Chapter Two
The Divine Teacher
Note 2.2
Symbolic Meaning and Concept of Avatar in Gita
▀ ▄ ▀ Way of right understanding of Gita
▀ 1 Firstly we must determine if we would grasp the central drift (drift = general intention or meaning of an argument ) of the ideas of the Gita. Then only we can understand
What that crisis stands
What is the significance of the battle of Kurukhsetra
Its effect on Arjuna’s inner being
▀ 2 Very obviously a great body of the profoundest teaching can not be built around an ordinary occurrence. There has to be
Gulfs of deep suggestion and hazardous difficulty behind its superficial and outward aspects
The crisis should be such as can not be governed well enough by the ordinary everyday standards of thought and action
▀ 3 There are indeed three things in the Gita which are spiritually significant. They are almost symbolic. At its root level, they are typical of the profoundest relations and problems of the spiritual life and of human existence. These three things are
The divine personality of the Teacher
His characteristic relations with his disciple
Occasion of his teaching
▀ 4 We have to understand the symbolic meaning of these three things. These meanings are :
The teacher (Krishna) is God himself descended into humanity
The disciple (Arjuna) is the first, as we might say in modern language, the representative man of his age. He is closest friend and chosen instrument of the Avatar.
He is Avatar’s protagonist in an immense work and struggle. The secret purpose of this struggle is unknown to the actors in it.
They are known only to the incarnate Godhead who guides it all from behind the veil of his unfathomable mind of knowledge.
The occasion is the violent crisis of that work and struggle. It is at the moment when the anguish and moral difficulty and blind violence of its apparent movements forces itself with the sock of a visible revelation on the mind of its representative man. It raises the whole question of :
The meaning of God in the world
The goal and drift and sense of human life and conduct.
▀ ▄ ▀ Concept of Avatar in Indian Mind
India has from ancient times held strongly a belief in
The reality of the Avatars.
The descent of formless into this world of Forms on earth.
The supreme revelation of the Godhead in humanity
In the West this belief has never really stamped itself upon the mind. This is because it has been presented through exoteric Christianity as a theological dogma.
It did not have any roots in the reason and general consciousness and attitude towards life.
On the other hand, in India it has grown up and persisted as a logical outcome of the Vedantic view of life. It has taken firm root in the consciousness of the race.
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The Divine Teacher
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