IV: 1

CHAPTER FOUR

ACTION AND INACTION

Verse 1

Krishna says,

"I revealed this everlasting Yoga
To Vivashwan, the Sun god,
Father of light,
So many ages ago.
He in turn revealed it to Manu,
Father of humans.
Next, his son, King Ikshvaku,
Learned it from Manu."

Sri Krishna Prem:

"Krishna reveals the source and credentials of the teaching. It is nothing 'new' that is being set forth; nor is it intended to form a new sect, shut off by the fortress of dogma from surrounding life. There is no ownership in the realm of ideas. Therefore it was that the Buddha made no claim to originality, being content to say that what he taught was but the echo of the teaching of all former Buddhas, and so Krishna is careful to explain that the Yoga he is teaching Arjuna is but a re-transmission of the eternal wisdom delivered under the same divine sanction to the Sun god long, long ago.

Let none suppose that by the phrase 'eternal wisdom' is meant some body of teachings set down in intellectual form in books however old. This wisdom is wordless truth itself, the norm by which all teachings must be judged, and the fount from which all the great religions and philosophies have sprung.

Eckhart Tolle:

"Dogmas arise out of the erroneous belief that thought can encapsulate reality or the truth. Dogmas are collective, conceptual prisons. The strange thing is that people love their prison cells, because they give them a false sense of security and a false sense of 'I know.' Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas. Every dogma crumbles sooner or later, because reality eventually reveals its limitations."