Page 17 - All India Magazine Oct-2025

Kurukshetra

Universal destroys
Before we can proceed, following in the large steps of the
Teacher of the Gita, to watch his tracing of the triune path of
man, — the path which is that of his will, heart, thought raising
themselves to the Highest and into the being of that which is the
supreme object of all action, love and knowledge, we must con-
sider once more the situation from which the Gita arises, but now
in its largest bearings as a type of human life and even of all world-
existence. For although Arjuna is himself concerned only with his
own situation, his inner struggle and the law of action he must
follow, yet, as we have seen, the particular question he raises, in
the manner in which he raises it, does really bring up the whole
question of human life and action, what the world is and why it
is and how possibly, it being what it is, life here in the world can
be reconciled with life in the Spirit. And all this deep and difficult
matter the Teacher insists on resolving as the very foundation of
his command to an action which must proceed from a new poise
of being and by the light of a liberating knowledge.
But what, then, is it that makes the difficulty for the man who
has to take the world as it is and act in it and yet would live, with-
in, the spiritual life? What is this aspect of existence which appals
his awakened mind and brings about what the title of the first
chapter of the Gita calls significantly the Yoga of the dejection
of Arjuna, the dejection and discouragement felt by the human
being when he is forced to face the spectacle of the universe as
it really is with the veil of the ethical illusion, the illusion of self-
righteousness torn from his eyes, before a higher reconciliation
with himself is effected? It is that aspect which is figured out war
dly in the carnage and massacre of Kurukshetra and spiritually by
the vision of the Lord of all things as Time arising to devour and
destroy the creatures whom it has made. This is the vision of the

All India Magazine, October 2025 17