Swami Krishnananda
Arjuna is a perfect man, doing perfect deeds—a specimen of human individuality, no doubt—but Krishna has to be there with him. Not only has Krishna to be there with Arjuna, he has to be within Arjuna himself as a guiding intelligence.
This charioteer of the Mahabharata context, Bhagavan Sri Krishna, driving, moving forward the vehicle of Arjuna is not only an external guide in the purely military and political fashion, but also an inner director, an intelligence that helps the very understanding of the person engaged in the action.
The association of Krishna with Arjuna is the association of yoga with work. The Mahayogeshwara Sri Krishna is so-called because of his supreme attainment of atmatva—unifiedness in terms of selfhood, which is the highest yoga we can conceive of. “Through atmayoga I have demonstrated this great vision before you,” says Sri Krishna in the Bhagavadgita. All yoga is finally atmayoga. It is the unitedness of the self with the spirit of all things. This is not necessarily implied in learning how to work perfectly.
A good management expert—a director of a company—may be an expert in his line, but that would not suffice in the end when one faces what they call the brass tacks of nature. The world contains many more secrets, unknown and inaccessible to the human mind, so that no one can be so entirely confident that nature has been mastered, or another person’s mind has been understood. Neither of these is possible, finally, if yoga is absent or is not blended with this honesty and enthusiasm behind perfect work. Arjuna, the great perfected individual, cannot stand for a moment if Krishna is not there.
There is the tendency in everything to transcend itself.
The dissatisfaction which everyone and everything feels in himself, herself or itself is the urge for a self-transcendence ingrained in all individuality throughout nature. We cannot stagnate in a given condition of our existence.
There is growth and change and transmutation seen everywhere, within as well as without. This impulse to self-transcend is the secret working of a power which is not visible to ordinary eyes but which incessantly works everywhere. Winkless is the act of God. Sleepless is nature. Man may sleep, but nature does not sleep. We may take rest, but creation does not take rest.
It is incessantly active towards the achievement of a great purpose that it has placed before itself—namely, the gathering of all its forces into a singleness of consciousness and action, meditation and work, which both blend into a single being in that perfect absoluteness which is called God Almighty.
The more we love God, the more we feel restless within ourselves. It is a divine uneasiness which has to be there if the flame of that response to God’s call has to be properly kindled and kept up forever. Why is everything active in this world? Why are we active every moment, every day, day in and day out? Why is there coming and going of things? Why is there evolution and involution? These are the busy movements of creation as a whole in response to the master’s call—God calling.
Let Arjuna forget the presence of Sri Krishna—what would happen? This is exactly what has happened to mankind today. In the arrogance of physical power and the false, vainglorious assurance of strength in money and material amenities, the Arjuna that is today’s mankind has forgotten the very existence of that otherwise-real friend, the unknown Sri Krishna who is pervading in all places.
Mahayogesvara Sri Krishna gave meaning, significance and life to Arjuna’s action and to his very existence. This Universal, the consciousness of which is called yoga, shall protect us; and eternally Sri Krishna is with Arjuna. Just as Nara-Narayana are eternal twins and are always there as inseparables, God and man are eternal inseparables, and yoga and action are similarly inseparable.
Swami Krishnananda
