Is the Gita an attempted reconciliation of different Upanishadic thoughts and not a revelation?

Transcript

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Hare Krishna Question Is the Gita simply an attempt to reconcile the various Upanishadic teachings and not a divine revelation because the Gita contains many different verses which some talk about personalism some talk about impersonalism and the Gita simply attempts to reconcile all of them together and that’s why many historians say that it is simply one attempt at reconciliation and not at all a revelation how do we answer this answer reconciliation and revelation are not necessarily contradictory they can be complementary the supreme lord himself has given the various schools of Vedic thought of course not all of them are giving the pure conclusion but Upanishads say that that the one supreme being maintains all others beings and that maintenance is not just in terms of physical it is also intellectual whatever a person wants to believe the lord gives that person the facility to believe that of course if the person is open minded that person can come to the conclusion of what is the actual truth but this world is made in such a way and the human mind is endowed in such a way that if a person wants to hold on to a particular belief then the mind internally and the world externally will allow the person to find reasons even abundant reasons to hold on to that belief and will make that person blind to the many reasons that counter and counter to that belief so it is described that the one original pure Vedic revelation it is given to various teachers and those teachers to the extent they completely or incompletely assimilated it that led to the various six systems of philosophy so now the Bhagavad Gita reveals the original synthesis among all those teachings that was lost over the centuries in the Bhagavad Gita it says in 4.2 it says that that actually this knowledge has been lost it is coming down in parampara but it was lost and now it is being restored I am providing it to you once again Krishna says in 4.3 so the two points that it is attempt to reconcile is not contradictory with the point that it is a revelation the original revelation was harmonious then it got split into multifarious branches of thought and then those thoughts are reintegrated and brought into one framework by the Supreme Lord now some of the Gita’s verses may seem contradictory because we don’t see them in an integrated framework what most scholars try to do is when they study the Gita okay they say now 13.6 and 7 Krishna is talking about Sankhya then they say oh now 9 chapter Krishna is talking about Bhakti and then 8 chapter is talking about Ashtang Yoga and now this side sort of division is is okay for taxonomical purposes taxonomical means for the sake of naming but for the sake of a holistic understanding we have to see the flow of thought that is permeating the Gita and if one looks at the flow of thought there is progress in fact the Vaishnava Acharyas have explained this and I have elaborated I have given a series of 108 lectures in the Bhagavad Gita as a part of the Bhakti Shastri course in which I have explained systematically the flow of thought and how the Bhagavad Gita is cohesively moving towards a particular conclusion now first it focuses on the Atma in the first chapter where God Krishna comes only once in 2.61 Mat Paraha Yukta Sita Mat Paraha and then 3.30 he comes and then there is a brief explanation in 4.5 to 15 and then once again in 4.35 Krishna refers to himself then in 5.29 then in 6.15, 6.30, 31, 32 30, 31 and 6.47 and then from 7 chapter onwards the description starts becoming more and more Krishna becomes more and more the focus till the 12th chapter and the 13th chapter again it goes to Gyan and again the expands expands till the 18th chapter again the focus is on Krishna so essentially there is a flow from Atma Gyan to Bhagavad Gyan from Karma Yoga to Bhakti Yoga is the progression in first 6 chapters then the middle 6 chapters is the focus on Bhakti Yoga and the last 6 chapters are from Brahma Gyan to Bhagavad Gyan so it’s all moving towards knowledge of the one absolute truth Krishna and knowledge of our relationship with him which brings the supreme bliss so there is a harmony in the development of thought in the Bhagavad Gita and those who are unable to detect that harmony try to say that it is just a patch of work which somehow tries to reconcile things, no, it’s a majestic symphony that is brought about and it is not an artificially imposed reconciliation but it is unrevealed it is unveiling of a reconciliation of a harmony that is actually there and which was lost and which now has been restored so to the extent we study the Gita properly to that extent we will be able to find that harmonization and we will be able to see that it is actually as it does harmonize various schools of thought but that is a organic harmonization which is intrinsic and which is revealed by the Gita through the intelligence of its speaker that is the Supreme Lord Sri Krishna thank you