Bhagavad Gītā – Chapter 4 Notes

 

In verses 1-8, Krishna is explaining that he is the Avatāra – incarnation of God – who comes to earth when he’s needed.  

 

He then returns to the theme of karma yoga.

 

Verse 24 sums up the philosophy of advaita vedānta – that everything is God.  [The file Yoga Phil has a condensed version of the chapter on Vedanta from Tignuait’s Seven Systems of Indian Philosophy]

In verses 25-30 Krishna lists the different ways in which people can serve, the different offerings they can make.  In verses 33-42 he says that the best offering is wisdom/knowledge.

 

 

Notes from Radhakrishnan’s commentary on BG

 

 

 7 Dharma literally means mode of being.  It is the essential nature of a being that determines its mode of behaviour.   So long as our conduct is in conformity with our essential nature, we are acting in the right way.  Adharma is nonconformity to our nature.  If the harmony of the world is derived from the conformity of all beings to their respective natures, the disharmony of the world is due to their nonconformity.

 

 9 Krishna  as an avatar or descent of the Divine into the human world discloses the condition of being to which the human souls should rise. … The avatāra fulfils a number of functions in the cosmic process. … The avatāra points out the way by which men can rise from their animal to a spiritual mode of existence by providing us with an example of spiritual life. … The avatāra helps us to become what we potentially are. …               

 

11 This verse brings out the wide catholicity of the Gita religion.  God meets every aspirant with favour and grants to each his heart’s desire.  He does not extinguish the hope of any but helps all hopes to grow according to their nature. … The forms we worship are aids to help us to become conscious of our deepest selves.  So long as the object of worship holds fast the attention of the soul, it enters our mind and heart and fashions them. …

 

The Gita does not speak of this or that form of religion but speaks of the impulse which is expressed in all forms, the desire to find God and understand our relations to Him.

 

The same God is worshipped by all.  The differences of conception and approach are determined by local colouring and social adaptations. … God is the rewarder of all who diligently seek Him, whatever views of God they may hold.  The spiritually immature are unwilling  to recognize other gods than their own.  Their attachment to their creed makes them blind to the larger unity of the Godhead.  This is the result of egotism in the domain of religious ideas.  The Gita, on the other hand, affirms that though beliefs and practices may be many and varied, spiritual realization to which these are the means is one.

 

A strong consciousness of one’s own possession of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth added to a condescending anxiety for the condition of those who are in outer darkness produces a state of mind which is not remote from that of an inquisitor.

 

13 The emphasis is on guṇa (aptitude) and karma (function) and not jāti (birth).  The varna or the order to which we belong is independent of sex, birth or breeding.  A class determined by temperament and vocation is not a caste determined by birth and heredity.  According to the Mahābhārata the whole world was originally of one class but later it became divided into four divisions on account of the specific duties.  Even the distinction between caste and outcaste is artificial and unspiritual.  An ancient verse points out that the Brahmin and the outcaste are blood brothers.

 

The fourfold order is designed for human evolution.  There is nothing absolute about the caste system which has changed its character in the process of history. … The present morbid condition of India broken into castes and subcastes is opposed to the unity taught in the Gita, which stands for an organic as against an atomistic conception of society.

 

15 The ignorant perform work for self-purification and the wise perform action for the maintenance of the world.

 

17 What is the right course is not generally obvious.  The ideas of our time, the prescriptions of tradition, the voice of conscience get mixed up and confuse us.  In the midst of all this, the wise man seeks a way out by a reference to immutable truths, with the insight of the highest reason.

 

18 So long as we work in a detached spirit our mental balance is not disturbed.  We refrain from actions which are born of desire and do our duties, with a soul linked with the Divine.  So true non-activity is to preserve inner composure and to be free from attachment.  Akarma means the absence of bondage resulting from work because it is done without attachment. … We are acting even when we sit quiet without any outward action.  The turning away from action by fools due to perversity and ignorance amounts to action.  The action of the wise (that is their desireless action) has the same fruit as that of renunciation.

 

Shankara explains that in ātman there is no action; in the body however there is no rest, even when there seems to be rest.

 

25 Every form of self-control, where we surrender the egoistic enjoyment for the higher delight, where we give up lower impulses, is said to be a sacrifice.

 

30 Restraint is the essence of all sacrifice and so all sacrifices may be regarded as means to spiritual growth.

 

34 Wise men will teach us the truth if we approach them in the spirit of service and reverent inquiry.  Until we realize the God within, we must act according to the advice of those who have had the experience of God. … We must combine devotion to the teacher with the most unrestricted right of free examination and inquiry.  Blind obedience to an external authority is repudiated. …

 

But mere intellectual apprehension will not do.  Intellect can only give fragmentary views, glimpses of the Beyond.  We must open the whole of our inner being to establish personal contact.

 

This verse makes out that in spiritual life, faith comes first, then knowledge, and then experience.  Those who have experienced the truth are expected to guide us.  The seers owe a duty to their less fortunate brethren and guide them to the attainment of illumination which they have reached.

 

39 Faith is necessary for gaining wisdom.  Faith is not blind belief.  It is the aspiration of the soul to gain wisdom.  It is the reflection in the empirical self of the wisdom that dwells in the deepest levels of our being.  If faith is constant, it takes us to the realization of wisdom.  Jñāna as wisdom is free from doubts while intellectual knowledge where we depend on sense data and logical inference, doubt and scepticism have their place.   Wisdom is not acquired by these means.  We have to live it inwardly and grow into its reality.  The way to it is through faith and self-control.