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?
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