THE HOLY GITA

Wednesday 30 November 2016

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNLWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 18

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 18
Text in Transliteration:
Karmany akarma yah pasyed akarmani cha karma yah
Sa buddhimaan manushyeshu sa yuktah krrtsnakarmakrrt
Text in English:
He who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, he is wise among men, he is a yogi and accomplisher of everything.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
1)      Action is innate in Prakriti or Nature and inaction in Atman. The former is kinetic and the latter is static; one is the becoming and the other the Being; one is perishable and the other the imperishable. The ignorant are confused being unable to distinguished between the two. A passenger in a running train mistakes the nearby trees as running in the opposite direction. Here motion is attributed wrongly to the motionless. Action is seen in inaction due to ignorance. A man on the shore mistakes a sailing ship at a distance in the sea as one that stands still. Here inaction is seen in action. Thus it is seen that actions and inactions in nature do not always present themselves in their true perspective. The characteristics of the one are often imposed on the other due to ignorance. The ignorant man thinks of himself as the body. “Now I work; now I rest”—thus does he transpose the function of Prakriti on Atman. Mistaking the non-Self for Self is egoism. There is agency in the egoistic man. The agency-laden egoistic man may be sitting quiet abandoning all his duties. Even in that inert state he is verily a doer of karma. This ignorant condition is designated as action in inaction. In contrast with this, there is no trace of egoism in the man of Self-realization. While his body works incessantly, the Self remains as a witness. Atman is in nowise entangled in karma. The sense of over-work, under-work or neglect of duty is not in the knower of the self. This supreme position is recognized as inaction in action. Only they who have attained self-knowledge and they who are on the right path of Self-knowledge can be in this benign state.
                                                                                                                                      --Sri Sankara


2)      Activities taking place in and through the body, mind and senses are designated as karma or action; and the knowledge Supreme as akarma or inaction.
A man earnestly takes to cookery. He occupies himself with cooking. Seeing inaction in action is the process of adding to ones’s knowledge by doing ones duty properly. He who has a wide knowledge in cookery is able to execute that art efficiently. This leads to seeing action in inaction. This way karma enriches knowledge and knowledge brings in proficiency in work.
Karma known as living a righteous life culminates in Self-knowledge. The man of self-knowledge discharges his earthly duties to the best of his ability. Karma and Jnana (wisdom) are complementary to each other.                                                                                                         --  Sri Ramanuja
3)      What the individual soul views as his personal effort is karma, action. The unfailing Cosmic Function of the Supreme Lord is Akarma, inaction.
Man in his ignorance thinks that he is sole agent of his action. But when he sets aside his egoism and agency and feels that his actions are in reality the doings of the Lord, he is said to see inaction in action. Man is not responsible for what he does in dream; but whatever takes place in that state is also the Lod’s doing. With or without the instrumentality of man, the Lord’s work goes on perfectly. He who sees this great fact sees the Lord’s action in man’s inaction too. Such a man gains in wisdom.
                                                                                                                                   --  Sri Madhwa
4)      The nature of karma is to bind man to the wheel of birth and death. But that karma which is performed without egoism, purely for the glory of the Lord does not bind man. Furthermore it disentangles man from the bondages of his previous karma. To see, therefore, inaction in action is to convert all bondage-creating actions into freedom-creating actions. Work done for the sake of the Lord has this effect.
Desisting from obligatory action, due to laziness or ignorance, is highly harmful. New fetters are thereby created. Giving up auspicious action is inaction leading to encumbrances. Creating new entanglements in this way or seeing action in inaction, is not the way of the enlightened.
                                                                                                                                                --  Sridhara
5)      Mind requires to be cultured both in society and in solitude. If the mind can maintain its equilibrium and calmness while being engaged in a roaring battle, it is seeing inaction in action. While one is bodily detached from the turmoils of the world and placed in a far off deep mountain cave, if one’s mind goes Godward steadily and earnestly, it is seeing action in inaction.
It will not do for the mind to be top-sided in its development. There are those who are habituated to solitude. If such people be dragged into the tumultuous society, they go mad. There are others immersed in the throngs of the world. A day of solitary confinement is enough to turn them insane. Both of these types of men are partially trained. The perfectly trained alone are at their best both in solitude and in society. They are tuned both to action and inaction.
                                                                                                                           --Swami Vivekananda
6)  Sri Krishna and Arjuna arrive at Kurukshetra, the former driving the chariot and the latter impatient to fight. The implications of the war that is about to commence flash in Arjuna’s mind just now. He throws away the bow and arrows. “I want not this vainglorious warfare,” says he and sits quiet.
Sri Krishna and Arjuna now present two different pictures, one contradicting the other. The Lord is the embodiment of inaction in action. His duty is to drive the chariot. With the left hand He wields an iron grip at the reins of the four spirited is the embodiment of inaction in action. With the left hand He wields as iron grip at the reins of the four spirited white horses, ever ready to dash forward. His right hand assumes chinmudra, the finger pose of imparting wisdom to His dejected devotee, Arjuna. While the hands are fully engaged this way, the benign face beams with some other message. Calmness reigns supreme on the countenance, indicating that the mind within is firm as a rock. Action belongs to Prakriti. Atman embodied as Sri Krishna is ever established in inaction. Poise in the midst of purpose, inaction in action—this inspiring principle gets revealed through Yogeswara.
Arjuna, on the other hand, has cast off his bow and arrows. He puts on the appearance of inaction, though the fact is otherwise. Great commotion goes on within. Fear is on one side wrecking his heart. Pang is on the other side piercing his body to pieces. He who seems to have easily renounced his duty is tortured by the conflict of duty. His face indicates the storm within. The miserable Arjuna embodies action in inaction.
A yogi ought to be in the world but not of the world. He keeps his head in solitude and hands in society. He works incessantly and enjoys eternal holiday. Through His personal life Sri Krishna offers this grand philosophy of action and inaction to the world. How the half-educated man errs and deviates from the profound path is demonstrated by Arnjuna at the outset. But that his earnestness combined with the grace of the Lord weans him to the right path is also made evident. The commentaries of all the great Acharyas (Teachers) are contained in the careers of these two characters—Sri Krishna and Arnjuna. He who diligently inquires into this becomes wise among men; he is verily a yogi; he gains the here and hereafter.
7) Sri Ramakrishna seemed all inaction externally, but the greatest of all actions, the quest for the Infinite, was going on within. Swami Vivekananda was energy personified, and action was his message, but at the core of his heart he was established in Atman designated here as inaction.

(The Blogger’s Note: both paragraph 6 and 7 have been written by Swami Sidbhavananda)

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The lad holding fast to a pillar spins speedily round it without the fear of falling down. Similarly you fix your mind on God and do the earthly duties as best you can. All good will come out of it.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
So long as we work in a detached spirit our mental balance is not disturbed. We refrain from actions which are born of desire and do our duties, with a soul linked with the divine. So true non-activity is to preserve inner composure and to be free from attachment. Akarma means the absence of bondage resulting from work because it is done without attachment. He who works without attachment is not bound. We are acting, even when we sit quiet without any outward action.Co, Astaavajragitaa. The turning away from action by fools due to perversity and ignorance amounts to action. The action of the wise ( that is their desireless action) has the same fruit as that of renunciation.
Shankara explains that in atman there is no action; in the body however there is no rest, even when there seems to be rest.
Ramanuja holds that akarma is aatmjnaana .The wise man is he who sees jnaana in the true performance of karm. For him jnaana and karma go together.
According to Madhva, akarma is the inactivity of the self and the activity of Vishnu. Therefore the wise man is he who sees the activity of Vishnu. Therefore the wise man is he who sees the activity of the Lord whether the individual is active or not.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
In common parlance action means ‘movement of the body, movement of the hands and feet’, and inaction means ‘to sit quiet’.
It is the idea of agency, the idea ‘I am the doer’ that binds man to Samsara. If this idea vanishes, action is no action at all. It will not bind one to Samsara. This is inaction at all. It will not bind one to Samsara. This is inaction in action. If you stand as a spectator or silent witness of Nature’s activities, feeling Nature does everything; I am non-doer (Akarta), if you identify yourself with the actionless Self, no matter what work or how much of it is done, action is no action at all. This is inaction in action. By such a practice and feeling, action loses its binding nature.
A man may sit quietly. He may not do anything. But if he has the idea of agency or doership, or if he thinks that he is the doer, he is ever doing action, though he is sitting quietly. This is action in inaction. The restless mind will ever be doing actions even though one sits qietly. Actious of the mind are real actions. “Nor can anyone even for one moment remain really actionless, for helplessly is everyone driven to action by the qualities of Nature.” (chapter III.5)
Inaction also induces the feeling of egoism. The inactive man says, ‘I sit quietly; I do nothing.’ Inaction, like action is wrongly attributed to the Self.
He is the performer of all actions who knows this truth. He has attained the end of all actions, i.e., freedom or knowledge or perfection.
When a steamer moves the trees on the shore which are motionless, appear to move in the opposite direction to a man who is in the steamer. Moving objects that are very far away appear to be stationary or motionless. Even so in the case of the Self inaction is mistaken for action and action for inaction.
The Self is actionless (Akarta or non-doer, Nishkriya or without work). The body and the senses perform action. The actions of the body and the senses are falsely and wrongly attributed by the ignorant to the actionless Self. Therefore the ignorant man thinks , ‘I act’. He thinks that the Self is the doer or the agent of the action. This is a mistake. This is ignorance.
Just as motion does not really belong to the trees on the shore which appear to move in the opposite direction to a man on board the ship, so also action does not really pertain to the Self.
This ignorance which is the cause of birth and death vanishes when you attain Self-realisation.

Comments by the blogger:

God in His Turiya (Spirit) state is totally actionless. The jeevatmas or the human beings are full of actions. But even inside of them,their Atman is actionless.
One who sees action in inaction and inaction in action is a wise man; he is a yogi.
For God who comes down to earth for a particular purpose action is a must. For human beings also is a must. Because in Samsara or the worldly life which is akin to an Ocean, there is illusion, desire and action and the whole Universe is filled with action. The sun shines and the planets move around the sun. There are millions of trillion stars bigger by many hundred times than our sun. They look very small to our naked eyes because of the distance. Such is the magnitude of the sky. That is why it is said to be infinite. Indeed it is finite and round in shape. What is outside the orb of the sky. A colossal void or darkness? Then they too must be included with the sky! Such is the magnitude of the Universe. The earth revolves at such a speed it seems to be motionless. T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartet” speaks of the exact point of the revolving earth and the poet says there is no action at that exact point!

Everything about God’s creation is amazing. We can’t even believe it. The revolving earth remains to our eyes to be stationary. It is inaction in action. This Universe with so many wonderful things can be put an end to and all the lives may be taken by God if He removes just one atom from out of the Universe. That is why Kalki Avatar (the tenth and the last Avatar by Lord Vishnu) is for putting an end to this Universe. And during the Kalki avatar Lord Vishnu is said that He would be coming to the earth mounted on a white Horse. His reason for the Kalki Avatar is that the life on earth can no longer continued; that everyone and everything has become filled with sinful thoughts and has attained a state whereon no one could be redeemed. So God would come down to earth as Kalki mounted on a white steed. But in His heart there would be no thought as hatred. That final act of destruction wholesale by Kalki would be inaction in action!
That apart, why should Kalki come down here mounted on a white steed? It is highly allegorical. Sri Vishnu in His Kalki Avatar would just remove one single atom from this universe filled with numberless and uncountable planets and all including sky! One single atom removed from here would be enough to put an end to the Universe.
How?
It has been scientifically proved that matter may change and be changed. One thing may be changed into another thing. The mud is turned by the potter into beautiful pots. We create and assemble Rockets that travel in the interstellar Universe. That is an assemblage of iron, plastic and other metals principally. But we cannot destroy matter. Everything can be ultimately reduced to ash. But can ash be changed? Is a handful of ash perishable?
What is predominantly inside of the atom? Space and void indeed! And it has been proved to all. Inside a cell or an atom apart from the nucleus and electron and proton and other specks or tiny particles, there is space predominantly. If an atom is magnified, according to the Tamil Writer Sujatha, into the size of a circus ten, all the electron, proton and other things’ mass would not be bigger than a mustard seed. The rest of the atom, the circus tent, is filled by void space! And the Vedic and Upanishadic Sages saw the space as white. So Lord Vishnu, they said, would come down to the earth mounted on a white steed!
And Kalki would occur only when the earthly beings get to be so vile and incurably bad that the very purpose of creation would be set at naught.
But Lord Vishnu would be just doing His last action. And in that action would inhere inaction because there would be no personal feeling or anger on the part of the Lord. Whatever is born must die. Whatever is created must find its destruction.
All these apart, what is action and what is inaction. As has already been said by Swami Sidbhavananda that the matter of forbidden action is elaborately dealt with in the chapters 16 and 17.
The Hindu saints and Sri Krishna have gone deep into this philosophical point. Because only if we know what is action and inaction and forbidden action, our life here could be filled with the right kind of actions!
God in His Spirit stage is beyond action. Contrast this between the Old Testament, which is common both to the Bible readers and Quran readers: According to the Old Testament, God took six days for creating this Universe and life and on the seventh day He took rest. This is how the Sabbatical day and observances on that day came about. Out of this the Europeans and the Americans found out weekend holidays!
Joking and Jestings apart, the Hindu Sages see found out that according to the perceiver, the Universe can be seen as matter or a great and beautiful thought!
Here all sorts of actions are possible. Samsara or worldly life involves human beings suffering from illusion which gives rise to desire and which in turn gives rise to actions of all kinds.
All our actions are geared toward achieving something useful for us. That only amount to adding fuel to the fire. We can never become free of actions by indulging in them the way we do. We only act for its fruits. Selfishness is the order of the day. It is as if we cannot act without selfishness. And such actions give rise to more and more actions.
But the problem and the great human tragedy is we cannot go without actions as the Samsara or worldly life in this illusory world is full of material desires. Our desires can never find fulfillment. When one desire is fulfilled through arduous actions thousand desires crop up. We are chained to this mode. We must act. We can, any of us, help go on living without action.
But Sri Krishna shows a way out. That is turning all actions into inactions. How? By indulging in actions without any iota of selfishness and without egotistic tendencies we can turn our obligatory actions into inactions. Those actions are inactions which do not enchain us to prakriti or Nature. Such actions are very hard indeed.
Whoever can sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, he is a wise man as the Lord says. We have self-ordained obligatory actions. We can do them for selfish purpose or completely without any selfishness.
But how to see inaction in action and action in inaction?
For this we have to know what action is. That indulgence which produces some effect is action. How can we see inaction in action?
We can see inaction in action if we can shed the ‘I’ ness and the tendency that  means ‘I do this’ and ‘I do that’. Our basic notion about our action is EGO. This need not necessarily mean we are egotistical bastards. The very simple thing that a five-year-old child’s thinking that he is my father and she is my mother and this is my toy is born of EGO! All here about us is filled with EGO. I love her is ego. She loves me is ego. I eat, I drink are because of ego. For we are the tiny and individual expression of the Lord who has everything here! We have been sent here to work ceaselessly and helplessly. But this is not our place, not our native place! We belong to and co-extensive with God. That is why the moment we feel ‘ I do this. I will do that. This is mine’ enchain us. And this is basic action. But if we can say ‘this body does this, this body did that, and instead of feeling and saying I sit here in this chair we can say, ’this body sits here in this chair’ that will mean inaction. The act of sitting in a chair can be turned into an inaction! Likewise, we can change every small and big action including eating, drinking, sleeping with the spouse and every other thing into this kind of consciousness, and refuse to identify ourselves with our body then whatever we do, big or small, will be turned into inaction. This is seeing inaction in action.
How to see action in inaction? That is a matter of meditation. of all human actions meditation is the most supreme. Next, comes praying to the Lord. At the time of meditation, at a higher level, nothing happens. We see into the soonya or nothingness. This is important. Everything here has come out of nothing. So the origin or every thing is nothingness. But the act of meditation at a higher level is the crowning act a human being can indulge in. But in that great inaction we should see action. For God is without any act. God will neither act nor suffer any action. But Lord Siva and Vishnu or the human manifestation of God. When they come down here they will eat, drink and love but those actions will not bind them, for prakriti or Nature and her Maya or illusion are enslaved by Shiva and Vishnu. God in His pristine form is called by the Muslims as Allah, Christians as the Holy Spirit and the Hindu sages as “Turiya”. God in that state does not act.
God’s prakriti is a great discovery of the Vedic Saints. The ancient Egyptians and Greeks also were aware of the Lord’s prakriti and they were Nature or Elemental worshipers like the Vedic Sages.
Some time ago we were talking about God in His Kalki Avatar need only withdraw one single atom from His universe. That is true. He need not do anything more. What is the implication? That Man has an umbilical relationship with stars thousands or light years away! Can you imagine much less believe? And believe me, the Rig-Vedic saints were well aware of this singular fact. Every single thing in this enormously massive and immense Universe is interrelated with each other.
Hindu Saints studied, like the Greeks and the Egyptians the stars and sky, and made a thorough study of the paths of the planets. They immensely believed that each planet influences Man in his earthly sojourn. Thus was born the astrological predictions and it was developed into great science! Astronomy was one of the things the ancient Hindus thoroughly understood.
And they found out various planes of existence. They called them Lokas or worlds like ours. And they could tell they are not removed from us by thousands of light years’ distance. But they are just different planes of consciousness. Thus they sent pindas or a handful of cooked rice with mustard seeds to the deceased forefathers through the medium of Agni or Fire in various sacrifices. They had various sacrifices tune up to minute scientific theories. In Quran Allah the Akbar speaks of His having created seven skies. Seven skies are called by the Hindus as seven Lokas or worlds. In the Holy Bible Jesus Christ declares, “My Father’s palace has several mansions.” Almost all the saints speak greatly about the Pranavi sound “OM”! for the Christians it is Amen. For the Muslims it is Aameen. For every saint has heard this sound in his meditation and felt unbearable joy.

Hey, great guys! Thanks for being with me this far.
What to do if we can’t become saints overnight or overbirth, so to speak.
Take heart. Never become disheartened. Have you ever indulged in killing a man, raping a girl or boy , have you ever transgressed God’s common code of law? I will say definitely not. For you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you had. Would the Nirbhaya’s rapists read this blog? So take heart. And please understand the first thing that comes to trouble us when we go deep into spiritual things is fear. Have you heard of the story of the caged birds? The caged birds would not take to their wings the moment the cage is opened. They will go round the cage and try the open space and only much after a time-loss they will take to their wings in that glorious way God has invested with them. A bird in flight is a sight for the gods, no?
We are like that bird. Caged into sheerness of selfish actions! And we certainly have enemies. And it is very difficult to forgive them not to speak of loving them. Though loving must precede forgiveness.
Let us make a though study of The Holy Gita. It is a testament for all. You might have taken up some yogic exercise. You might even have dabbled in some sort of meditational methods. Can you deny you didn’t feel your stress completely relieved? So yoga is not for the Hindus though it is a Hindu-contribution to the world. Like that, Gita too is not for the Hindus alone. It belongs to the world.
And take heart further. After teaching all these things, the Lord of Gita drives Arjuna into war as it was his self-ordained duty as a kshatriya!
At the same time some great yogis and yoga teachers might be following this blog, and I touch their holy feet with my forehead.

  


Tuesday 29 November 2016

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 17

 THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 17
Text in Transliteration:
karmano hy api boddhavyam
   boddhavyam cha vikarmanah
akarmanas cha boddhavyam
   gahanaa karmano gatih

Text in English
It is needful to discriminate action, to discriminate forbidden action, and to discriminate inaction; inscrutable is the way of karma.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
What the scriptures advocate as auspicious work is here designated as action; and what they prohibit as harmful and inauspicious work is described as forbidden action. But the forbidden action is not dealt with here. It is elaborately explained in chapters 16 and 17.
Comments by the blogger:
The Lord says that the way of karma is inscrutable. Only auspicious karma or work as designated so in the Scriptures can be taken as action. Other actions whose product is evil is forbidden by the Scriptures. All the auspiciousness is derived from the Lord indeed. God is full of all auspicious qualities. But He instills these auspicious qualities in the prakriti or nature. One should be able to understand what is meant by action.  Because such auspicious qualities alone are discriminated as action! Other actions which are forbidden are not designated as action. The Man should be able to understand karma or action. It is inscrutable because the source of karma or action is desire and desire in turn crops up from illusion. So all actions are not recommended as actions and the forbidden actions are not actions at all. So human beings are recommended to not indulge in forbidden actions. This is for our good and ennoblement. But there is yet another category of karma which is designated by the Lord as inaction. So without the help of the Scriptures we cannot discriminate between action, forbidden action which are listed in chapters 16 and 17 as per Swami Sidbhavananda’s commentary, and inaction.

The Hinduism alone has gone so deep in such philosophical questions. All the relevant questions have been asked by the Vedic and the Upanishadic Sages and Saints and full answers for them have been found by them. They have, out of infinite compassion for the succeeding generations of the world as a whole. For this various sastras or Scriptures have been written by them. The Hindus cannot say they belong to them alone. They are for the whole world and for all ages. They never become old or antiquated. Gita is a fine summation of such Sastras or Scriptures. By reading Gita regularly a human being can be said to have a thorough knowledge of all the Hindu Scriptures.  

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE, OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 16

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 16
Text in Transliteration:
kim karma kim akarme ‘ti kavayo  ‘py atra mohitaah
tat te karma pravakashyaami yaj jnaatvaa moksyase ‘subhaat
Text in English:
Sages too are perplexed as to what is action, what inaction. Therefore I shall tell you what action is, by knowing which you shall be freed from all evil.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The worst of all evils is that pertaining to the wheel of birth and death. To put an end to this endless evil, the way of action should be understood. It should not be thought that merely toiling to the utmost is the way of karma.

Comments by the blogger:
The chain or wheel of birth and death is described as evil by the Lord. It does not mean He hates those who are yoked by their selfish and even evil actions forever to the chain of birth and death. God is sat-chit-ananda. And He is full of compassion especially for those souls who are effectively waylaid by illusion, desire and non-stop selfish and even evil action. One of the Lord’s attributes is his ready accessibility. We can’t see our Chief Minister and Prime Minister as and when we desire. Indeed  we can never see them in person if we are ordinary average men. But God is accessible even to the rapist of Nirbhaya who at last pierced her stomach with a sharp instrument in order to delete the evidence! Such is God’s nature. Still, He time and time again describes the wheel of birth and death as evil! Because He wants us to strive our level best in escaping the vicious circle and wheel of births and deaths! It does not mean that He hates those who worship Him for worldly things and comforts. Because only He knows what a great comfort it is to escape the wheel. So easy accessibility is one of the Lord’s attributes! Because he knows in the face of  Nature or prakriti’s illusory power and our awkwardness even in the case of great men and women to safeguard against too many worldly desires. But one thing is sure; the constant study of the Holy Bhagavat Gita would make us become watchful and safeguard ourselves against the illusory pitfalls of this world, besides providing us with an inner peace of mind and harmony between thought, speech and action.
In this sloka or stanza, the Lord says the nature of action and inaction and speaks how even great sages have differing opinions about the same. So the Lord takes upon Himself to once and for all to put an end to all arguments even among scholars and sages.

    

THE HOLY YOGA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 15

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 15
Text in Transliteration:
evam jaatvaa krrtam karma poorvair api mumukshubhih
kuru karmai ‘va tasmaat tvaam poorvaih poorvataram krtam
Text in English:
Having known thus even the ancient seekers after freedom performed action; therefore do you perform action, as did the ancients in the olden times.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The knowing aspirant abandons egoism and desire; he does not give up karma. The seekers of freedom walked this way through ages. This principle has not been enunciated newly for the sake of Arjuna. Why was he then confused on this issue? There was nothing strange in it.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
The ignorant perform action for self-purification and (atma suddhyartham) and the wise perform action for the maintenance of the world (Lokasmgrahartham)
As the ancients carried out the work ordained by tradition, Arjuna is called upon to do his duty as a warrior. Cp. “Lord of the Universe, Supreme Spirit, Beneficent God, at Thy command only, I shall carry on this pilgrimage of life, for the good of the creatures and for Thy glory.”
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Knowing thus that the Self can have no desire for the fruits of actions and cannot be tainted by them, and knowing that no one can be tainted if he works without egoism, attachment and expectation of fruits, do thou perform your duty.
If your heart is impure, perform actions for its purification. If you have attained Atma-Jnana or the knowledge of the Self, work for the well-being of the world. The ancients such as Janaka and others performed actions in days of yore. So do thou also perform action.
      
Comments by the blogger:
The problem of the embodied or men and women is that we cannot escape, even for a single moment, action. Even the profoundly Tamasic person (the  person whose discrimination is clouded by darkness and illusion and ignorance) is action oriented in  his own way. Even when we sit and be idle we are action-oriented, for our mind can indulge in thinking and imagination of whose speed cannot be described. One moment it might think of the duty that has to be carried out tomorrow and the next contiguous moment it might think of the American Movie, only to come back to think that one is hungry! Three acts can be done in thought and imagination in the space of a contiguous moment without much of an exertion. And that is action indeed. And even when we sit idly our heart and lungs and other organs are in a non-stop action mode.
So the things is that nobody can escape action including the Lord when he creates Himself in to human form and come down here on some ineffable mission! If that being the case how can we escape action?
But there is one good and sure way to escape action.
Like the Upanishadic Sages, like the king Janaka, the father of Sita, one can ever indulge in action for giving velocity to the public wheel and the wheel set in motion by the Lord without any thought as for return as consideration. Quid pro quo will never do when we want to sunder the millennial chain of birth and death. We must follow the tradition of such great people in performing action for the upholding and uplifting of the collective humanity.
Here one question shall arise.
Can’t a good soul indulge in action for his and his family’s sake? Is it a Universal crime? How could my son indulge in crime by boning up for his entrance exams for becoming a doctor? Is it a crime on behalf of his parents in encouraging him in this matter? And if one’s son or daughter become a doctor he or she could enjoy all the good things of life, can’t he? And while it is definitely not a crime in law how could the same thing become a sin and selfishness for a man and his offspring? What the law of the country permits and facilitates is not a sin, Ok? For this must I come back here to the earth’s plane time and time again?
For those ladies and gentlemen may it be said that I am one of you, first of all!
Next thing is, it is one thing to do a thing and quite another to know the tradition of the spiritual seekers. What I want to say time and time again is that within law nothing is a sin if we are prepared for countless births and deaths. It is just that our dhrishti or seeing things in the  proper way has been veiled by ignorance and selfishness. Hey! Take heart. We are not one of the chaps who raped and killed Nirbhaya, Ok? We are honest folks. But we are somewhat ignorant and selfish. Selfishness within the border is allowed in a democracy. Otherwise a nation would become filled with bead-saying monks and it would take not China but the puny little Pakistan to occupy our country even without the help of China! The history of the Great King Asoka is an objective lesson. After the life of Asoka, who had taken to ahimsa or non-violence as a national policy, his kingdom fell to pieces. When Pakistan or China indulge in border skirmishes we cannot be seen as telling the beads. So a state must have all sorts of people. Most of the folks would be working for their good and in that inheres the good and might of the nation. A nation that fails to produce wealth is proceeding toward a sure damnation, no? 
Even God instils Arjuna in the Great War, no? It is his dharma, He says you see?

So while living our life abundantly let us read our Scriptures and at some part of our incarnations we shall have gradually shed ignorance and selfishness and become fit for full freedom. Until then let’s act for the good of ourselves and our families and our motherland, Ok? But at the same time we should faithfully read Scriptures like Bhagavat Gita. In that way, we would come to know that there is another plane of consciousness that involves doing work for the Lord alone. And, in the meanwhile let us gradually bon up for our exam at the next birth and earn as many good and meritorious acts!   

Monday 28 November 2016

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 14.

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 14

Text in Transliteration:
na maam karmaani limpanti na me karmaphale sprhaa
iti maam yo ‘bhijaanaati karmabhir na sa badhyatc
Text in English:
Nor do actions taint Me, nor is the fruit of action desired by Me. He who thus knows Me is not bound by actions.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Karma produces modifications of the mind in the egoistic man. ‘I do’, ‘I enjoy’—attitudes such as these are the modifications. But the Lord is free from egoism. He is therefore, untainted by actions. It is desire when one seeks a thing not one’s own. The Lord has everything contained in Him and He transcends them all too. Therefore, He has nothing to desire. The spiritual aspirant who comes to know of this glory of the Lord would like to be himself untainted by egoism and free from desire. Emulation of the great is the way of the elite.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
As i have neither egoism nor desire for fruits, i am not bound by actions. Worldly people think they are the agents and they perform actions. The also expect fruits for their actions. So they take birth again and again. If one works without attachment, without egoism, without expectation of fruits, he too will not be bound by actions. He will be freed from birth and death. (Cf. IX. 9)
Comments by the blogger:
Samsara, that is as we have seen too often, is the worldly life, which is akin to an Ocean. Human beings are tossed into this ocean. Samsara constitutes maya or illusion, kama or desire and karma or action. The illusion takes care of our knowing self and beguiles us. We forget our antiquity. We are individual expressions of the Lord. We are coextensive with the Lord. Because of the illusion we forget our divine antecedents and think we are individual persons. That make us slaves to the desires and we want to become action oriented and always indulge in action and think we are the agents of action. In other words, we indulge in actions for the sake of the fruits of the actions. Once we indulge in action for fruits, we lose our divine powers and become bound by our actions. If the actions are good, we have to enjoy the fruits of the good actions and enjoy life more and more and thus bound more and more by prakriti or Nature. If the actions are bad we incur negative points called sin. Then we have to suffer for that.  Such of the effect of all the good and bad actions are added to our Prarapta karma that determines our next birth. So we have to enjoy and suffer for the remainder of the effects of both the good and bad actions in the next birth. And the chain of birth and death continues.
Whereas if we adopt the ways of Sri Krishna in Mahabharata where he is fully action oriented and whose cumulative actions weighs more than the actions of all the characters of the epic, we will not be bound by our actions. Sri Krishna acts in the epic without any sense of agency or any objective to enjoy the fruits thereof. He has no sense of agency. If we could become like that and shed the ‘I do this, I did that’ consciousness, then we too could shed the sense of agency and be freed from the chain of birth and death.

Sri Krishna wants us to KNOW HIM. If we know Him as the great actor without any sense of doership or agency, then we would regain our original state which is coextensive with the Great Lord Himself!     

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE , VERSE NUMBER 13

THE HOLY YOGA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 13
Text in Tranceliteration:
chaaturvarnyam mayaa srrshtam gunakarma vibhaagasah
tasya kartaaram api maam viddhy akartaaram avyayam
Text in English:
The fourfold caste was created by Me by the different distribution of Guna and karma. Though I be the author thereof, know Me to be the actionless and changeless.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Creation is effected by variation in the distribution of Gunas. That Jiva in whom Sattva-guna (the tendency full of light of knowledge) predominates is classified as Brahmana. He is a kshatriya in whom Sattva guna seasoned with Rajas prevails. The man third in the rank is the Vaisya imbued minly with Rajas guna and sparingly with Sattva and Tamas gunas. In Sidra the last man Tamas regulated by Rajas is in the forefront. Varna literally means caste as well as colour. White, red and black are the respective colours of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. It may be mentioned here that the entire universe is an imprint of tri-gunas or tricolour. With the variations of the three Gunas in man his colour undergoes change. The four classes of men are respectively white, lotus-red, yellow and black in colour. But this does not refer to the colour of the skin. If it did, all white races would be Brahmanas, Red Indians of America, Kshatriyas, Mongolians Vaisyas, and persons like Rama and Krishna Sudras. Facts in Nature do not warrant this position.
The worth of man is in the mind and not in the body. Mind has its colour and not in the body. Mind has its colour according to Guna. As man evolves, Guna and mind which are interrelated get refined. The colour or the class of man goes up accordingly. From Sudrahood to Brahmanahood man evolves mentally, passing through Vaisyahood and Kshatriyahood. The enlightened alone see into the colour of the mind and know who is who among men.
The worldly man’s classification of himself into the four castes based on birth and parentage is merely a convention hardly ever tallying with his attainments. But the Vedanta philosophical position is that among four brothers all the four Varnas may be evident. The real classification is based on the degree of ethical and spiritual perfection. (The actions of the four castes are explained in chapter 18 stanzas 41, 43 and 44)
Things sentient and insentient are all constituted of the three Gimas. They lend themselves therefore to the natural division into the four Varnas mentioned by the Lord. The plan of Nature is that beings low in Varna evolve into those high.
If the social structure fabricated by man conforms with the divine plan of the fourfold caste, there is progress in that society; but it deteriorates too the extent it deviates from the divine plan. The Incarnations of God that come age after age set aright the fallen Varna dharma (ordained duty particular to a Varna or Class).
How the Lord remains actionless and changeless even while propelling the whole universe is explained in chapter 9 stanzas 5 to 10.
Is there any benefit to an aspirant from the Lord’s statement that He is in fact actionless and changeless? It is explained in the next stanza.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
chaaturvarnyam: the fourfold order. The emphasis is on guna (aptitude) and karma (function) and not Jaati (birth). The varna or the order to which we belong is independent of sex, birth or breeding. A class determined by temperament and vocation is not a caste determined by birth and heredity. According to the Maha Bharata, the whole world was originally of one class but later it became divided into four divisions on account of the specific duties. Even the distinction between caste and outcaste is artificial and unspiritual. An ancient verse points out that the Brahmin and the outcaste are blood brothers. In the Maha Bharata, Yudhisthira says that it is difficult to find out the caste of persons on account of the mixture of castes. Men beget offspring in all sorts of women. So conduct is the only determining feature of caste according to sages.
The fourfold order is designed for human evolution. There is nothing absolute about the caste system which has changed its character in the process of history. Today it cannot be regarded as anything more than an insistence on a variety of ways in which the social purpose can be carried out. Functional groupings will never be out of date and as for marriages they will happen among those who belong to more or less the same stage of cultural those who belong to more or less the same stage of cultural development. The present morbid condition of India broken into castes and subcates is opposed to the unity taught by the Gita, which stands for an organic as against an atomistic conception of society.
akartaaram: non-doer.  As the Supreme is unattached, He is said to be a non-doer. Works do not affect His changless being, though He is the unseen background of all works.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The four castes ( Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Sudra) are classified according to the differentiation of Guna and Karma. In a Brahmana, Sattva predominates straightforwardness, devotion, etc. In a kshatria, Rajas predominates. He possesses prowess, splendour, firmness, dexterity, generosity and the nature of a ruler. In a Vaishya, Rajas predominates and Tamas is subordinate to Rajas. He does the duty of ploughing, protection of cattle and trade. In a Sudra Tamas predominates and Rajas is subordinate to Tamas. He does service to the other three castes. Human temperaments and tendencies vary according to the Gunas.
Though the Lord is the author of the caste system, yet He is not the author as He is the Non-doer. He is not subject to Samsara. Really Maya does everything. Maya is the real author. Society can exist in a flourishing state if the four castes do their duties properly. Otherwise there will be chaos, rupture and fighting. (Cf. XVIII. 41)

 Comments by the blogger:
The fourfold caste was created by Me by the different distribution of Guna and Karma. Though I be the author thereof, know Me to b the actionless and changeless.
Now let’s break the Verse down:-
1.       The fourfold caste was created by Me.
2.       It was done by the different distribution of Guna and karma.
3.       Though I be the author thereof...
4.       Know me to be the actionless and changeless.
It is a pertinent question to ask if God of Gita created the fourfold caste which has now deteriorated into fourthousandfold caste.
The truth of the matter is God did not have a direct hand in the creation of the fourfold caste. But God created the prakrity which acts as a mother as well as a stern teacher as well as a task master. The truth is the prakriti is not only made of five elements, but three gunas or tendencies or aptitude.  So we human beings also have evolved in to beings with three gunas or tendencies or aptitude. Each person and animal is made of the five elements called wind, sky, water, fire and earth. We also have the three gunas. Because the Universe is an assemblage of the said five elements and three gunas. We each are a mini universe. Though we are having all the three gunas, they are in varying proportion in each of us. This is how our aptitude and attitude to life and character are derived. Those in whom Sattva guna predominates they would be full of light and goodness and majesty of character. They would not attach too much importance to the worldly things and wealth and possessions. They would be very devout and would not tell a lie. Everything good and majestic will find a place in them. In the Gita time itself there was a mixture of castes owing to the higher caste men having the relationship with women belonging to the lower castes and beget children through them. This is exemplified by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s commentary. Due to this guna bedha or conjunction of higher cast men intent upon sowing wild oats and the lower caste women who yielded to their carnal desires and beget children. Hundreds of castes were given rise to mainly because of this tendency of the high caste Hindus.
God was not responsible for all this.
He only created the prakriti of Nature. In the beginning, everything here was one tremendous mass for millions of years. Then happened the Big Bang. Even before that the prakriti or Nature had five elements and three gunas. But the three gunas were in perfect coordination. With the Big Bang the perfect coordination of the three gunas got ruptured and the seeds for the one cell animal were sown. Even after the Big Bang some small Bangs between the heavenly bodies must have happened. While some planets were filled with hot gas and matter, the earth was cooled enough for it vapours become coagulate into icy mass. Some planets or heavenly bodies came into collision with the earth, that is this frozen mass of ice. Due to the velocity and impact of the collision the ice became water and at the same time one cell animal came to life. It was solely due to the heat and right type of impact of the collision that the life on earth came into being, to speak chemically.
Since the Big Bang itself was for the Creator’s design to make way for life coming into being, the Big Bang must be said to be part of the evolution. But evolution and its timing must said to be preceding the Big Bang. So everything was happening to facilitate life to start.
After the single cell came into being, it wanted to have a bigger life and see itself and around. Since God’s prakriti or nature will fulfil the desire of the animals, the evolution started gloriously for millions of trillion years. If the Giraffe with short neck aspired for long neck so it could graze on the tree tops it happened gradually when the same giraffe and same species in the next birth after its death. If the beaks of some birds were not long enough to insert into the centre of the rotting trees in the water, then the same birds when came here as the same species had come to have longer beaks. This process was a slow one. But various species of animals came to have body parts as they deeply wanted with their limited sense which is not nonsense. We came to have, nay, God’s prakriti or nature came to have thousands of millions of species which continued to ask or demand or deeply wanted to have various faculties and sizes like running, walking, swimming, and seeing and sensing, and growing fast in case of animals and growing slowly in case of plants and trees. At some time came our forerunner, Mr. Ape! And the rest was evolutionary history. Charles Darwin began his research with the single cell animal. That was why he did not and could not see God’s sure hand through His prakriti in the matter of evolution. At last,when Man came around it took another process. The bodily evolution stopped as he had the perfect anatomy to live and propagate and flourish. But his inner evolution still continued. He started to grunt at the beginning, then made gestures. He laughed and smiled. Then some intelligible sounds were made and created by him which later became words, which in turn came to be words after a long time of the evolutionary process.Then a  crude form of language came into being.The Man started to dress himself, and indulged in agriculture and domesticated some wild animals and crops. Then, at some time, the Vedic sages in India, and much later, men and women with great culture in Egypt, Greek and Rome came around and they spoke in mellifluous languages and came to have nature to worship as gods. Intense cultural eruption happened.
Instead of speaking like this, God in Gita simply says He created the fourfold caste.
The caste of the four kinds are not as rigid as they came to be later. According to his actions and attribute, a Brahmin might go down to be a Sudra and the vice versa. This happened in one’s own life time. Father and mother might be Sudras and the son might be included among the Brahmins. Every degradation came much later.
    2. the creation of the fourfold caste done by the different distribution of Guna and karma. Here we have the Lord tell us that caste depended on guna and karma. What kind of a person one was? What is his seeking in life? And in what kind of karma or action he indulged? These things determined his caste.
3.God is the author of the fourfold caste only in an indirect way. It is prakriti which does and oversees everything. The Universal Soul is just a witness. This is why God says though he is the author thereof...for prakriti does not see whether a man has faith in God or not. There are and have been great writers and poets who had no iota of belief in the existence of God. But they could produce good literature. And in every walk of life, even today, there are non-believers. And they get from nature what they want. God  is a witness to all actions of man and beast and the prakriti. Faith in God does not come into individuals’ and a race of human beings’ achievements or degradation.

4.God does not know any action. He is birthless, deathless and everlasting, omnipresent and omniscient. He is full of love for man and woman because and wants us to come back to Him sooner than later. Prakriti or Nature firsts pulls us down, and tests us by illusory fire. Once we overwhelm her through God’s help and prayer and tremendously unceasing Yogic seeking, Nature facilitates our graduation. God is absolutely changeless and actionless. All the actions take place only in His prakriti or nature.  

Sunday 27 November 2016

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 12

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 12
Text in Transliteration:
Kaankshantahkarmanaam siddhim yajanta iha devatah
Kshipram hi manushe loke siddir bhavati karmajaa
Text in English:
Longing for success in action on eart, they worship the gods; for quickly is success born of action in this world of man.             
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The higher the ideal the more arduously one has to prepare oneself for it and the longer one has to wait for it. Self-knowledge is harder to attain than the fruits of action. What is perceived by the senses is portrayed as the word of man, where quick results can be obtained; but they are impermanent in character. The ignorant seek for sense-objects easily obtainable. Access to a monarch is hard to get, but it is very consequential. Acquaintance with a petty page of a monarch is easily got. Devotion, wisdom, salvation and such like divine gifts come to worshipper of Iswara. Votaries of the minor gods get their deserts accordingly. Ideals vary according to the mental attainments of people.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
It is very difficult to attain to the knowledge of the Self or Self-realisation. It demands perfect renunciation. The aspirant should possess the four means (discrimination,, dispassion, sixfold virtues, and longing for liberation. The sixfold virtues are: control of the mind, control of the senses, fortitude, turning away from the objects of the world, faith and tranquillity) and sixfold virtues, and practise constant and intense meditation. But worldly success can be attained quickly and easily.
The Vedic injunctions based upon castes and order are meant for the men of this world only.

Comments by the blogger:
The worshipers of the gods long for success in action on earth. There is nothing wrong in worshiping the God Himself for success in action on earth. For example, a student may worship for success in action, which is his preparation for the exam. According to the Lord, success in this world is easy. But we only know how difficult achieving success in this world. Yet the Lord makes it sound easy. Why?
Thousands of millions of people pray to God for the fulfillment of their desires. God in Git says that there are three kinds of people who worship Him.The first type is those worshipers who ask God’s intervention in the fulfillment of their worldly wants and desires. The second type of people is athose who want to wriggle out of some problems or for curing some diseases. And the third type of worshipers is worshiping the Lord for its own sake. And God says all the worshipers are dear to Him!
So there is nothing wrong in worshiping the Lord for the attainment of worldly things and for getting over some hurdles. The thing is where we draw the line. If a boy worships God to pass the exams and in college for the fulfillment of love for a girl and when he marries her for sons and daughters and good employment etc. Then he continues to pray the Lord for promotion in his job and to get over the various illnesses as and when he or any one of his family suffer from. Then he worships for his grown up daughters’ getting good husbands and prosperity in their houses. He continues to pray for good daughters-in-law for his sons and pray they should bring hefty dowry. And then he worships the Lord for good grandchildren off his daughters and sons. When that happen he worships that they should grow well and get admission in prestigious schools. And at some point of time, he gives up his ghost. God will definitely tell him why he couldn’t reserve even a second a day for the sake of the Lord his Maker!
We must not worship the Lord like this, even though the Lord declares openly even such devotees are dear to him. It is in the context that even such worshipers come into the fold of His beloved people. And another reason is that even such devotees, if they behave themselves, stand good chances to improve as they progress in the chain of birth and death and gradually would mature into good Yogis. For it is a sure thing. That is why Nature or Prakriti is there. She schools us and we gradually lose interest in worldly things and affairs and at some point take up to the practice of yoga with intense yearning.

God is not against the worshipers of various gods for the worldly things and says attainment of success in this world is easy. It is Sri Bhagavan who says that and we must believe Him. For Swami Sivananda has listed out the things and attitude a yoga practitioner must have and in the face of such arduous things success in this world should certainly be considered easier. And the swami says further that the Vedic injunctions about castes and classes of people do not apply to people when it comes to practising Yoga. Anyone can practise intense meditation providing he or she has got the necessary attitudes and attributes listed by the Swami Sivananda in the commentary on this verse.   

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYAS YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 11.

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNLOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 11
Text in Transliteration:
Ye yatha maam prapadyante
   Taams tathai ‘va bhajaamy aham
Mama vartmaa ‘nuvartante
   Manusyaag paartha sarvasah
Text in English:
In whatever way men identify with Me, in the same way do I carry out their desires, men pursue My path, O partha, in all ways.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Different kinds of food suit different beings. What is food to one may be poison to another. But each being receives nourishment from the food it takes. Religions are similarly divergent fo sut the varying temperaments. Worship with the aid of an image, for example, is a help to one and a hindrance to another. An act held as the adoration of the Almighty by one path, is abhorred as blasphemy by another. But the same Lord recognizes the need for all these divergent paths, understands the urge in the hearts of the various types of devotees and graciously helps them all to attain perfection. It is incumbent on the aspirant to see into this universalism of the Lord. He sees into the glory of the Lord who sees how He is shaping all beings through their various paths.
The same Reality presents Itself as Nature when contacted through the senses, mind and intellect. Therefore, the sense-bound pleasure seekers are also adoring the same Reality in accordance with their understanding and attainments. All beings are verily resting in God and enjoying Him only,while their readings and interpretations of Him vary infinitely.
Mama varimaa: My path; the way of worshipping Me.
Sarvashah: on all sides; sarvaprakaaraih, in all ways, is another rendering.
This verse brings out the wide catholicity of the Gita religion. God meets every aspirant with favour and grants to each his heart’s desire. He does not extinguish the hope of any but helps all hopes to grow according to their nature. Even those who worship the Vedic deities with sacrifices and with expectation of reward find what they seek by the grace of the Supreme. Those who are vouchsafed the vision of truth convey it through symbols to ordinary people who cannot look upon its naked intensity. Name and form are used to reach the Formless. Meditation on any favourite form may be adopted. The Hindu thinkers are conscious of the amazing variety of ways in which we may approach the Supreme, of the contingency of all forms. they know that it is impossible for any effort of lovical reason to give us a true picture of ultimate reality. From the point of view of metaphysics (Paramartha), no manifestation is to be taken as absolutely true, while from the standpoint of experience (vyavahaara), every one of them has some validity. The forms we worship are aids to help us to become conscious of our deepest selves. So long as the object of worship holds fast the attention of the soul, it enters our mind and heart and fashions them. The importance of the form is to be judged by the degree in which it expresses ultimate significance.
The Gita does not speak of this or that form of religion but speaks of the impulse which is expressed in all forms, the desire to find God and understand our relation to Him.
The same Gd is worshiped by all. The differences of conception and approach are determined by local colouring and social adaptations. All manifestations belong to the same Supreme. “Vishnu is Siva and Siva is Vishnu and whoever thinks that they are different goes to hell.” He who is known as Vishnu is verily Rudra and he who is Rudra is Brahmaa. One entitiy functions as three gods that is Rudra, Vishnu and Brahma. Udayanaachaarya writes: “Whom the Saivas worship as Siva, the Vedaantins as Brahman, the Buddhists as Buddha, the Naiyyaayikas who specialize in canons of knowledge as the chief agent, the followers of Jaina code as the ever free, the ritualists as the principle of law, may that Hari, the Lord of the three worlds, grant our prayers.” If he had been writing in this age, he would have added “whom the Chritians devoted to work as Christ and the Mohammedans as Allah. God is the rewarder of all who diligently seek Him whatever views of God they may hold. The spiritually immature are unwilling to recognize other gods than their own. Their attachment to their creed makes them blind to the larger unity of the Godhead. This is the result of egotism in the domain of religious ideas. The Gita, on the other hand, affirms that though beliefs and practices may be many and varied, spiritual realization to which these are the means is one.
A strong consciousness of one’s own possession of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth added to a condescending anxiety for the condition of those who are in outer darkness produces a state of mind which is not remote from that of an inquisitor.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
I reward men by bestowing on them the objects they desire in accordance with their ways and the motives with which they seek Me. If anyone worships Me with selfish motives i grant him the objects he desires. If he worships Me unselfishly for attaining knowledge of the Self, I grant him Moksha or final liberation. I am not at all partial to anyone. (Cf. VII.21 and IX. 23)
Comments of the blogger:
Arjuna is called by the Lord in this stanza as Partha. Partha means the son of Priti, Kunti. Thus Partha and Kaunteya (O, son of Kunti) are one and the same thing. The Lord addresses Arjunan in the Gita in various ways. In the stanza number 7 the Lord says, “Whenever there is decay of dharma and rise of adharma, then I embody Myself, O Bharata.” This is to convey that even as Arjunan has come as a Bharata, the highest of the clan among kshathriyas, the Lord comes into this world with highest merits.  In verse number 5 the Lord says, “Many are the births taken by Me and you, O Arjuna.  I know them all while you know not, O Parantapa.” Here, Parantapa means the scorcher of the foes. The Lord means, “While with my knowledge undimmed by the incidents of births continuously know all the happenings of my birth, while you don’t know. The reason is you don’t have the fire of Knowledge that can scorch the ignorance you suffer from. Even as you are a formidable archer and can scorch your enemies in war, you should develop the yogic fire of knowledge that will scorch the ignorance you suffer from!
Here in verse 11 Arjuna is addressed as Partha which is equal to Kaunteya, the son of Kunti. Whenever the Lord uses either of these epithets, Partha or Kaunteya what He really means is that even ordinary man born of the womb of a woman can do or understand what He says in the verse.
In verse 11 the Lord means any average ordinary man and woman can have access to Him and pray to Him in whatever manner and using whatever name to address Him.
That apart, as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan exhaustively deals with, the religion of Gita shows an approach which can only be described as Catholicity of religion.
There is an ample scope for human beings to approach God. The beauty is one can get from Nature what he can get from God! Can you follow me!
The real religion of the Vedic Sages and Saints related to worshipping the Five Elements. Nature is made of five elements, which are Fire or Agni, Water, Wind, Earth and Sky. They invoked these elemental gods in their sacrifices and got whatever they wanted. They found out the properties of Fire or Agni and through Agni they gave oblations to other gods and the deceased forefathers for the appeasement of their soul. Thus they had understood the Universal and the Individual soul and they were satisfied with their gods plus Rudra or Siva and Vishnu. These two Gods came to have predominance in the later age. But for the Vedic Saints Rudra and Vishnu were among the gods they invoked in their hymns and prayed, and propitiated in their sacrifices.
What is important is that the same benefits one seeks from Lord Siva or Vishnu can be obtained from the elemental gods even now. In the villages, one can see commonly in tanks that after one finishes bathing, people standing waist deep in water and look up at the sun and pray to the sun god. This is a common sight in villages even now.
Prahalad is a great devotee and his father, Hiranyasippu, a king claiming to be God and greater than the Lord Vishnu, would make his subjects to worship him as God. But his own son, Prahalad being a great devotee of the Lord Vishnu would stoutly deny to worship his father and always speak and sing about the greatness and glory of the Lord, Vishnu. For this Prahalad would be victimized by his own father. No punishment he handed over to his son could cure his devotion to the Lord Vishnu. At one stage Prahalad’s father would challenge his son to show him Prahalad’s God. Prahalad would answer, “He is everywhere”. At this,the father would be enraged and show a pillar and ask, “Is your God in this pillar?” The son would answer, “My God is in the pillar as well as a speck of dust.” At this,his father would once again, “Is your God in this pillar?” When his son says, “Yes!” Hiranyakasipu, the father would give the pillar a kick with his leg. At the Lord Vishnu emerges out of the pillar and kills the father who claimed Godhood.
For the limited purpose of ours it is interesting to know that God is claimed by Prahalad, the staunch devotee to be everywhere.
Nature is scintillating with the Cosmic Intelligence. Whichever god or God we pray to if the prayer is soulful and full of shradha or belief, then even the selfish prayer is granted within the boundaries of the Prarabta karma of the individual.
In the early times of the Christian religion they butchered all who worshiped gods other than Jesus Christ. Likewise the Mohammadanism claims Allah the Great to be the only God and makes it one of the bounden duty of the average Muslims to go for jihad or wage a war against faithless persons who are idol worshipers. Jesus Christ told His disciples to propagate His message at the risk of being butchered by the infidels. This is the problem with these two religions. Everywhere we see the Christian faithful folks entering unbidden the Hidu houses with leaflets about the Messaiah.  Bible culture is just 2000 years old. And less than that is that of is the age of the Mohmmadan culture. But Rig-Vedic period is fixed at a period even by the foreign scholars, the White Men, BC2000, which means 4000 years from today. The Egypt, Greek and Roman cultures, which can be said flourishing at the time of the Upanishadic Period have all fallen to pieces without a trace. But the Hindu culture is the one that continues even now without any break whatsoever notwithstanding many an invasion and resultant bids to propagate their religious culture.
Today’s world needs Hinduism more than ever. Only the Hindu dharma can save the world. you may go to the church or mosque everyday. There need not be any problem. But don’t try to slurp up with money power in the case of Christians and plan to butcher Hindus with the help of Pakishtan which is an Army with a State, the Hinduism and Hindu way of life. No Hindu would try to propagate his religion, for one is born a Hindu not converted a Hindu. The 150 million Muslims and Christians can convert voluntarily, which is logical, to Hinduism, as their religiou roots are staunchly embedded in Hinduism. But it should be an act voluntary. No Muslim or Bible reader should be forced to return to their mother religion.
The third world war is said to be likely on the question of potable water. Now is the time for the Hindu way of life. Men and women should use the Nature’s resources with abundant caution like a sparrow. No one with money power has the authority to use resources more than he  or she could chew.
God is watching through Nature and Nature is our school. Not only we must graduate but the generations to come must have enough Natural resources. For this Hindu way of life is an ideal way. Worshipping Alla, the Great, or Jesus Christ, one should follow the Hindu way of life.

And as for the intrinsic meaning of this verse (11) I request the readers to give several readings to the commentary given by Dr.S. Radhakrishnan.            

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 10

THE HOLY YOGA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 10
Text in Transliteration:
veeta raaga krodhaa manmayaa maam upaasritaah
bahavo jnaana tapasaa pootaa mad bhaavam aagataah
Text in English:
Freed from passion, fear and anger, filled with Me, taking refuge in me, purified by penance in the fire of Knowledge, many have entered into My being.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
It is only after filtering that muddy water become fit to be mixed with pure water. Mind purged from passion, fear and anger assumes competency to grasp the grasp the Divine. Then getting absoned in it becomes easy. Through absorption the glory of the Divine is increasingly reaslized. There is then no difficulty whatsoever in taking refuge in what is known to be Benign. Fuel consigned to fire becomes fire itself. It is penance when individuals seek to know of the Divine and give themselves over to it. This way many have ascended from the human to the Divine. There is no purification greater than this. Mukti or emancipation in this wise is an eternal process.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Maya is inherent in Iswara. This maya is constituted of both vidya and avidya—knowledge and ignorance. Vidya-maya is made up of discrimination, devotion, detachment and love of beings. It takes the aspirant Godward. Avidya maya, on the other hand, estranges man from God.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
madbhaavam: the super natural being that I possess.
The purpose of incarnation is not simply to uphold the world order but also to help human beings to become perfected in their nature. The freed soul becomes on earth a living image of the infinite. The ascent of man into Godhead is also the purpose of the descent of God into humanity. The aim of the dharma is this perfection of man and the avatar generally declares that He is the truth, the way and the life.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
When one gets knowledge of the Self, attachment to sense-objects ceases. When he realizes he is the constant, indestructible, eternal Self and that change is simply a quality of the body, then be becomes fearless. When he becomes desireless  when he is free from selfishness when he beholds the Self only everywhere, how can anger arise in him?
He who takes refuge in Brahman or the Absolute becomes firmly devoted to Him. He becomes absorbed in Him (Brahmalina or Brahmanishtha).  Jnanatapas is the fire of wisdom. Just as fire burns cotton, so also this Jnanatapas burns all the latent tendencies (Vasanas), cravings (Trishnas), mental impressions (Samskaras), sins and all actions, and purifies the aspirants. (Cf. IV.19 to 37: II.56)
Comments by the blogger:
Passion is an incongruous thing to our Atman. This is called by the Lord as raaga. In Atman no action takes place because there is no personal desire. One who has no desire is outside the power of illusion. The Illusion is the first part of the worldly life called by Shankara as Samsara Sagaram or the Ocean of the worldly life. This worldly life is not an easy joke. The God’s illusion makes us to take every transitory thing in this transitory world which can at once be seen as matter and a thought by the Creator for real. Once that becomes complete and our discriminatory power is lost and we take this world for real, the next thing is desire or kama. Kama or desire in its highest and most intense form is called passion. Passion will never do. It fairly butchers our discrimination. When our desires are fulfilled or realized even in an infinitesimal proportion, the next thing that logically follows krodha or anger when other worldly needs passionately wanted by us are not realized. Anger is only the desires that have been made unable to fulfill. These two things, the passion and anger can only impregnate us with fear and uncertainty. Anger is denoted as a temporary insanity. Anger and passion emasculate a person and increases fear. One does not know how to go about one’s life.
Instead of this, that is, instead of being our own master, if we put faith in the Lord and become his intense and ardent devotee and let God our master lead our life, we need not take responsibility for anything. But this is not an easy joke. Surrendering one’s self and should become complete and without any rider. We must open our heart and let it filled with the Lord. Then one thing will become easily understood. That is this world is filled with nothing and none but God. Everywhere we will see God. Everyone will be full of Him, notwithstanding whether that particular person, for example, the rapists of Nirbhaya, understands that fact or not. Everything here is an illusion and at the same time filled by God. Since we cannot transcend God’s illusion, we should and take this world for absolute nothing and merely God’s beautiful thought, we must take refuge in God and, taking this world for what it stands for and looks like, and become filled with God. Our fellow human beings’ sufferings should move us as though it were ours.
Then comes in the question of penance, which means austerities in the name of the Lord and for the sake of the Lord. Living for the sake of others comes naturally at this stage. This does not mean we should become or try to become ascetics. The Lord derides Arjuna when he wants to renounce the world and eat beggar’s bread. That is not the svadharma of a kshatriya, the Lord says. Instead, He instils Arjuna to take up the arms and wage the war which had come to him unsought. If Arjuna is derided by the Lord, Will He ask us to become an ascetic and eat beggars bread? Never indeed.
Then what should we do? Becoming full of God, we must indulge in our occupation: it might be that of a tiller or teacher,the  mender of shoes or the corporate baron, housewife or midwife, we must fully involved in the job with an extended responsibility. Once Mother Teresa was cleaning the wounds of a leper with loving hands and the new nun helping her out retched several times. Later, when the job was over, the young nun and nurse asked the mother how could she stand the stench coming out of the wound of the leper, and the mother said, “Just think of how much pain those wounds must give him and you would be able to put up with your sanctioned job! We must do our job with extended sense of responsibility. In Government offices and significantly in Chennai Secretariate the bug passing and the moving of files is at snail’s speed. Once a new recruit, an young unsullied man aske in the secretariat as to why his immediate superior asked a person in the matter of transfer of place of working on legitimate grounds to come later. This, knowing full well the concerned person had come from a long way off to the capital of Tamil Nadu State. For this, the superior’s answer was that no job at the secretariat should be done smoothly and easily. He further pontificated the young man that he would get to know these things with experience! You know what the reaction of the young man? He simply resigned his job at the secretariat and went abroad in pursuit of a higher degree! Now that young man must have thought these old bandicoots could not be refined or they had gone way beyond repair. Anyhow his reaction was a stinging slap across the face of the concerned bandicoot.

Free of passion, fear and anger, if we worship the Lord in every one around us and let the Lord lead our life, even mending of shoes become a penance. Since we cannot take the illusiory bull by our hands, we must take refuge in our Lord, and then letting Him fill each and every pore of us, we must go on carrying out our job. Loving once wife or husband is not an anathema to God. In love-making resides the responsibility and ability to propagate homo sapiens on the face of the earth. Nothing within bounds is wrong. As a matter of fact, love-making among the legally wedded couple is a must. Nothing about this world is an anathema to the Lord. If love-making is a sin that might not have been made the way to propagate. But elongating that primitive urge to the extent of another man’s bed room is not only a sin but it God would leave the heart of that man or woman in great haste! Everything legal and not an anathema to one’s Scriptures is permitted. Enjoy this world with God. The Taiteeria Upanishad says, “Live your life!” The teacher prays for more and more students and cattle heads! In those days, having thousands of cows was considered as we now consider a corporate baron! And it is being prayed for! For what? To live once life abundantly, ok?    

Saturday 26 November 2016

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 4, JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OR ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE, VERSE NUMBER 09.

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4    
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 09
Text in Transliteration:
janma karma cha me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktvaa deham punar janma nai ‘ti maam ‘rjuna
Text in English:
He who thus know My divine birth and action in true light, having dropped the body, comes not to birth again, but comes unto Me, O Arjuna.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The unborn Iswara puts on the appearance of birth and growth by His divine power. Similarly the actionless Entitiy stages holy activities for the good of the world. those spiritual men who intuit these facts about the Lord are able to live unaffected by the world even as the incarnation does. Ultimately, while yet in the human frames and after casting them off, those blessed ones get themselves merged in the Absolute. Pondering over the play of the Divine as the human, is a sure means to get at his great goal.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Treat not the personalities such as Rama, Sita, Krishna once in body and flesh as you are now. But because of their spiritual perfection they seem ore fictitious than factual. Iswara and His Incarnations are one and the same even as the ocean and the waves are.
A visitor to a place can see only some portions of it. But the prince apparent can have free access to all parts of the palace. Likewise Incarnations of God easily get into the various states of spiritual consciousness.
It is rather difficult to comprehend the Infinite sporting in the finite human form.
During the advent of Sri Rama it was given to seven Rishis only to understand His divine descent. This way all Incarnations are understood by only a few during their life time.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Krshna as an avatar or descent of the Divine into the human world discloses the condition of being to which the human souls should rise. The birth of the birthless means the revelation of mystery in the soul of man.
The avataara fulfils a number of functions in the cosmic process. The conception makes out that there is no opposition between spiritual life and life in the world. if the world is imperfect and ruled by the flesh and the devil, it is our duty to redeem it for the spirit. The avataara points out the way by which men can rise from their animal to a spiritual mode of existence by providing us with an example of spiritual life. The Divine nature is not seen in the incarnation in its naked splendour but is mediated by the instrumentality of manhood. The Divine greatness is conveyed to us in and through these great individuals. Their lives dramatize for us the essential constituents of human life ascending to the fulfilment of its destiny. The Bhaagavata says, “The omnipresent Lord appears in the world, not only for destroying the demoniac forces but also for teaching mortals. How else could the Lord who is blissful in Himself experience anxieties about Sita, etc.” He knows hunger and thirst, sorrow and suffering, solitude and forsakenness. He overcomes them all and asks us to take courage from His example. He not only teaches us the true doctrine by which we can die to our separate temporal selfness and come to union with Timeless Spirit but He offers Himself to be a channel of grace. By inviting souls to trust and love Him, He promises to lead them to the knowledge of the Absolute. The historical fact is the illustration of a process ever unfolding in the heart of man. The avataara helps us to become what we potentially are. In Hindu and Buddhist systems of thought, there is no servitude to one historic fact. We can all rise to the divine status and the avataras help us to achieve this inner realization. Cp. Gautama the Buddha: “Then the Blessed One spoke and said, ‘Know Vasettha, that from time to time a Tathaagata is born into the world, a fully enlightened one, blessed and worthy, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy with the knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to erring mortals, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed Buddha. He proclaims the truth both in its letter and in its spirit, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation. A higher life doth he make known in all its purity and in all its perfectness.’” According to Mahayaanaa Buddhism there have been many previous Huddhas and Gautama would have a successor in Mettreya (Maitreya). Gaytama himself passed through many births and acquired the qualitites which enabled him to discover the Truth. It is possible to for others to do the same. We hear of disciples taking the vow to attain the enlightenment of a Buddha. These systems do not believe in any exclusive revelation at one unique instant of time.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
 The Lord, though apparently born, is always beyond birth and death; though apparently active for firmly establishing righteousness, He is ever beyond all actions. He who knows this is never born againd. He attains knowledge of the Self and becomes liberated while living. The birth of the lord is an illusion. It is Apradrita (beyond the pale of the Nature). It is divine. It is peculiar to the Lord. Though He appears in human form, His body is chinmaya (full of consciousness, not inert matter as are human bodies composed of the five elements).
Comments by the blogger:
During the Divine incarnation, the Lord comes into the earthly plane and indulges in actions. The Lord in His Turiya state is totally free of action like our Atman. Because, there is no illusion and desire to attain for the Lord. There is nothing He has to attain. There is no necessity for Him to act. In His quintessential state God requires nothing. His essential state is sat-chit-ananda. He is ever in His ecstatic state. But when He comes into the earth’s plane He is full of action. Swami Sidbhavananda says that in the Epic Mahabharata the totality of actions of all the characters were to be put on one side of the scale and that of the Lord Krishna’s on the other, that one will go down! Because Lord Krishna is full of action. Even at the war, He is the driver of the Car or the Charioteer! He does not see that job disproportionate to His state and status!
Knowing the Divine birth of the Lord is not restricted to the people who happen to live at the time. Indeed, many of the Jews did not know the Divine birth of Jesus Christ and argued before the Roman officer to put him to death by hung on the Cross. Even during the Lord of the Gita’s birth, there were important people like the blind king and his son Dhuriyodana who were not fully aware of the fact. When it came to select between the unarmed Lord Krishna and His whole Army when Arjuna selected the son of Vasudeva, Lord Krishna, the foolish Dhuriyodana rejoiced within that Arjuna did not ask for His army and chose Krishna’s mighty Army
The Divine birth of Sri Rama is said to have been revealed only to a handful of sages and saints!
What I am driving at is that while there were persons who were foolish enough not to have understood the divine nature of the Lord, after the time of the Lord’s life on the earth was over both in the cases of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna truly devout men and women countless have been able to attain Moksha or Salvation simply by putting faith unassailable in the births of the Lord as Rama and Krishna by studying the Epic Ramayana and the Holy Gita respectively and observing the yoga of devotion.

Thus it stands to spiritual reason that while there were unfortunate people in the Lord’s time of incarnation and saw Him just as the son of Dhasarata and Vasudeva respectively, we can now attain the Moksha or Salvation and go to the Lord as it is said in this stanza by simply putting our unflinching faith in the truth of the Lord’s incarnations and live according to the Lord’s teaching.