SCIENCE OF RELIGION (THE DRAMA IN CHAPTER 1)

[JR]

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.