Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

Linguistic expertise doesn’t guarantee scriptural expertise by Chaitanya Charan Das Based on Bhagavad Gita Chapter 04

Many people think that learning the language of scripture is the key to understanding it. Thus, they feel that a Sanskrit scholar can best understand the Bhagavad-gita.

But the Gita is not just a book in Sanskrit – it is a book about philosophy, which being a complex body of knowledge requires its own kind of expertise to understand.

Most importantly, the Gita is a manual for living for all of humanity – it is not reserved for specialists either of language or of philosophy. Essentially, it is a spiritual revelation transmitted from the divine heart to the human heart that can be understood not merely through the intellect, but through the heart, with the head being used to serve a devoted heart.

The Gita is a manual for living for all of humanity – it is not reserved for specialists either of language or of philosophy.

Consider for example the Gita (04.16) declaration that even the wise are bewildered about what is karma and what is akarma. From a literal linguistic viewpoint, karma refers to activity and akarma refers to inactivity. Whether a person is being active or inactive can be understood even by a child – why, then, should it bewilder the wise?

The words ‘karma’ and ‘akarma’ are used here in a philosophical sense, wherein karma refers to work that produces reaction and akarma, to work that produces no reaction. Understanding which work will be reactive and which will be non-reactive is not easy – it is a conundrum that can tax even the wise. Earlier, the Gita (03.04-07) has problematized the assumption that inactivity frees one from reaction.

The Gita explains that reaction results from motivation, not from action per se. Realizing how working selflessly for the pleasure of Krishna frees us from worldly attachments and entanglements is a matter ultimately of not just intellectual analysis but also personal spiritual experience. Only those who live the Gita, offering their heart to Krishna, can relish this confidential import.