Bhagavagd Gita - Session 32- Track 3204

So, this is the new knowledge that you get in chapter n°10. Now, this is very important because chapter n°10 onwards, there is a constant emphasis upon the world. We must remember the original line of argument of the Bhagavad Gita. We must remember that the question of Arjuna arises in the battlefield. Now, the question was whether he should remain in the battlefield or go out of the battlefield. And he had decided that he will not fight and he would go out of the battlefield. And Sri Krishna has to tell him ‘Be in the battlefield’. Now, ‘battlefield’ is a part of the world; but this world could be understood best only when you relate this world to the highest principles, because this world itself is a resultant of the supreme principles. That is why Sri Krishna has to lift Arjuna out of the battlefield for sometime, take him to the idea of the immortal in the second chapter, and then gradually develop the idea of Purushottama, the Lord of the being, to whom sacrifice is to be made, and then from 7, 8, and 9th chapters they are all devoted to the description of the supreme Reality, the highest reality.

Having described all this now comes returns as it were to this world because the main question of Arjuna was about the battlefield here. So unless all this knowledge is brought back at the level of the physical world, the answer can not be given. All this is only as it were the premise. If Reality is integral, if Reality can be known by integral paths, then what is to be done now farther is in regard to this world. Therefore in chapter n°10, we are brought very powerfully to the understanding of the world as it is. And that is why now Sri Krishna adds this new idea of a detailed process of the world making. What is this world? Sri Krishna wants to tell Arjuna that his presence in the battlefield is not an accident. Behind every event, there is a long background starting from the supra-cosmic reality, comic reality, individual reality, seven principles, four characters, all this is present behind every event; therefore to imagine that an event takes places just by accident is an ignorant perception.

Comment: So, there is no such thing as coincidence.

There is no accident. Everything is a long process of development and the so called accident is actually a part of a design. It may happen as an accident because our minds are not open to the highest truth. We do not seize the rhythm of the world, we do not seize the principles of the world, we do not know the characters of the world, so things appears as if suddenly something happens, we are taken unaware, it is because we are ignorant. But if we are luminous in our consciousness then we shall see that if any event takes place there is a significance; there is a meaning in it.

So, Sri Krishna wants to point out to Arjuna: ‘Your being on the battlefield has a meaning, it is not as if you have just come like that accidentally, as if you could have escape coming here, there was a long chain of history behind your coming into the battlefield; that you have come now disappointed is also not an accident; that you have become deluded, you have become completely disheartened, discourage, that even is not an accident. That shows that by coming into this experience of the battlefield your mind is knocked as it were, strongly knocked, almost knocked out, so that at present moment you are not able to think even. You have now seen that all the ideas that you had so far in your consciousness, all the training that you had so far is found to be wanting: it is not capable of giving an answer to the question that you have in your mind’.

It is a very important stage where you really confess ‘I do not know’. Most of the human beings always know. For them to come to a point when they say ‘I do not know’ is itself a tremendous state, because then only in the vacuum only the knowledge can be filled. If there is no vacuum how can you fill it? So Arjuna was brought to a state where there was now a real vacuum: sammūḍhaḥ, he was deluded, he knew, ‘I have no answer, I don’t know what is to be done’. So, that even is not an accident. This is the time where a momentous teaching can be given; supreme knowledge could be revealed. And without supreme knowledge being revealed your question cannot be answered. Your coming to battlefield, its ‘meaning’, my asking you to remain in the battlefield can be justified only when you know the totality and particularly when you know that there is only one Reality, that that Reality is a very complex reality; that complex reality itself is at work, there is nothing else which is at work, you are not at work, he is not at work, she is not at work. It is the supreme Reality which is at work.