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Post No. 13,638

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Dr S Radhkrishnan on Plato, Socrates and Bhagavad Gita :– Part 2 (Post No.13,638)

Dr S Radhkrishnan, world renowned philosopher and former President of India in his book Bhagavad-Gita, year 1948, made the following comments :

Sloka BG 1-12

तस्य संजनयन्हर्षं कुरुवृद्धः पितामहः ।

सिंहनादं विनद्योच्चैः शङ्खं दध्मौ प्रतापवान्  ॥१-१२॥ 1.12

tasya sañjanayan harṣaṃ kuruvṛddhaḥ pitāmahaḥ
siṃhanādaṃ vinadyocchaiḥ śaṅkhaṃ dadhmau pratāpavān 1.12

1.12: The valiant Bhishma, the elder of the Kurus and the grandfather, roared like a lion and blew his conch loudly to cheer up Duryodhana.

Dr S Radhkrishnan: With him and others, loyalty to duty counted far more than individual conviction. Social order generally depends on obedience to authority. Did not Socrates tell Crito  that he wouldn’t break the laws of Athens  which brought him up, guarded and watched over him ?

(Here Dr R compares Bhishma with Socrates. Both knew the Government is wrong but obeyed to it.)

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Sloka BG 2-25

अव्यक्तोऽयमचिन्त्योऽयमविकार्योऽयमुच्यते |
तस्मादेवं विदित्वैनं नानुशोचितुमर्हसि ||2- 25||

avyakto ’yam achintyo ’yam avikāryo ’yam uchyate
tasmādevaṁ viditvainaṁ nānuśhochitum arhasi

The soul is spoken of as invisible, inconceivable, and unchangeable. Knowing this, you should not grieve for the body.

Dr S Radhkrishnan:  Arjuna’s grief is misplaced as the self cannot be hurt or slain. Forms may change; things may come and go but that which remains behind them all is for ever.

When Crito asks “in what way shall we bury you, Socrates ?

Socrates answers: In any way you like, but first you must catch me, the real me. Be of good cheer , my dear Crito , and say that you are burying my body only and do with that whatever is usual and what you think best.

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Sloka BG 6-10

योगी युञ्जीत सततमात्मानं रहसि स्थित: |
एकाकी यतचित्तात्मा निराशीरपरिग्रह: ||6- 10||

yogī yuñjīta satatam ātmānaṁ rahasi sthitaḥ
ekākī yata-chittātmā nirāśhīr aparigrahaḥ

Those who seek the state of Yog should reside in seclusion, constantly engaged in meditation with a controlled mind and body, getting rid of desires and possessions for enjoyment.

Dr S Radhkrishnan:  Plato’s Meno begins with the question Can you tell me, Socrates, is virtue to be taught? The answer of Socrates is virtue is not taught but recollected. Recollection is a gathering of one’s self together, a retreat into one’s soul. The doctrine of Recollection suggests that each individual should enquire within himself. He is his own centre and possess the truth in himself. What is needed is that he should have the will and the perseverance to follow it up. The function of the teacher is not to teach but to help to put the learner in possession of himself.

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Sloka BG 6-28

युञ्जन्नेवं सदात्मानं योगी विगतकल्मष: |
सुखेन ब्रह्मसंस्पर्शमत्यन्तं सुखमश्नुते ||6- 28||

yuñjann evaṁ sadātmānaṁ yogī vigata-kalmaṣhaḥ
sukhena brahma-sansparśham atyantaṁ sukham aśhnute

The self-controlled yogi, thus uniting the self with God, becomes free from material contamination, and being in constant touch with the Supreme, achieves the highest state of perfect happiness.

Dr S Radhkrishnan: 

brahma-sansparśham– contact with the Eternal. God is no more a rumour, a vague aspiration, but a vivid reality with which we are in actual contact.  Religion is not a matter of dialectic but a fact of experience. Reason may step in and offer a logical explanation of the fact but the reasoning becomes irrelevant, if it is not based on the solid foundation of fact.

Besides these facts of religious experience are universal in space and in time. They are found in different parts of the world and different periods of history, attesting to the persistent unity and aspiration of the human spirit. The illuminations of the Hindu and the Buddhas seers, of Socrates and Plato , of Philo and Plotinus , of Christian and Muslim mystics , belong to the same family, though the theological attempts to account for them reflect the temperaments of the race and the epoch.

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Sloka BG 14-4

सर्वयोनिषु कौन्तेय मूर्तय: सम्भवन्ति या: |
तासां ब्रह्म महद्योनिरहं बीजप्रद: पिता || 14- 4||

sarva-yoniṣhu kaunteya mūrtayaḥ sambhavanti yāḥ
tāsāṁ brahma mahad yonir ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā

14-3/4 The total material substance, prakṛiti, is the womb. I impregnate it with the individual souls, and thus all living beings are born. O son of Kunti, for all species of life that are produced, the material nature is the womb, and I am the seed-giving Father.

Dr S Radhkrishnan:  God has an eternal vision of creation in all its details.  Whereas in Socrates and Plato,  ideas and matter are conceived as  a dualism, where the subtle worlds of ideas and the gross world of matter is difficult to understand, in the Gita , the two are said to belong to the Divine. God himself incarnates the seminal ideas in the forms of the gross world. These seminal ideas which have a divine origin, which belong to the casual Logos are the explanation of our love for God.

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Sloka BG 18-24

यत्तुकामेप्सुना कर्म साहङ्कारेण वा पुन: |
क्रियते बहुलायासं तद्राजसमुदाहृतम् || 18-24||

yat tu kāmepsunā karma sāhankārena vā punaḥ
kriyate bahulāyāsaṁ tad rājasam udāhṛitam

Action that is prompted by selfish desire, enacted with pride, and full of stress, is in the nature of passion.

Doing unpleasant things from a sense of duty, feeling like unpleasantness all the time is of the nature of “passion”., but doing it gladly in utter unself-consciousness , with a smile on the lips, , as socrate drank hemlock, is of the nature of “goodness” it is the difference between an act of love and an act of law, an act of grace and an act of obligation.

–subham—

Tags- Dr S Radhkrishnan ,on Plato, Socrates ,Bhagavad Gita , Comparative Study by Scholars – Part 2