Bhagavagd Gita - Session 1 - Track 107

We start with this premise and the Gita starts with this premise, that the Divine is the creator; the world itself is the Divine; and all multiplicity is the multiple faces of the Divine Himself: this is the starting point of the Gita. And this is the starting point not as a dogma, but after considering all the alternative views of the world, which we saw just now. There are two basic alternatives: one to say that God is the creator, but He lives always above in the seventh heaven, and has nothing to do in this world. He watches everything, amuses himself, but allows the world to move according to its own will. This is one view.

The other view is that the world does not exist or as only a dream. Basically, there is nothingness at the root. There can be a third view also that the world is not a creation at all: the world exists by itself; there is no question of a Divine having created it. This is the purely materialistic view, in which matter exists by itself. The only problem is that if matter exists by itself, how could a conscious intelligence being come out of it? If matter alone exists in the world, which is unconscious, which is unintelligent, how could it produce human beings like us who can think intelligently, who can put everything in terms of ends and means, who can design things, who can consciously pursue ends, how could such a consciousness arise?

Having considered all the other alternatives, the answer is that Reality is one, which is conscious, and therefore Gita does not run away from the consequence. That even in the war, even in the clash, even in the struggle, you must see the divine; and then having seen that, what is the answer of it? The whole Gita is nothing but an exposition of this vision.

Arjuna is deluded because he did not have that vision. Arjuna’s doubts are resolved when this vision was presented to him, when he could see that there is something far above himself. Until now he was the centre of everything, he was deciding everything. He said: “I will fight or I will not fight, I will kill or I will not kill and if I do this what will be the consequence”, without realising that there is a supreme will, which has its own designs, which has its own purposes, and which is the master of all fruits. Arjuna was thinking that he was the creator of the ‘fruits of actions’: ‘if I do this, this will be the consequence’, without knowing that he is not a master of the fruits of action. This delusion had to be cut asunder.

To return to this basic proposition that in this world, we do find the phenomenon of struggle, and struggle of such a kind that different forces come and clash with each other, not only that they clash with each other, but they clash with each other with ‘arms’, in which the basic proposition is of destruction, it is not merely a kind of a debate in which two opponents come together, and they throw one against each other, and ultimately one person convinces the other. But here, there is no question of convincing anybody, it is simply a massacre; the enemy is to be killed. Such is the grave situation from which the whole problem of Gita starts.

Modern science while discovering the theory of evolution also has come to this conclusion that the whole law of life is struggle for existence and survival of the fittest: this is the famous theory of Darwin who put forward the theory of evolution. This whole world is nothing but a struggle.