continued from previous post
New Age Thought Process in Gita
(Concluding part of Chapter One - What we intend to learn from Gita)
▀ ▄ ▀ Dawn of New Age with open approach to spiritual life
We stand at the head of a new age of development. This new age must lead to such a new and larger synthesis.
In this march towards the new age, we are not called upon to be orthodox Vedantins of any of the three schools or Tantrics. We need not adhere to one of the theistic religions of the past.
This rule applies even to the teachings of Gita. We need not entrench ourselves within the four corners of the teaching of the Gita. This rigidity of approach will amount to limiting ourselves in the ancient historical age, by creating our spiritual life out of the being, knowledge and nature of the bygone era. We must build our spiritual life out of our own being and potentialities relevant to the current age. It is important to remember that we do not belong to the past dawns but to the noons of the future.
A mass of new material of knowledge is flowing into us from all directions. Certainly we have to assimilate the influences of the great theistic religions of India and of the world.
We have also to incorporate a recovered sense of the meaning of Buddhism. But more than that, we need to take full account of the potent though limited revelations of modern knowledge and seeking. While at the same time, interestingly, the remote and dateless past which seemed to be dead is returning upon us with an effulgence of many luminous secrets long lost to the consciousness of mankind.
This past is now breaking out again from behind the veil. We must take note of all this and have a comprehensive and open approach in order to embark on our onward march towards the dawn of tomorrow.
▀ ▄ ▀ Gita ushering us into a New Age thought process
All this points out to a new, a very rich, a very vast synthesis. A fresh and widely embracing harmonization of our gains is both an intellectual as well as a spiritual necessity of the future.
The past syntheses have also taken note of those which preceded them for their starting point. Similarly the future synthesis must proceed from what the great bodies of realized spiritual thought and experience in the past have given.
This will put the new synthesis on firm ground. Among these the Gita takes a most important place. We can say that Gita is the starting point for our onward pilgrimage.
▀ ▄ ▀ To Sum up
To sum up, our object in studying the Gita will NOT be any of the following :
Scholastic or academic scrutiny of its thought
To place its philosophy in the history of metaphysical speculation
To deal with it in the manner of the analytical dialectician
We approach it for help and light. Our aim must be to distinguish and understand its essential and living message. We need to find in it the essence which humanity has to seize for its perfection and its highest spiritual welfare.
....... ▀ ▄ End of Chapter One ▄ ▀ ........
What we intend to learn from Gita
.......... to continue
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