Bhagavad Geeta: The Truly Scripture Universal for the Attainment of Perfection Part 2/2
It is customary with people to divide human activities into two distinctive types—the spiritual and the temporal, the sacred and the secular. But the Bhagavad Gita makes no such artificial distinction. Life pertaining to this world is in no way different from the spiritual. There is continuity and homogeneity in life in all its stages. Man will be in the hereafter none other than what he is here and now. Change of body effects no more change in the personality than does change of clothings. Mode of action it is that makes a person what he is. But action by itself is neither sacred nor secular. The attitude with which it is performed brings about a magical change in it. All actions become sacred in the hands of a spiritual man. On the contrary a man with a material outlook drags down even a sacred act to the vulgar plane. Because of his earth bound outlook, the uninitiated one fouls sacred acts into secular, whereas the message of the Gita is to metamorphose all actions into liberating sacred ones. This distinctive feature makes the Gita a book of universal application.
Will, emotion and cognition are the three aspects of the phenomenon of the mind. Nought exists in psyche beyond the realm of these three functions. A healthy and wholesome mind has a universal value. Nothing on earth or in heaven can compare with a fully evolved mind. He owns everything who owns a fully developed mind. A harmonious development of the will, emotion and cognition goes to constitute a perfect mind. The slightest inequality among these three functions will, to that extent, result in imperfection in the formation of character. The Bhagavad Gita has laid emphasis on this all-important factor. In order to stress the equal importance of the three phases of the mind, the eighteen chapters in the Gita get themselves equally divided and are devoted to the development of the will, the emotion and the cognition. Because of its masterly exposition of this all-absorbing issue of human life, to the Bhagavad Gita may be assigned the unique status of the Scripture Universal.
The plan and purpose of the Gita is to evolve out of man, a personality that is perfect from all points of view. A strong body and a virile mind form the material of which such a personality is built. Efficiency to the core is the criterion of a powerful personality. It is efficiency that makes character. To do good and to make others do good is possible only to the powerful in body and mind. The next great factor in the formation of personality is love. All living beings are endowed with love, though the degree of it may vary. And this love can be purified as well as intensified. From pure love emanates sweetness in all its excellence. It has the power to bind all beings in affable unity. The third and final factor is the intellect. It may be equated with the broad blazing sun, which reveals everything in its true light. But for the intellect, the higher qualities of things remain unrecognized. It is the intellect again that guides beings to right action. To a person endowed with an efficient hand, with a loving heart and with a clear head nothing more remains to be added. He becomes a complete personality verging on Divinity. Perfection marks him for its own. A harmonious development of the hand, the heart and the head is patent in such a personality.
The Gita is the perfect guide to those who aspire to build a perfect personality.
Every student of the Gita is a potential Arjuna. May he receive Light in his own way from it the Scripture Universal.
Source: Srimad Bhagavad Geeta-Commentary by Swami Chidbhavananda
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