Studies in the Epics and Puranas c13.s2.78

c13.s2.78

Munshiji's reverence and love for Śrī Kṛṣṇa and the Bhg are well known and he has been popularising the teachings of the Bhg and spreading Śrī Kṛṣṇa's message by various means. His "Experiential Approach to the Gītā" deals with many aspects of the message of the Gītā. Creative resistance, becoming, surrender to God, truth as *svadharma*, breaking the bonds, silence and solitude, are the various topics elaborately considered, well documented from the *Bhg* and the *Yogasūtras*.²⁸⁵ *Bhagavadgītā and Modern Life*²⁸⁶ consists of seven lectures which Munshiji delivered in the Gita Vidyalaya of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan during 1944-45 and 1945-46. The following are the topics discussed: (1) Place and meaning of the Gītā, (2) Therefore do thou resist, O! Arjuna, (3) The Unity which is Yoga, (4) Svabhāva — the Basis of Perfection, (5) Cāturvarṇya — its Ideal and Practice, (6) Yoga is Perfection in Action, and (7) Brahmacarya—Sublimation of the Sex Urge. Munshiji rightly points out that the Gītā, the pre-eminent scripture, being a universal gospel, is an intensely human document, a guide for every human situation. That knowledge, action and devotion are not alternative pathways, but have to be fused into a dynamic unity has been best illustrated by the lives of Śaṅkara and Kant, Calvin and Dayānanda, and Caitanya and St. Augustine, in whom predominated respectively knowledge, action and devotion. In Marcus Aurelius, a European Janaka Videhi, were beautifully mixed all the three elements. Bacon, Napoleon and Hitler are instances of lives wasted for lack of such fusion. Ananta Kṛṣṇa Śāstrī in his Sanskrit work shows how each of the Darśanas finds its doctrines advocated by the Gītā.²⁸⁷ In the *Art of Life in the Bhagavadgītā*,²⁸⁸ H. V. Divatia has described in ten chapters the psychology, epistemology, cosmology, metaphysics and ethics of the Gītā, and discussed in the concluding chapter how far modern science confirms the teachings of the philosophy of life behind the Gītā.