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 39

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 39

Text in Transliteration:

sraddhaavaam  labhate jnaanam tatparah samyatendriyah

jnaanam labdhvaa paraam saantim achirenaa ‘dhigacchati

Text in English:

The man of sraddha, the devoted, the master of his senses obtains knowledge. Having obtained knowledge he goes promptly to the Peace Supreme.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

In the midst of the devotion to the preceptor, whole-hearted service to him and searching inquiries into the nature of the real and non-real, due to lack of adequate zeal, the criterion for spirituality. To the extent sraddha or zeal beams in one, progress is made in the path of knowledge. One is said to be devoted when one’s mind is given wholly to the ideal. Perfect mastery over the senses is a prerequisite to the development of intuition. Variance in the fulfilment of these conditions leads to quick or slow gain of knowledge. The time factor for it varies from a trice to the duration of several births. Along with the gain of Brahma-jnana comes Peace that cannot be described.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

“When will I have the vision of God?” asked an ardent disciple of the master. Instead of giving a direct answer he took the novice to the sea shore and held him immersed in water for a while. He was then asked how he felt. “I thought I would die for want of air to breathe,” came the answer.  “Such a quest of God would reveal Him immediately,” was the answer given by the master.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

sraddhaa; faith. Faith is necessary for gaining wisdom. Faith is not blind belief. It is the aspiration of the soul to gain wisdom. It is the reflection in the empirical self of the wisdom that dwells in the deepest levels of our being. If faith is constant, it takes us to the realization of wisdom. Jnana as wisdom is free from doubts while intellectual knowledge where we depend on sense data and logical inference, doubt and scepticism have their place. Wisdom is not acquired by these means. We have to love it inwardly and grow into its reality. The way to it is through faith and self-control.

paraam saantim; the supreme peace. Nilakantha suggests that he attains the supreme state of bliss, after the karma which has commenced to operate completes its course.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

He who is full of faith, who constantly serves his Guru and hears his teachings, who has subdued the senses surely gets the knowledge and quickly attains the supreme peace or salvation (Moksha). All the above three qualifications are indispensable for an aspirant if he wants to attain to the supreme peace of the Eternal quickly. One qualification alone will not suffice. (Cf. X. 10, 11)

Comments by the blogger:

Possession is nine points in law. Like that, in the spiritual parlance, shraddha or unflinching faith is everything. This universe is both for the faithful and the faithless. No one is going to get faith into the heart of the faithless and faithlessness into the heart of the faithful. Complete freedom has been given to the human beings. And the appearance and actions of and in the Universe are there that are food for both the faithful and the faithless. The faithless easily ask what was wrong with Nirbhaya and countless such girls and women who are pervasively invaded into the physical privacy and what was God doing at the time. There are many things and actions that seem not commensurate with the existence of God in the world. On the other hand, for the faithful the sun up and sun down are enough to send them into the exquite pain of joy at the greatness of God!

God created everything and everyone in this world. But He did not create faith. It is we who should have and show faith. Unless there is faith devotion is not possible. God has everything. He is the master of all things. He is the cosmic master. But he has no self-worship. He sells Himself for those who worship Him. The measure of devotion is the kind of faith one has in God’s omnipresence and omnipotence.

Faith and devotion bring in their wake knowledge of the self and it results in Supreme Peace.

For us, we should indulge in our self-ordained duty with great zeal even as we show devotion to the Lord in our own individual ways. Take the case of a child that leaves the Home Work till the last moment and spends time in front of the TV and the blessed one who always has a habit of relaxing a bit with its mother on coming home after school and then starts to devote time to its Home Work. While the former indulges in its TV action with a guilty feelings the latter’s quality time is THE VERY INDULGENCE IN CARRYING OUT ITS DUTY.

This sense of peacefulness pervades us while we carry out our earthly duty to the best of our ability regularly. And just think of the kind of Peace that should be the birth right of the blessed ones who have faith-devotion-born Knowledge and the resultant Peace!