Confusion About God of Gita : Brahma Kumaris
The Bhagavad Gita has been written in the form of a dialogue between God and the Pandava warrior Arjuna, and is part of the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata. On the battlefield of Kurukshetra, God revealed to Arjuna profound spiritual truths and expounded the secrets of yoga, Vedanta, bhakti and karma. A notable feature of the Gita is that in it God speaks in first person, with the words ‘Bhagavaan Uvaacha’ (God said) preceding all that was spoken by Him. But since God is personified in the form of Shri Krishna in the Gita, there is debate about who is the source of the wisdom contained in the sacred book, which is often called the ‘mother of all scriptures’.
The teachings of the Bhagavad Gita are universal and relevant to all people, as they provide answers to questions that vex human minds everywhere, and show the way to conduct one’s life, achieve spiritual progress, and attain self-realisation. However, the God of Gita, who is the source of all this wisdom, does not have universal acceptance. That is because in the Gita, God is represented in the form of Shri Krishna, a Hindu deity. This has limited the Gita’s appeal and a lot of people regard it merely as a Hindu holy book, and not a universal scripture that has something for everyone. On careful study of the Gita one realises that the Mahabharata, of which the Gita is a part, is an allegorical tale meant to convey many teachings.
Shri Krishna is merely a representation of incorporeal God, and not God Himself, while Arjuna symbolises the spiritual seeker weighed down by ignorance and doubt. Passages in the Gita make it clear that Shri Krishna, a deity, or in other words a human with divine qualities, cannot be the God of Gita. In the book, God describes Himself as being ‘unborn and of imperishable nature’. Shri Krishna, a deity or, in other words, a human with divine qualities, could not have attributed to himself the qualities of the Supreme Being and exhorted Arjuna to remember him. In another passage, God says, ‘Whenever there is a decline of righteousness, O Arjuna, and rise of unrighteousness, then I manifest Myself’. Again, Shri Krishna could not have said this, as deities live in the Golden Age, when there is no trace of unrighteousness in the world. Deities don’t exist in the evil world that God comes to salvage.
They gradually lose their divinity and become ordinary humans, who also suffer spiritual depletion and become influenced by vices, because of which the world reaches a state that necessitates God’s intervention. God is almost universally accepted as being incorporeal, and is described in several religious traditions as a divine light without a human form. That raises the question as to how could God then have spoken, as shown in the Gita. The Gita itself provides the answer, with God saying that He incarnates Himself in an ordinary human body. In the Gita, Shri Krishna represents this human medium, through whom incorporeal God gives spiritual knowledge.
This medium is remembered in the scriptures as Brahma, the first man. Brahma is referred to in other religious traditions as Adam. He is the one who first receives spiritual knowledge from God and becomes instrumental (God’s human medium)in the establishment of a new, righteous world order. The confusion about the God of the Gita has not only denied the book its rightful status as a universal scripture but also prevented a large part of the human family from benefiting from the wisdom contained in it. Removing this confusion will help take the Gita to a wider audience, and also establish the fact that there is just one incorporeal God, and all human souls are linked to that Supreme Soul. Recognition of this spiritual connection will bring the human family closer together and help heal its divisions.
Courtesy : http://www.gitakabhagwan.com/
