SCIENCE OF RELIGION

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SCIENCE OF RELIGION

(THE DRAMA IN CHAPTER 1)

1. THE SITUATION BUILDS UP

The Upanishadic thoughts, because of their philosophic subtlety, may seem to

the beginners in Vedanta as rather difficult to grasp. But this difficulty

is a hurdle only to those who are unprepared to face the challenge and

subject themselves to the necessary discipline of this great science of

personality-reconstruction. In fact, every science has its own discipline of

thought and those who are not ready to obey these disciplines can never hope

to benefit from the blessings offered by that science. The law of

gravitation can bless us only when we obey it. But if one were to defy it

and jump out of his balcony, the result is obvious.

A hungry man alone can really relish food. A lonely one alone can appreciate

the necessity and beauty of friendship and company. The taste of water is

fully enjoyed only by one who is thirsty. The tired one alone understands

the joys of rest. Similarly, the Geeta philosophy can be fully appreciated,

visualised, and lived only by one who is completely in the Arjuna-state of

mind.

Secondly, no student of the Geeta can overlook the staggering difference in

the environments of the Upanishads and the Geeta. The Upanishads are the

declarations of great seers, upon the Eternal Truth. They are given out in

the atmosphere of quietitude and in an inner mood of total dispassion. The

humming Ganges, the hymn of the eternal snow-peaks and the salubrious

climate are all onspicuous witnesses in the Upanishadic literature. Even

the dents Wjj0 listen to these declarations of the Rishis are calm and cool,

self-controlled and unagitated, and they hear these words Of wisdom with a

quiet mind and a serene intellect.

This songful and quiet environment has been completely replaced in the Geeta

by the down-to-earth atmosphere of strife and stress, dust and fury, stress

and strain, pulls and pressures. The inner mood and the outer atmosphere are

suggestive of dynamic service to the society and its members. Again, unlike

the Upanishads, in the Geeta the Lord himself addresses the Pandava

Prince—mentally agitated and intellectually confused. Yet, the message of

the Upanishads and that of the Geeta are one and the same. Hence the glory

of the Geeta consists not in WHAT she states but HOW she states it.

The striking environmental set-up employed by Vyasa in the Bhagavad Geeta is

not without purpose. During the Mahabharata days, people misconceived the

concept of religion and carried with them a stupid misconception that

religion could be lived and practised only in the Himalayan valleys. This

was because the Upanishadic literature carried with it the flavour of the

forest and the fragrance of the jungle. Thus religion catered to the needs

of only a few individuals who chose to retire to the Himalayas and the

people dynamically engaged in the battle of life, completely neglected

religion.

Vyasa saw the danger and deftly chose Lord Krishna as his mouthpiece to give

out the immortal message of the Geeta amidst the din and roar of a national

war to a confused and confounded hero of the day. Thus Vyasa by his masterly

dramatic setting of the Geeta has brought down religion from the snow-capped

Himalayas to the work-a-day world to bless man in his day-to-day existence.

Religion is never to be practised in jungles and forests alone.

Religion if it is to become efficient and bless us with its joys, must be

lived at the market-place, at home, in the Parliament houses and the

polling-booths.

In the opening chapter of the Geeta, Vyasa vividly paints the din and roar

of the battle-field, the impatience of the restless warriors, the anxiety of

the zealous officers, the rising waves of dark doubts in the bosoms of the

unjust, the despicable arrogance of the power-mad and the unruffled

confidence of the professional soldiers and leaders. Into this state of

noise and clamour of voiceless confusions and emotions, enters a majestic

chariot drawn by five white horses, driven by the ever-smiling divine

charioteer, Krishna, with the alert and dynamic Arjuna armed for war

standing behind him.

Krishna, at Arjuna's behest, drives the chariot into the noman's land

between the two armies. Arjuna reviews the enemy lines in a sweeping gaze.

This is a fateful moment in a great national crisis.

Under the direct impact of the sheer magnitude of the problem facing him,

Arjuna feels benumbed. His unbridled emotions surge and swell to overwhelm

his will and reason, his judgement and decision. Confused by the horror of

the situation, he becomes nervous and the personality in him succumbs to

fears and doubts in his own abilities and capacities; he feels an

overwhelming sense of tearless frustration welling up in his heart. His

entire life was spent in preparation for his achievement as a warrior, but

here he misinterprets the situation as one of hopeless despair. The Kaurava

forces are too mighty. They are well-manned, well-equipped and arrayed in a

mighty strategic formation. The challenge is too great to be met directly.

When we face a challenge which is too much for us, we have a natural

tendency to run away from facing it directly. This running away from a

problem is not solving the problem. Wherever we go, the same problem in

another form will arise and obstruct us with a challenge.

At such moments of mental dejection, the human intellect always discovers a

set of arguments apparently eloquent and seemingly convincing. We know it is

cowardice; but our own thoughts supply us with weak excuses, slim reasons,

sham beliefs and false arguments to justify our actions; to paint white our

dark inner dejections. Arjuna too, goes through the foolish convulsions of

psychologically broken personality.

Every young man must go through such a stage many times. Remember the

various chances you missed in life, failures suffered and disappointments

incurred? In all of them one factor is common, you would not have missed or

failed or been disappointed had you faced your problems with more faith in

yourself. Something in us snaps and we are left empty and hollow. We

thereafter can only float down upon the current of our own disaster. If at

that crucial moment we know how to re-make the inner personality whole and

strong, we could with a new-found confidence and joy meet the problem,

certain of success, sure of victory.

The Geeta expounds a science of personality-reconstruction. Today the

youth-world needs this more than anything, and more than anybody else. The

confusions created in the socio-economic fields, the unbridgeable

generation-gap, the lack of any purposeful goal anywhere, in the roaring

confusions in mind and matter, the modern young man needs a firm anchor

without which his abilities are lost, his productivity ruined, his ambition

thwarted. The Geeta can supply this anchorage to the confused youth, to the

bewildered communities, to the frustrated races.

 

(Adopted from Sri SaiLeela Special Issue 1973)