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 06

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 06

Text in Transliteration:

Ajo ‘pi sann avyayaatmaa bhootaanaam eesvaro ‘pi san

Prakritim svaam adhishthaaya sambhavaamy aatmamaayayaa

Text in English:

Though I am unborn, imperishable and the Lord of beings, yet subjugating My Prakariti, I come into being by My own Maya.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Prakriti or maya-sakti has her part to play both with the jivatman and with the Incarnations of Iswara, but her function with these two entities is on diamentriacally opposite bases. She enslaves the former and is enslaved by the latter. It is by manipulating His maya-sakti the unborn Lord puts on the appearance of being born and of growing. The One supremely above karma apparently assumes it. That karma again is not capricious. The collective karma of the society as it ought to be, gets itself embodied in the Incarnation. He does not stand in need of making any experiments with the various factors of life. His advent simply explains the sublime plan and purpose of the human life. He is the benign model to be followed by the others.

Everything in nature has its time to appear. Does the Incarnation of God also come under this law in any way? The statement comes in the next two stanzas.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The embodiments of human beings are not voluntary. Driven by prakriti (nature) through ignorance, they are born again and again.

The Lord controls prakrti and assumes embodiment through His own free will. The ordinary birth of creatures is determined by the force of prakriti, while the Lord takes birth through his own power.

prakrtim adhisthaaya: establishing in my own nature. He uses His nature in a way which is free from subjection to karma. There is no suggestion here that the becoming of the one is a becoming by maayaa, “the capacity to render the impossible actual.” Shankara’s view that “I appear to be born and embodied, through My own power but not in reality unlike others” is not satisfactory. Yogamaayaa refers to the free will of God, His svecchaa, His incomprehensible power. The assumption of imperfection by perfection, of lowliness by majesty, of weakness by power is the mystery of the universe. It is maya from the logical standpoint.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Man is bound by karma.  So he takes birth. He is under the clutches of Nature. He is deluded by the three qualities of Nature whereas the Lord has Maya under His perfect control. He rules over Nature, and so He is not under the thraldom of the qualities of Nature. He appears to be born and embodied through His own Maya or illusory power but is not so in reality. His embodiment is as a matter of fact, apparent. It cannot affect in the least His true divine nature. (Cf. IX.8)

Comments by the blogger:

 Karmic effects are of three kinds (effect of actions in the previous birth deciding the next birth), and of these three kinds,Praraptha is said to be the immediate reason for our birth in this innings. Praraptha karma decides our parentage, society and rank and station and so many other things. But we are the earner. Neither God nor Nature does play any part in our next birth. It is we who earn the station, parentage and other things to be enjoyed and suffered due to the praraptha karma (that part of the karma which is the effect of our actions in the previous birth). God leaves it to Nature. And Nature or Prakriti just oversees that we get our just deserts. Our actions in the immediately previous birth may be the reason as to why we have some peculiar likes and dislikes, fears and love. We are comfortable in a surrounding whereas even our dearest friends find it insufferable or simply boring. Some are afraid of water, and would never get into a tank or swimming pool, while others would take to it like fish. Some are afraid of fire and some are afraid of open spaces while neither fire nor vast open spaces would make even the hair in their nape turn. All our characteristics, idiosyncrasies and fetishes are predetermined by events we went through and actions we suffered or indulged in the previous birth.

There are three types of Karmic effects. One sees to it that we suffer the reactions and results of our actions and minor crimes in the same birth before we die. Another type of karmic effect is called Prarabtha karma. This is the cumulative effect of our actions and sufferance in the birth preceding immediately the present birth. Prarabtha Karma decides, as I have said above, our character, parentage and social standing and so on. Another type of Karma is known as Sachinta Karma. It is a bundle of Karmic effects collected over a number of previous births and still not worked out. According to the Praraptha Karma when one’s character is conducive for some effects from the Sachinta Karmic bundle, then some karmic effects from that bundle is taken and added to the Prarabta Karma deciding our life added to it. Thus the balance of the karmic effects follows us in the form of Sachinta Karma. It remains inactive for all other purposes of this birth are concerned.

One may ask if everything is pre-decided by our actions in the previous birth and it becomes out fate or kismet to suffer in the present birth, what is the point of worshipping God in this birth, and exert ourselves in the matter of carrying out our duties in this birth. In this birth also we have to have faith in God and worship him and carry out duties besides enjoying the CHOICE  God the greatest among the mystery novelists has reposed in us. So despite our fate, of which we are the author as per our conduct in the previous birth, we still have the choice to behave in such a manner as to enjoy its good effects in the next birth. For example, when Arjuna asks the Lord that what will be the effect and fate of a man who has followed the yoga as taught by him in this birth and in the middle of which he dies, God assures him such a man would take birth in the time among such society so he can pursue the yoga from where he left off in the last birth.

Thus man’s life is working out of the karmic effect born of the previous birth plus his own personal striving and using of the CHOICE  God Has given him or her. No one can attain Godhood till all the karmic effects are worked out completely by suffering the good or bad consequences thereof. In the course of these millennial efforts by a soul or man, a time will come when all one’s karmic effects are completely worked out. For that man that shall be the last birth.

Yoga is a sure means of fetching salvation very quickly in a few number of births or even in the present birth.

Man is superior to other animals because of his vertical vertebrate. He has the back bone vertical as different from other animals. An ordinary average man enjoys good health for some forty years. In this period of time he or she spends nearly half the time in sleeping when his backbone is akin to that of animals’. In the remaining time, he or she has the backbone vertically and in this position each and every intake of breath and outgoing breath, that is, one round of breathing take him or her from the seat of osha sakti or Serpent power which remains dormant just behind one’s private parts in the groin area and raises by one hundred or so thousand’s of a mile metre up the backbone. Thus even in ordinary cases when a man is not consciously doing any yoga, he or she is benefited to the extent of his or her number of years of healthy life. Thus every human being is doing a dormant version of yoga. And thus over a number hundreds of thousands of births a man attains salvation by gradation. If he does any heinous thing or indulges in any such crime, and comes back here not as a human being but a beast, then it takes him so many rounds of births to regain human birth and then too if he comes here as a beastly man the number of births will increase.

Thus a good man, an average ordinary man enjoying a healthy vertebrate for say 40 years then he does this kind of yoga during which his osha shakti or Godly power dormant behind the private parts which is allegorically called the serpent power, might rise one or so mm. But doing active yoga as taught by the Lord in Gita, then he can attain Godhood in say six years, as the Lord says, or twelve years or twenty-four years according to the bundle of his prarapta Karma to be worked out. Each and every minutest part of past karma thus has to be worked out. But active yoga reduces the number of rebirths. If one does not attain moksha or Liberation or Salvation in the same birth, he or she comes back here to continue the Lord’s yoga from where he or she left off in the previous birth.

Thus our station and everything depends upon the prarapta karma  of which we are our own author. And we are sent back here by Prakriti after some time on our death in the nether world where we reside with our astral body resembling our earthly shape. BUT THE LORD WHEN HE DECIDES TO COME HERE TO THE EARTHLY PLANE, HE IS NOT DEPENDENT ON NATURE OR PRAKRITI. HE IS NOT A SLAVE TO NATURE. HE IS THE MASTER OF AND ENSLAVES THE PRAKRITI.

ABOUT THIS I NEED NOT SAY MORE AS THE GREAT COMMENTATORS HAVE SAID ENOUGH.