Explanations of Essays on the Gita: Volume One

First Series: Chapter I - IV

— V. Ananda Reddy

		Price: Rs 300 Soft Cover Pages: 270 Dimensions (in cms): 14x22     Publisher: Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research Trust, Pondicherry ISBN: 978-93-85391-24-8
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About Explanations of Essays on the Gita: Volume One

In these talks delivered in 2006 and 2007, the author examines the first four chapters of Essays on the Gita. “Our Demand and Need from the Gita” clarifies that our true approach to the Gita is not an academic one but rather a search for its essential and living message: to help mankind seize its highest spiritual welfare. “The Divine Teacher” stresses the circumstances in which Sri Krishna delivers this essential message to Arjuna. He is the God in man towards whom all human life moves, the secret Master of works and sacrifice. In “The Human Disciple” Sri Aurobindo gives a psychological analysis of Arjuna, the human disciple who represents all of us. “The Core of the Teaching” considers various interpretations of the Gita before following the interaction between teacher and disciple, in which Arjuna is allowed the full freedom to question and argue with Sri Krishna until he finally receives the glorious, revelatory core of the Gita’s teaching. 

REVIEW

In Sanskrit literature, there are various types of commentaries of which two are ṭīkā and bhāṣya. The first is a word-to-word exposition of the original text where the ṭīkākāra, or commentator unpacks every word without providing any extra subjective interpretation of the work. The bhāṣya, on the other hand, is a more elaborate commentary of the text whereby the author takes the liberty to develop the ideas presented therein in order to make the work more accessible and contextualised.

Dr V. Ananda Reddy’s two-volume set titled Explanations of Essays on the Gita are the transcriptions of his summary talks on the first seven chapters of Essays on the Gita that he delivered during classes held at the Sri Aurobindo Centre for Advanced Research (SACAR), Pondicherry, in 2006 and 2007. These two volumes based on Reddy’s talks serve as bhāṣyas on Sri Aurobindo’s work by providing enriching and practical perspectives not just about the content of the original text but also by relating them to the lives and teachings of The Mother and Sri Aurobindo, to their Integral Yoga and their philosophy of education with easily relatable examples and analogies from historical and contemporary scenarios to help us appreciate the relevance of the Gita in the modern context.

The first volume starts with an Introduction and covers the first four chapters of the book, namely, “Our Demand and Need from the Gita”, “The Divine Teacher”, “The Human Disciple”, and “The Core of the Teachings”. In his second volume, the author delves into the next three chapters, namely, “Kurukshetra”, “Man and the Battle of Life” and “The Creed of the Aryan Fighter”. He deals with each of the topics in significant detail with several cross-references to other major writings of Sri Aurobindo, such as his Bengali writings, which originally appeared in the journal Dharma between 1909 and 1910, to awaken the sense of civilisational pride and national self-esteem in the then dormant Indian masses, soon after his direct initiation to the deeper secrets of the Gita by Sri Krishna himself during his intense solitary confinement in the Alipore Jail. Furthermore, he quotes extensively from Sri Aurobindo’s magnum opus in poetry, Savitri, its counterpart in prose for the intellect, The Life Divine, as well as its parallel for practice in The Synthesis of Yoga, and other works such as The Human Cycle, The Secret of the Veda, etc. In addition, Dr Reddy also includes references to important authors on Indic culture such as Ananda Coomaraswamy, thereby providing his audience with a valuable reading list to further their understanding and appreciation of the different dimensions of the Gita’s teachings. As a result, the two volumes act as veritable teasers for readers, tempting them to study Essays on the Gita in greater depth, as well as to explore as many works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother as possible to absorb their teachings. Moreover, after reading these volumes, the reader would acquire a genuine appreciation for the perfect positioning of such a spiritual revelation in 700 verses in a worldly text like the Mahabharata just before the start of a ghastly war.

In the Introduction to Volume I, he shares thoughts about the significance of the Gita as a text, quoting Sri Aurobindo’s comment  that ‘The Gita is as if the bottomless sea, the source of a myriad gems’ and that (Vol. 1, p.2)  even a few of these jewels would be sufficient to enrich and transform an ordinary person into a wise and ardent devotee ready for inspired action in the face of the most challenging conflicts and life’s circumstances as critical as Arjuna’s dilemma of having to slaughter his beloved elders and teachers for a ‘mere’ kingdom. The poignancy of this theme is repeatedly addressed and elaborated upon from multiple angles in the subsequent seven chapters contained in these two volumes so that the readers understand clearly the premise of “Our Demand and Need from the Gita”. We see that the Gita is not meant to be yet another spiritual text revealed to an ascetic in the seclusion of a mountain cave. It is instead a clarion call for enlightened action in the midst of life, not just in moments of deep crisis, but potentially as a roadmap for every ‘(in)significant’ step in life, relevant for seekers across cultures and all ages, offering a path to attain freedom in works by synthesising the three main streams of yoga: jñāna, bhakti, and karma pertaining to the yogas of knowledge, devotion, and action.

In the second chapter, “The Divine Teacher”, Sri Krishna is shown as the Lord of Yoga, the Avatāra and Puruṣottama, the highest Being, who is the knower of many births and who is not bound by any law. The author quotes Sri Aurobindo:

The Teacher of the Gita is therefore not only the God in man who veils himself in the world of knowledge, but the God in man who moves our whole world of action, by and for whom all our humanity exists and struggles and labours, towards whom all human life travels and progresses. He is the secret Master of works and sacrifice and the Friend of the human peoples (Vol. 1, p.103). 

Sri Krishna specifically took a human birth in the age of the Dvāparayuga with a mission to reestablish dharma or righteousness on earth even if it involved war and destruction.

The reader is made to realise, in no uncertain terms, that because the present condition of human consciousness is founded on a divisive mentality and perception of reality, it is incapable of living on the basis of a spiritual unity with all beings and the world around. Therefore, war serves as an inevitable result of human actions as discussed in “Kurukshetra” (Vol. II, Chapter 2). Contrary to the more ‘virtuous’ standpoint in support of a homogenised non-violent approach to reality despite provocations, the reader is systematically shown how war, under present evolutionary circumstances, often acts as the harbinger of great progress on various fronts when viewed through a broader lens. It leads to the establishment of a more unified world order as was the case with the formation of the United Nations after the two World Wars that were fought in quick succession during the past century (p.53). Similarly, the reader learns that Sri Krishna’s purpose for allowing the large-scale war to happen was to take India to the next level of its evolution, from being a clan-centric assortment of kingdoms to a nation-centric one. The author shows that one of the prime objectives of the war was to bring together the scattered kingdoms in that age and forge a larger national unity—the Mahabharata,  ‘Great-India’, after which the itihāsa (literally meaning ‘history’ in Sanskrit) is named. This is, subsequently, said to have played a significant role in the conceptualisation and formation of the geo-cultural-political entity called India or Bhārata today (pp.52–53). There are other interesting discussions regarding the historicity and symbolism of the text that can leave the reader pensive about their implications on the narratives that are woven around such impactful works today.

Moving on to the third chapter of Volume I, “The Human Disciple”, the Divine Teacher identifies his ideal instrument, Arjuna, in order to achieve his goal of reinstating dharma. Arjuna is the most valiant kṣatriya, or noble warrior, who gets completely disoriented when faced with the gruesome prospect of killing those whom he reveres most. He feels justified in his weakness but is presented with an alternative, higher logic that he cannot fully understand but eventually concedes to. Sri Krishna chooses to reveal the teaching of the Gītā to him, despite his despondency, because he is not just the Lord’s friend, but also an intimate one, who ultimately surrenders all his will and action to his Mentor when he is given the most secret of secrets—guhyātguhyatamam. Moreover, Arjuna represents the man of all ages, one who is eternally caught in the conflict of right and wrong actions/duties and is often weakened by moral and dilemmas. The author adds, ‘We see two aspects of Arjuna. One is that he represents the human soul in crisis and the other is that he is an avant-garde. He is moving from the moral-religious consciousness towards the next level of the spiritual consciousness’ as a karmayogi (Vol. I, p.130).

The fourth chapter, “The Core of the Teachings of the Gita”, is a veritable manual for a karmayogī. It teaches the art of acting with perfect surrender, even with violence wherever required, to bring justice where adharma prevails, with an unwavering divine compassion instead of pity, as demonstrated by Kali and Shiva. The Lord calls upon Arjuna to continue to do his kartavyam karma or ‘the action to be performed’ in the second volume’s chapter titled “Kurukshetra”, which symbolises the battlefield of dharma. But to do so he must live up to his dharma as a kshatriya and become a role model of “Man in the Battle of Life” for all ages by adopting the “The Creed of the Aryan Fighter”. Through these chapters, the author provides insightful details on the map of liberated actions as revealed by Sri Krishna to Arjuna in the Gita, and for a more integral living in the present age, based on his wide readings in Sri Aurobindo’s and The Mother’s writings and teachings.

To conclude, this set of volumes shows at every step how the core message of the Gita is fundamentally the same as that of the Integral Yoga. It also serves to demonstrate how both Sri Aurobindo and The Mother inspired humankind to achieve the next level of evolution by bringing down the Supramental Consciousness. This opens up a whole new dimension of exploration for the keen sādhaka—the possibility of first discovering the immortal Spirit within and then expressing the fullness of its light and liberty in the depths and darknesses of the material body. These volumes will, therefore, not just add value to one’s personal collection but, when carefully studied and applied, they will motivate their readers to become conscious of the choices that the various battles of life offer—either to succumb to the challenges one faces or to adopt the creed of the Āryan Fighter, to rise and  fight for the manifestation of the Truth as declared in the Students’ Prayer given by The Mother on 6 January 1952 at the inauguration of the Sri Aurobindo International University Centre:

Make of us the hero warriors we aspire to become. May we fight successfully the great battle of the future that is to be born, against the past that seeks to endure; so that the new things may manifest, and we may be ready to receive them. (Collected Works of the Mother, Vol. 12, p.112)

— Anuradha Choudry

Dr Choudry, who attended the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, is the Coordinator, Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) Division and Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.

Reviewed in August 2023