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 40

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 40

Text in Transliteration:

ajnas chaa ‘sraddhdhaanas cha samsayaatmaa vinasyati

naa ‘yam loko ‘sti na paro na sudham samsayaatmanah

Text in English:

The ignorant, the man devoid of shraddha, the doubting self, goes to destruction. The doubting self has neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Ignorant is that man who is uninformed about Atman. Divine qualities such as self-confidence and noble effort are all born of sraddha; but doubt is the very negation of these great qualities. The doubting man does not trust anybody in the world. he suspects the words and the deeds of the others. Through disbelief he alienates himself from the others and feels miserable. For want of faith in the right path he fails to pursue it and brings ruin to himself. Fallen as he is, he neither enjoys this world nor is he fit for the next.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Unless one has the faith of a baby one cannot have access to the Lord. If mother points to somebody and says, “He is your brother,” the baby believes it. The grace of the Lord comes to him who has this kind of faith. The calculative and doubtful estrange themselves from the Divine.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

We cannot have a positive basis for life, an unwavering faith which stands the test of life.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

The ignorant: one who has no knowledge of the Self. The man without faith: one who has no faith in his own self, in the scriptures and the teachings of his Guru.

A man of doubting mind is the most sinful of all. His condition is very deplorable. He is full of dobts as regards the next world. he does not rejoice in this world also, as he is very suspicious. He has no happiness.

Comments by the blogger:

 The Lord of Gita, who taught ‘samkya yoga’ in chapter 2 and said the Atman cannot be destroyed by the four elements, namely water, fire, earth and wind (water cannot wet the Atman, fire cannot scorch the Atman, the sharp instruments—got of the earth—cannot cleave the Atman and the wind cannot dry the Atman) and the Atman cannot undergo any modifications and changes, which also means it is eternal (“you and these kings and me have had many a birth, Arjuna. While I know them all you don’t and we shall always be”) now takes up an opposite viewpoint for two reasons; 1) In order to encourage Arjuna to have shraddha or faith in Him and 2) to instil on him almost the everlasting period of time the fallen individuals who have no faith and who are ignorant have to go through with scarce hope of joining with Him by obtaining Self-Knowledge or Salvation!

Otherwise, have no doubt whatsoever that Atman, even that of the Nirbhaya’s ravishers and killer, can face everlasting damnation or immediate destruction. Such modifications are alien to an Atman embodied in human forms.

Still the Lord of Gita says, “The ignorant, the man devoid of sraddha, the doubting self, goes to DESTRUCTION.

Why?

In chapter 8 entitled “The yoga of the Imperishable Brahman”, in verse 17 the Lord of Gita dwells on the day and night of Brahma. There he says the day of Brahma lasts a thousand Yugas and his night lasts a thousand Yugas! In our calculation one Yuga should mean a trillion years and a thousand Yugas means millions of trillion years! All these years form one day of Brahma and His night also consists of another millions of trillion years!

What is important here is, during the day of Brahma, the creator, this world and cosmos inheres and fluxes like now, and during Brahma’s night there is wholesale destruction or withdrawal of this cosmos and the whole Universe is filled with non-creative darkness for millions of trillion years.

When the longish night of Brahma, the creator, is over, then, once again there is light in the universe and it starts to flux once more! At some time single cell life happens on a conducive planet with proper atmosphere and human beings or the most intelligent beings with vertical back bone come about in the course of evolution. At such time the fallen souls must restart the working out of their karmas!

In case of the doubting Thomas, he has to go through several days and nights of Brahma with no way of salvation in sight. The Brahma himself has a hundred years of life. Then another elevated soul takes his place. Sometimes a soul takes more than one Brahma’s cycle of existence. So for trillions upon trillions of Barhma’s days and nights or life cycles of hundred years of several Brahmas!

So, when we cannot even form an idea of the almost everlasting time factor, we call this duration as infinitive. Among the five elements, the sky is even now in the 21^st century said to be infinitive when it has been proved the sky is finite in its size howsoever imponderably huge it may be! The Lord of Gita also uses the human way of talking and comparing and juxtaposing because He is talking to a human being, Arjuna.

So, the everlasting condemnation of the soul is inherent in Christianity and Mohammadanism who follow the Holy Quran. But in Hindu Religion, everlasting condemnation is a misnomer! The birth right of the soul is emancipation! And Salvation is for all, not for a selected individuals! For obtaining one’s salvation, a soul is given umpteen number of rebirths! These are inherent in the Hinduism.