Sri Krishna has to come to guide us – which is nothing but the Light of God, the Light of the World.


Now, without going in large details of everything that is told us in the second chapter, I will take your mind to the true meaning of this samkhya, which perhaps was in the mind of Sri Krishna when he used this word for rectifying the erroneous thinking of Arjuna. "What do you mean by this right understanding? I cannot know what you are speaking," cried out Arjuna at the beginning of the third chapter. "You have confused me completely by telling so many things, nothing of which is clear to me." 


Here is a troubled mind speaking once again, at the very beginning of the commencement of the third chapter. "Is my relationship to the world a total unity, in which case I have to do nothing? Or, is it total separation, in which case also I have to do nothing? The question of duty does not arise in this world if I have a relationship which is totally organic or totally isolated. So my mind is confused about what you are speaking. Be more explicit, please," so speaks Arjuna. "What is it that you are expecting me to do by asking me to have samkhya, right understanding, poised mind, calm attitude, expertness in action? I cannot understand the meaning behind these terms you are using." 

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ...