Page 5 - All India Magazine Oct-2019

The Setting and Background of the Gita

The Time, Place and Circumstance of the Gita
In order to understand fully the motives and causes of the
acts and words of a man, it is necessary to know under what cir-
cumstances the acts were done or the words spoken. When at
the start of the great war of Kurukshetra the exchange of missiles
had begun, pravrtte Qastra-sampDte, it was at that moment that
the Lord revealed the Gita. To many this has occasioned surprise
and annoyance; they say it must have been due to the author's
carelessness or faulty intelligence. But in actual fact, Sri Krishna
revealed the knowledge contained in the Gita, at that particular
moment and in that situation to a person in that frame of mind,
with full knowledge of the time, place and circumstance.
The time was at the commencement of the war. Those who
have not developed or put to a test their heroic qualities or
strength in a mighty flood of action can never be fit to receive
the knowledge given in the Gita. Moreover those who have em-
barked on a great and difficult endeavour, an endeavour which au-
tomatically gives rise to many obstacles and obstructions, many
enmities, fears of many setbacks, when in the course of that great
endeavour there is acquired a divine strength, to them at that mo-
ment in order to take the endeavour to its final conclusion, for
the successful carrying out of the divine's work is this knowledge
revealed. The Gita lays down in the Yoga of works the foundations
of the path to God. It is through works done with faith and devo-
tion that knowledge is born. Therefore the traveller on the path
indicated by the Gita does not leave the path and have the vision
of God in a remote and quiet hermitage or hill or in a secluded
spot; that heavenly Light illumines the world for him, that sweet
and powerful Word comes within his hearing, all of a sudden in
midway, amidst the noise and bustle of works.

All India Magazine, Oct. 2019 5