Bhagavagd Gita - Session 30- Track 3005

In the Bhagavad Gita, all these views are as it were, synthesised, embraced: that is the aim of the Bhakti yoga of the Bhagavad Gita. And thirdly, it aims at the discovery of the Divine’s will, the one that is everywhere, the one with whom I can have hundreds of relationships is also the source of all actions in the world: everything proceeds from Him. Therefore, to know the source of all actions, and to become the instrument of that source is the third aim of the Bhagavad Gita’s Yoga. All the three become one, one united thread as it were, not three disentangled threads, but all of them united, woven together into one thread. To know the Divine as one in all, to know the one as all and as many, and to know the Divine as the source of all action, of all movement, all that happens, all that is created, all that is dissolved, and all that is re-started, and to identify yourself with that will, and to become the instrument of that will, all of them are united. Now, the foundation of this integral Yoga is integral Divine. The method is integral because the object to be discovered, the object to be attained is integral. Now, when you try to understand the ‘integrality’ of the Divine, all the statements which can be made about the Divine, are to be harmonised. Surprisingly, the different statements of the Divine, when they are brought together, they give first a shock, sock because these statements seem to be colliding with each other, they seem to be contradicting each other. And this apparent contradiction which is not really a contradiction is stated boldly and clearly by Sri Krishna in these two verses: therefore, these two verses are the most important, most difficult verses of the Bhagavad Gita. The whole of the Gita’s teaching is integral. The entire Yoga of the Gita is integral, it is a synthetic Yoga and this integrality depends upon the integral knowledge of the Divine.

Very often the question is asked by many young people: ‘does God exists?’ And very often attempts are being made to persuade the children or young people to accept that God exists and most often we fail to do so. The reason is that we are actually not clear as to what is ‘the nature of the Divine’: when we try to prove the existence of God, the question is: what is the nature of God that you are trying to prove? Very often our whole idea of God is a limited idea, one sided idea. And when you try to prove the existence of God, it is that one sided idea of God that you are trying to prove which is always hopeless because there are facts in the world which contradict that limited idea of God; you can succeed only if the idea that you want to prove itself is integral. Then, all the facts of the world can ultimately be explained in the context of the integrality of the Divine.

There are four or five major ideas about God as we see in the history of thought. We see first, if you examine the development of religions the idea of ‘Deism’; it is a technical world, although the meaning is very easy: deity is god, but when you speak of ‘Deism’, it is a view that God is so different from man, so different from man, that He is entirely inaccessible. In ordinary children’s idea, it is a God who leaves on the 7th floor where entry is barred. He is so far, so remote, so great; children can have no access to Him. This is the children’s idea that is presented very often, but sometimes it is seriously maintained that God is ‘transcendental’, so transcendental that there is no access to Him. Most of the religions stumble on this idea of Deism: they make a big gulf between man and God: man is always shown to be something puny, insignificant, something who is always subject to the rule of that one who is inaccessible.

He is accessible that is the Gita’s view, but in the deistic view of God, the only thing that man can do is to obey the laws that God has made for ruling this world, sometimes to pray to God, not in order to know Him, (because you cannot know Him), but to propitiate Him, to please him, so He can give you some exemptions from the laws that He has made, some favours you can ask for that He may grant, He may not grant, it depends upon Him. In very crude way sometimes God is like a dictator to whom appeal is not possible or if possible in a kind of ‘fiat’ He might decide something, arbitrarily, and therefore there are many ideas of God of this kind, current in the world; and very often when we tell children: ‘God exists’ it is this idea of God that is very often portrayed and presented. According to Deism God, (this is one of the ideas of Deism), God creates the world, makes laws for that world and leaves the world to be ruled by those laws. He Himself is above; and creatures and man, they have to obey those laws and if you follows the laws very well, then you will get good results, if you don’t you will get punishment and sometimes punishment of such a nature than one can be horrified. According to one of the deistic ideas, if you do not recognise God, if you don’t acknowledge God, then you may at the end of the life, you are sent of hell fire, for ever, and ever, and ever, from which there is no return. Therefore people are told, recognise God during your life time, at least say that you give your allegiance to God, then you won’t have to go to the hell fire.

The Gita’s concept is therefore much more comprehensive…