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 35.

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 35

Text in Transliteration:

Yaj jnaatvaa na punar moham evam yaasyasi paandava

Yena bhootaany aseshenna drakshyasy aatmany atho mayi

Text in English:

Knowing this, O Pandava, you will not fall into this confusion; by this you will see the whole of the creation in your self and in Me.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Two apparently opposing detachments encountered each other at midnight and lay in ambush to deal on the enemy a decisive blow at daybreak. But to the surprise of both, they discovered in the morning that they belonged to the same army. Their attitude and action changed accordingly. The world is viewed by the ignorant as made up of conflicting forces. But with the dawn of enlightenment all diversities disappear. One Reality is presenting Itself as the many.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Knowledge leads to unity: ignorance to diversity.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

When the sense of difference is destroyed actions do not bind, since ignorance is the source of bondage and the self, having attained wisdom, is free from it.

Cp. Plato; “A man should persevere till he has achieved one of two things; either he should discover the truth about them for himself or learn it from some one else; or if this is impossible he should take the best and most irrefragable of human theories and make it the raft on which he sails through life. (Phaedo.85). Cp. Plotinus; “out of discussion we call to vision, to those desiring to see we point the path, our teaching is a guiding in the way the seeing must be the very act of him who has made the choice.” Enneads, VI, 9, 4.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

That, the knowledge of the Self mentioned in the previous verse, that is to be learnt from the Brahma-nishtha (from those established in Brahman) Guru through prostration, questioning and service. When you acquire this knowledge you will not be again subject to confusion or error. You will behold that underlying basic unity. You will behold or directly cognise through internal experience or intuition that all beings from the Creator down to a blade of grass exist in your own Self and also in me.

Comments by the blogger:

“That” stands for the Knowledge to be obtained from one’s Guru through prostration, by question and by service. Once that knowledge about one’s Self is obtained, one becomes a man or woman in possession of Self or Self-knowledge. It is there inside us but it requires the help of the guru.

But it should be noted the dharma is not a static one. It is resilient and capable of different and differing interpretations according to the different time and age we live. When Lord Rama lived, material sacrifice or outward sacrifice was the norm to attain self-knowledge. When Lord Krishna came unto this world, all the external sacrifices mentioned in the Karma Kanda of the Vedas got fully internalized. One has, to obtain self-knowledge, observe and perform any of the internal sacrifices mentioned by the Lord from verse 25 to 30.

Now we are living in the time or age of Kali Yuga. The prescription for self-knowledge has been simplified now. All we need to do is choose any one of the Lord’s name, like Narayana, Govinda, Namah Shivaya, Allahu Akbar, O lord Jesus Christ, etc, etc, and make a continuous chanting of it. In the beginning it takes an effort but as time goes on it becomes easy. It rests us in the consciousness of the Lord in us. After a time, we would arrive at a stage whereby we need not chant the name of our Lord externally, for it would get internalized. This is called Jaba siddhi or victory in chanting within ourselves. Then the Lord Himself will act as our Guru or Master and lead us to self-knowledge. I have been chanting one of the names of Lord Shiva, Om Lingeshwara, for well over seventeen years. Now most of the time it gets internalized. Some times I need to recharge the battery and chant the Lord’s Name outwardly. Try to do it, you will harvest a rich benefit.

In this verse, the Lord says that once Self-Knowledge is achieved, we shall see all beings in ourselves and also in Him, the Lord.

Gita accepts the pluralistic religious viewpoints.

Sri Shankarar’s philosophy is ADHVAIDHA. For him the Creator alone exists and is, as such, real. The creation or Jeevatmas or the individual human beings go into Him, losing their individual sense of self and existence, after Self-knowledge. And this world is just a chimera or an illusory appearance.

Sri Ramanujar established the philosophy of DHWAIDHAM. While Sri Shankara’s philosophy could be called Monism, Sri Ramanujar’s could be called DUALISM. For him, God is one entity and the individual self is another entity. So all the human beings retain their individual self-knowledge and individual-existence independent of the Lord and the realized souls spend their time in glorifying the Lord in Heaven.

Sri Madhva established the philosophy of VISHISTADHVAIDHAM. While he accepts the monism of Sri Shankarar he says there is a vishedam or import that God and His Creations do not retain their individual entity and the created beings go to mingle with the Lord. But there is a vishedam or implication that the created beings retain their individuality after their self-realisation.

Then we have Vaishnavism and Saivism. The Vaishnavists follow the philosophy of Sri Ramanujar and strongly believe that the Lord and His Created Beings are two different entities. The individual selves spend their time in Sri Vaikunta or Vishnu’s Celestial World in Glorifying Lord Vishnu.

For the Saivaits, who worship Lord Shiva, all the three entities are eternal. The Lord and his Creations and this World are real. When the Self become deluded and thinks it is independant of the Lord, it has to come to the earth’s plane embodied as human beings (all the animals ultimately take birth as human beings). Till this delusion or malam gets cured, the created beings have to come here to the earth’s plane repeatedly. And at one point, the deluded beings get cured of their delusion and then they attain the Heavanhood and spend there their time in glorifying the Lord, depending always on Him.

At one stroke, the Lord of the Gita accepts all the philosophical points and bring a reconciliation by saying, “by this –the attainment of the self-knowledge—you will see the whole of the creation in your self and in Me!

Gita religion is a vast ocean into which every philosopher finds his faith accepted and acknowledged.

It is important to note that all the so-called various philosophical standpoints have issued forth out of the Four Vedas, primarily, the Rig-Veda. So reconciliation is possible. The Lord of Gita does just that. It is puny little people and ignoramus individuals who spend a lifetime in nitpicking and glorifying one’s God and shaming others’. That is why we should revive the Vedas and Upanishads to get out of the our silly notions and religious fetishes.