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 33

I come back to you, my dear followers, with the Lord’s words earlier than I had given you to understand. 

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 33

Text in Transliteration:

sreyaan dravyamayaad yajnaaj jnaanayajnah paramtapa

sarvam karma ‘khilam paartha jnaane parisamaapyate

Text in English

Knowledge-sacrifice, O Scorcher of foes, is superior to wealth-sacrifice. All karma in its entirety, O Partha, culminates in knowledge

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Man lives to add more and more to his wisdom, and not to multiply his material possessions beyond proportion. Things material cannot be made more use of than the requirement. Over-possession fosters care and anxiety. He who gives himself over too much to mammon pays the penalty in the form of being lop-sided or stunted in intelligence. The man becomes earth-bound beyond redemption. Knowledge, on the other hand, develops into wisdom. It embellishes the personality, aids one to discern between the self and the non-self and leads man into enlightenment and liberation.

Magnificent temples attendant with elaborate and awe-inspiring ritualistic worship serve more to make man earthly than enlightened, more superstitious than spiritual, more drawn to the priests than to the prophets. A neat little sanctuary, on the other hand, serving as a symbol of the human tabernacles, takes man more effectively Godward. It tends toward jnana-yajna. The feeling that the mind has to be kept as fresh and pure as a flower is more conducive to spiritual growth and enlightenment than offering a heap of it on the altar. The knowing man has less of the problems of life than the ignorant one. It is knowledge to intuit that one is Atman and not body. In that knowledge the karma of that individual gets absolved.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHVANANDA:

He is truly a man who has made money his slave; he is not fit to be called a man who does not know how to make use of money.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The goal is the lifegiving wisdom, which gives us freedom of action and liberation from the bondage of work.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Sacrifices with material objects cause material effects and bring the sacrificer to this world for the enjoyment of the fruits, while wisdom-sacrifice leads to Moksha or Salvation. Therefore wisdom-sacrifice is superior to the sacrifice with material objects. Just as rivers join the ocean, so do all actions join knowledge, i.e., they culminate in knowledge. All actions purify the heart and lead to the dawn of knowledge of the Self.

All actions that are performed as offerings unto the Lord with their fruits are contained in the knowledge of Brahman.

Comments by the blogger:

We have already noted the point that the Lord devotes only a phrase in one of the stanzas from 25 to 30 to the wealth sacrifice. The significance of the wealth sacrifice is not to be demeaned. But it is very difficult to make wealth sacrifice without any sense of ego and the automatic result of wealth sacrifice is Heavenly enjoyments for a while. Then the man indulge in wealth sacrifice must come back to this earth. Here Arjuna is called Parantapa or the Scorcher of foes. Unless one is good enough to scorch the ego in the knowledge of Brahman it is no use to make wealth sacrifice. There have been people like that. The founder of the Microsoft Computer, Bill Gates in America is one good example. He and his wife are indulging in such egoless wealth sacrifice in a very very systematically scientific manner. Srimati MS. SubbulaKshmi, the late legend of Karnatic music world is another example in India. They belong to a minority. The majority of us cannot make even a five rupees as sacrifice without the ego. Somehow this ego sense gets in and we have to come back to this world for enjoying the fruit of every rupee of sacrifice we made. That is  why it is important when giving alms to beggars we must be humble and chant the name of the Lord we love and give all the charities in HIS or HER name. Then the Lord will collect the fruits and free us from the vicious circle of birth and death.

When the Lord says all karma in its entirety culminates in knowledge, He calls His student, Arjuna as Partha which translates into Kaunteya or the son of Kunti. Here what is highlighted is that all persons born of the wombs of ordinary mothers indulge in action. All actions culminate in knowledge. If it does not bring knowledge in this birth, all our karma will bring enlightenment in some birth. It is as natural as the growth of the baby in the womb of a mother and its birth. The only question is when we will get the enlightenment.

And when we get the enlightenment we must make a sacrifice of it to the Lord. Then only we will attain Moksha or Salvation.

For us the ordinary day-to-day folks, devotion and daily study of the scriptures and prayer will fetch a good birth next time to continue the devotion and study of the scriptures and the knowledge contained in them will get revealed to us step birth by step birth. That is by gradation we will get the knowledge from the study of the scriptures. Because the allurements of this world cannot be got away overnight or overbirth, so to speak.