Gita 17.26 Any inclination to seek elevation of consciousness is praiseworthy

Transcript

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thank you Bhagavad Gita 17.26 here Krishna continues his description of Yajnanatapa and he states over here that that the word sat is talking about what is the significance of reciting these three and in that context he tells what is the meaning of these three sat can refer to the eternal sadhu bhave he can also refer to goodness so sad asat and sat the word sat can refer to eternity as contrasted to temporality but the word sat also comes as a root in sattva and sadhu bhave means that which is in goodness or that which conveys goodness it is used in both the senses prashaste so prashaste refers to that which is praiseworthy so any word that is praiseworthy the word sat can be used when performing any praiseworthy activity now at one level we can say that if one is adhering to vedic dharma or one is adhering to any even going broader any authority which helps us to raise one’s consciousness even if gradually then even if that authority is not in the vedic fold that is auspicious the context of the gita however centers on raising one’s consciousness from goodness to transcendence arjuna is already a virtuous person and it is only because of his being virtuous that he is having the grave courage to confront his concerns about dharma for a warrior to fight a war requires courage of course it requires for everyone but to fight a war the standard thing to do warriors are meant to fight just like say cricketers are meant to play cricket sports players are meant to play sports and professionals in particular field are expected to do whatever their profession requires them to do but for arjuna to move beyond such professional concerns to transcendental concerns indicates a well developed intelligence a refined consciousness a capacity for serious contemplation we see a significant difference in stress broadly speaking in Shri Prabhupada’s commentary about arjuna in the first chapter and in the second chapter and this also reflects a theme spoken by previous acharyas the first chapter which reflects arjuna’s deliberations even if the specific deliberations are misled rather the overall course of action towards which he goes by those deliberations is non-optimal is incorrect but still the fact that he is able to do such deliberations before a battlefield indicates a remarkable level of contemplativeness a remarkably thoughtful consciousness and thus some acharyas consider the first chapter as primarily meant to not just show the setting of the Gita but show the qualification of arjuna for receiving the Gita that he was so concerned about dharma even in facing and about to start a war so he had not lost his nerve as some people might think and as we might also sometimes convey for the purpose of simplified parallel with contemporary situations might say that arjuna had emotional breakdown or arjuna suffered a stress induced collapse sometimes these kind of explanations may be given to make the Bhagavad Gita’s content more accessible by showing how its context is not that different from ours now arjuna yes his emotions did go wild we could say that he did exhibit symptoms of stress but the essence is that arjuna was very deeply contemplative and it was based on that contemplation that he chose some principled course of action and that principled course of action was that he chose not to immediately rush into the war so it takes courage to fight and it also takes courage to pull oneself out of a fight sometimes somebody is provoking us and now sometimes people provoke us deliberately so that they can make us angry and then they can make us do inadvisable things just like say in cricket some batsman is batting and the fielders misledge that batsman so that the batsman becomes angry and in anger in order to assert one’s power the player plays an impulsive shot and gets out so it takes courage to fight and it takes courage to pull one’s self out of a fight when one’s anger is pushing one’s self into it so for arjuna prashasthe karmani actually his capacity to contemplate what is what his capacity to enquire about dharma and to seek to do only that which is dharma is extremely laudable and sadh sadh is to be recited whenever any prashasthe karma is to be done any praiseworthy activity so arjuna’s unwillingness to fight may not be praiseworthy he has to do his duty and not doing his duty is not appropriate for him but at the same time his capacity to reason to contemplate amidst crisis is laudable and similarly om tat sadh in that the word sadh can be used to signify higher reality and that higher reality is more a passion of ignorance goodness and transcendence are higher realities and when we do things which raise our consciousness that is auspicious dharma the word dharma can refer to different things in different contexts one understanding of dharma is also that anything which decreases the influence of the lower modes and increases the influence of the higher modes that is also dharma the bhagavad gita of course focuses on paradharma surrender to me and me alone that is how you will attain perfection so for us to the extent we move towards the elevation of consciousness either towards goodness or transcendence that is auspicious and that auspiciousness it is said over here is conveyed by the recitation of sath thank you