CHAPTER IX
The Royal Secret
Srimad-Bhagawad-Geeta, as a text-book of Hindu renaissance, has necessarily to carry within it the seeds of a complete reformation, almost revolutionary in its dynamic onslaught. The fundamental principles remaining the same, a religion that keeps pace with life has to readjust itself to accommodate current social problems and political conditions. Religion was not extinct in the era of the Mahabharata. But the Vedic principles needed a re-adjustment and a re-affirmation in the context of the life available in that era.
When the fundamentals forming the foundation are to be kept sacredly the same, the only adjustment that is possible for the expansion of Science of Life, is to discover a more liberal means for its application, and to annotate the same in the language of the conflict and struggle available in that period. Blind faith can have a compelling charm only in the early history of a people, and, when they grow and become stalwart in their reason and muscular in their movements, the impetuosity of the generation can no more be tamed and kept within bounds by the sandy beaches of barren faith. It demands and expects walls of unshakable logic and reason to support the stream of assertions in the philosophy of the thinkers. To a large extent, an interpreter of a philosophy --- not the philosopher himself --- will have to dance to the rhythm of the inundations and the direction of the current of thought and life in his age.
This new interpretation, at once intelligent and meaningful, has, no doubt, injected a new vigour and brought fresh blood into the senile values of life and their ineffectual application in society. Such repeated transfusions of youthfulness and vitality into the dilapidated body of religion has sustained the ageless tradition of the Hindus through its chequered career down the aisles of Time. One of the most powerful rejuvenation treatments that the immortal lore received in recent times was from the hands of Vyasa, and the Bhagawad-Geeta reports that operation divine.
In Chapter Seven, we find how the Champion of the Revolt throws His gloves down, in a challenge, when He says: "I shall tell you about KNOWLEDGE, both speculative and practical." Thereafter, Krishna has been pursuing the theme of spiritual practices, like a mathematician solving his problem, stage by stage, for the benefit of his students. Nowhere has He insisted upon any blind faith in what He said. On the other hand, at every stage, He has been scrupulously careful to supply the necessary data and the rational arguments for the why and the wherefore of the Vedantic beliefs and the ways of self-perfection advocated by Vedanta.
The same tempo of ruthless intellectual estimation is being continued in Chapter Nine also and its very opening stanza promises that the Lord will be giving, during His discourse, not only the theory of self-perfection but also the logic behind it all. It is very clear, if sympathetically considered, that the kind teacher in Krishna is carefully avoiding the usage of vague and mystic technical terms then in use in the Vedantic literature, except for the most elementary ones.
Ideas have been simplified here, so that they can be easily grasped by Arjuna, the representative of the ordinary, educated men of his time. However, the same principles will be found to have been explained again in a later chapter (XIII) under the orthodox terminology of Vedanta as Kshetra, Kshetrajna, Jnana, Jneya, Purusha, Prakriti, etc.
"Dividing the subject of enquiry into its main divisions; analytical explanation of the divisions; categorical treatment of the subject under each division; discussion of the relation between the various parts and setting down the conclusions drawn therefrom" --- these would in our days be considered as the proper scientific method for the treatment of a subject. In this sense of the term, the Geeta is not at all scientific. But, at the same time, the conversational style of the Geeta has its own characteristic clarity and Shastraic precision. Krishna Himself calls it "the most Secret (profound) Science." To every careful student of the Geeta, it will be clear that in its scientific outlook and systematic explanations the discourses leave nothing to be desired.
|| Chapter-9 ||
Source: The Holy Geeta
The Royal Secret
Srimad-Bhagawad-Geeta, as a text-book of Hindu renaissance, has necessarily to carry within it the seeds of a complete reformation, almost revolutionary in its dynamic onslaught. The fundamental principles remaining the same, a religion that keeps pace with life has to readjust itself to accommodate current social problems and political conditions. Religion was not extinct in the era of the Mahabharata. But the Vedic principles needed a re-adjustment and a re-affirmation in the context of the life available in that era.
When the fundamentals forming the foundation are to be kept sacredly the same, the only adjustment that is possible for the expansion of Science of Life, is to discover a more liberal means for its application, and to annotate the same in the language of the conflict and struggle available in that period. Blind faith can have a compelling charm only in the early history of a people, and, when they grow and become stalwart in their reason and muscular in their movements, the impetuosity of the generation can no more be tamed and kept within bounds by the sandy beaches of barren faith. It demands and expects walls of unshakable logic and reason to support the stream of assertions in the philosophy of the thinkers. To a large extent, an interpreter of a philosophy --- not the philosopher himself --- will have to dance to the rhythm of the inundations and the direction of the current of thought and life in his age.
This new interpretation, at once intelligent and meaningful, has, no doubt, injected a new vigour and brought fresh blood into the senile values of life and their ineffectual application in society. Such repeated transfusions of youthfulness and vitality into the dilapidated body of religion has sustained the ageless tradition of the Hindus through its chequered career down the aisles of Time. One of the most powerful rejuvenation treatments that the immortal lore received in recent times was from the hands of Vyasa, and the Bhagawad-Geeta reports that operation divine.
In Chapter Seven, we find how the Champion of the Revolt throws His gloves down, in a challenge, when He says: "I shall tell you about KNOWLEDGE, both speculative and practical." Thereafter, Krishna has been pursuing the theme of spiritual practices, like a mathematician solving his problem, stage by stage, for the benefit of his students. Nowhere has He insisted upon any blind faith in what He said. On the other hand, at every stage, He has been scrupulously careful to supply the necessary data and the rational arguments for the why and the wherefore of the Vedantic beliefs and the ways of self-perfection advocated by Vedanta.
The same tempo of ruthless intellectual estimation is being continued in Chapter Nine also and its very opening stanza promises that the Lord will be giving, during His discourse, not only the theory of self-perfection but also the logic behind it all. It is very clear, if sympathetically considered, that the kind teacher in Krishna is carefully avoiding the usage of vague and mystic technical terms then in use in the Vedantic literature, except for the most elementary ones.
Ideas have been simplified here, so that they can be easily grasped by Arjuna, the representative of the ordinary, educated men of his time. However, the same principles will be found to have been explained again in a later chapter (XIII) under the orthodox terminology of Vedanta as Kshetra, Kshetrajna, Jnana, Jneya, Purusha, Prakriti, etc.
"Dividing the subject of enquiry into its main divisions; analytical explanation of the divisions; categorical treatment of the subject under each division; discussion of the relation between the various parts and setting down the conclusions drawn therefrom" --- these would in our days be considered as the proper scientific method for the treatment of a subject. In this sense of the term, the Geeta is not at all scientific. But, at the same time, the conversational style of the Geeta has its own characteristic clarity and Shastraic precision. Krishna Himself calls it "the most Secret (profound) Science." To every careful student of the Geeta, it will be clear that in its scientific outlook and systematic explanations the discourses leave nothing to be desired.
|| Chapter-9 ||
Source: The Holy Geeta
