The Living Gita - Commentary

Swami Satchidananda

is the founder of Integral Yoga Institute.

Here is a teaching from Swami Satchidananda about the human predicament. The first edition of this translation and commentary of the Baghavad Gita is dated 1988. How prescient is it? What can we take away from this wisdom?

Who is the one who is really seeing? The one who sees the ultimate principle behind all these changing and unchanging manifestations. Others see, but they aren’t seers. They are blind because they see only the superficial.

If you want to see everything, go to the seers. That’s why spiritual aspirants are called seekers. They seek to see. They see something already, but they are not seeing the right thing. In a sense, they’re still blind. One who has really seen is a seer. That person can help others see. Otherwise, it’s the blind leading the blind…

All the modern problems are caused by having the right things in the wrong hands: war, pollution, competitions, arms races and so on. Nuclear energy isn’t bad by itself, but in the wrong hands problems are created. It’s beyond our capacity to handle it. Probably, we let too much come out of the jar…

Humanity is running today for having opened the jar. We are so proud. We think we know many things. We can spit the atom. We can break down the neutron. We know the secrets of DNA. Yes, we can create everything. But now we are about to be swallowed. We have created so many Frankendsteins.

We are really tampering too much with nature without knowing how to handle the energy. That’s literally the situation today in the world. We have opened the jar, and the demon is running around. Now we don’t know how to keep him occupied. It is all due to the lack of fundamental knowledge of the spirit and its unity. Even though we have eyes, we are blind. Even though we have intelligence, it is perverted. Certainly, now it is time to open our eyes and see what is to be seen and know what is to be known. Whatever it is, large or small, everything else can wait. 

The fundamental knowledge is worth the seeking, because then you experience that peace and enjoy the whole world. Everything else can wait--- and should wait, because without this you aren’t going to be happy with other things. 

Sri Swami Satchidananda: The Living Gita, Chapter 13, Commentary on Verses 26 and 27, pp. 198-200.