Bhagavagd Gita - Session 29- Track 2903

So, these are the qualifications that Sri Krishna makes here and prepares what is called the real synthesis of knowledge, works and devotion. We are always told that the Bhagavad Gita is a synthesis of knowledge, works and devotion. It is not only a teaching which says that you can follow either knowledge, or devotion, or action: that is only a partial statement of the Gita. It says that the knowledge if it is pursued becomes such an integral knowledge that it becomes dharmyaṁ, and susukham, it is that knowledge that you pursue, it becomes so integral that it gives you the right path of action; it opens out the right path of devotion. It is that if you start on the path of action, you are led to knowledge; this is what you had seen in chapter n°4, how when you start with action, you enter into highest knowledge, where Sri Krishna says that, “all actions ultimately ends in knowledge”.

This is a movement in Sri Krishna’s teaching that if you start with devotion then you end with the highest knowledge and then the highest action. It is integral knowledge, integral Karma yoga and integral path of devotion, bhaktimārga; or you might say it is completely integral, where knowledge is not knowledge unless it is dharmyaṁ, and susukham. You cannot even define it as knowledge unless it is at once this. It is not devotion if it is not luminous. If it does not take you to the service of the people of the world, to the action in the world, this devotion is such a devotion that you seek the Divine and since the Divine is everywhere, you are obliged to move everywhere; since the Divine is akṣara, this takes you to akṣara, to Immobile, but since the Divine is also all this movement, the real Bhakta cannot but remain merely in the Immobile, he has got to move on the foot steps of God Himself because he is a Bhakta: wherever the Lord is there the Bhakta is. So if the Lord Himself is in the battle then the Bhakta also has to be in the battle: he cannot say, ‘I will be only seeking the Immobile, Sannyasa is the only right thing, when you find, when the Bhakta finds that Bhagavan Himself is in the battle, how can you leave the battlefield. The right action is involved in the very Bhakti with which you approach the supreme Lord. Therefore this Bhakti leads you to the highest knowledge and the highest action. This is the kind of synthesis which you have in this rājavidyā.

This rājavidyā has therefore two sides: the complete knowledge of the Divine and the complete path by which the complete divine is completely realised. It is therefore integral in every sense of the term: the object is integral, the process is integral and the result is integral, this is why this is called the rājavidyā, the supreme knowledge.

Now, at present it is being told completely in the terms of intellect and when it is only intellectually stated it is sub….

SIDE B

Every intellectual statement is subject to doubt. And the Bhagavad Gita has already spoken earlier paripraśnena sevaya, whenever an intellectual statement is made to you, you should approach it with ‘repeated question’ and you should at the same time approach the giver of the knowledge with seva, the two conditions are laid down and the reason is that if you merely question, then it could be an idle question, because human mind has many levels of questioning. If you are very idle about anything and somebody says: ‘Look! There is something’, then I don’t believe it. You are very idle, you are sleeping, you do not want to wake up and somebody says: ‘Look! Fire!’’ I don’t believe it. So, there is simply a kind of an idle refusal, there is not even questioning, there is only idle refusal. I don’t want to get up from my sleep, therefore I don’t believe it: it is a very flippant superficial answer.

There is a higher level of questioning where you simply say…you tell a child: ‘God exists’. So the child says: ‘Unless you show me I will not believe’. It is a good question. But then one can remain merely at that level in which the onus is put upon the person who has made the statement, you are free, then you don’t need to do anything at all: the one who makes the statement has now to take the trouble to show you where God is; this is also an idle question actually, idle doubt, because you do not want to take the trouble; when somebody says: ‘God exists’, you simply want to put the burden upon another, ‘now, you prove to me, show me, then I will believe in it’.

So, at a higher level the questioning should be: “On what ground do you tell me ‘God exists’?”. Now, when you ask this question you are more reasonable. Merely saying: ‘I don’t believe in Him’ or ‘Show me!’, it is a flippant answer, which most of the people do in this world. Therefore Sri Krishna says paripraśnena, you should ask question repeatedly. And first question is: ‘Please tell me, on what ground do you say that God exists’. Then you can enquire further: ‘Do you say that God exists because you have seen God?’. This could be one question: ‘Is it because you have seen God?’. ‘If you have seen God do you have seen God physically as I see all objects of the world?’. ‘If not, are there many other ways of knowing, of which I am not aware?’. ‘If so, kindly tell me how there are many other ways of knowing?’. ‘Can I enter in those other ways of knowing?’. ‘How shall go about it?’. Now, these questions arise only if you are only sincere seeker. A sincere seeker of knowledge cannot remain idle or cannot raise idle questions until any claim that is made about knowledge is ultimately brought to the final conclusion.