THE HOLY GITA , CHAPTER 5, SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION, VERSE NUMBER 10

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER 5

SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION:

VERSE NUMBER 10

Text in Transliteration:

brahmany aadhaaya karmaani sangam tyak tvaa karoti yah

lipyate na sa paapena padma patram ivaa ‘mbhasaa

Text in English:

He who act, abandoning attachment, dedicationg his deeds to Brahman, is untainted by sin as a lotus leaf by water.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The life, growth and sustenance of the lotus are all dependent on water. It dries away when severed from it. While constantly in touch with it, the lotus leaf does not permit being wetted with water. Man is born with karma and sustained by it. While fully availing himself of it, the yogi does not get affected by it.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The Gita requires us, not to renounce works but to do them offering them to the Supreme in which alone is immortality. When we renounce our attachment to the finite ego and its likes and dislikes and place our actions in the Eternal, we acquire the true renunciation which is consistent with free activity in the world. Such a renouncer acts not for his fleeting finite self but for the Self which is in us all.

Brahmany aadhaaya karmaani. Ramanuja makes Brahman equivalent to prakrity.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Chapter IV verses 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 37,41; chapter V verses 10, 11 and 12 all convey the one idea the the yogi who does actions without egoism and attachment to results or fuits of the actions, which he regards as offerings unto the Lord, is not tainted by the actions (karma). He has no attachment for Moksha. He sees inaction in action. All his actions are burnt in the fire of wiseom; he escapes from the wheel of Samsara; he is freed form the round of births and deaths. He gets purity of heart and through purity of heart attains to the knowledge of the Self he is liberated. This is the gist of above ten verses. (Cf. III.30)

Comments of the blogger:

Here sin is referred to both good and bad acts. For, whatever the nature of the acts, if the fruits thereof are expected by the actor then it becomes a sin. In this wise, the word sin gets a limited interpretation. Anything is a sin that postpones for ever the individual souls’ chance of mingling with God. If we give lots and lots of amounts of money like Bill Gates for charities and desire the fruits thereof in heaven and the fame in this world, then Bill Gates has committed a sin. But I know he is humility personified and faithful in the real sense of the term. I have no doubts whatever in this regard. I saw a photograph in the English Newspapers a few months ago; it had been taken when the great man had paid his latest visit to India. And he appeared on the stage along with one of the Khans of Indian (Hindi) cinema world. And on the stage only the two persons were seated. Bill Gates was humility personified and Mr. Khan was seen seated with his legs jauntily crossed. In front of Mr. Gates Mr. Khan is an average nobody. He is famous because of the way we treat the cine artists as next only to God. And I also happened to see the footage on NDTV24 and when Mr. Gate’s name was announced he took it without even batting his eyelids. But when Mr. Khan’s name was announced he pulled a smiling face as though in self-deprecation. There were two persons on the stage, one was a humane being and another was a humbug. There was a psychological point of view too. When one behaved naturally simply the other was curiously suffering from a serious sense of inferiority complex in the presence of the great man on stage. He could have hoodwinked his countless fanes but not discerning persons. Who indeed is he in front of Mr. Gates?

Thus Mr. Gates’ contribution to the world’s impoverished people does not inflate his ego for the simple reason he has none. Could a Mother Teresa or a Mahatma Gandhi felt good and inflated when they were acclaimed for their selfless service to the humanity? In this league Mr. Cho Ramasamy should be added. He was the founder-editor of a very popular Tamil Weekly, namely, TUKLAK. Through out his life he exhibited no ego despite his huge achievements in the field of impartial and patriotic journalism. He was a lawyer, Dramatist and actor with more than 3000 stage appearance. In the field of religion also he rendered a great service. He was known for his wit and repartee and incisive articles and editorials. He was a cause behind the periodical changes in the State of Tamil Nadu’s administration. But he was, till his death recently, known for his effervescent politeness. He conducted a purely political journal. But he gave room for religious matters. He himself wrote scintillating interpretations for the twin epics of India, Ramayana and Mahabharata which will live till the last Tamil breathes on the plane of the earth! But the man would not take credit for his numerous achievements in varied fields. He would just say, “I have been able to do these because I was lucky!” He was a Karma yogi like Kamarajar, one of the former CMs of Tamil Nadu.

So it is not only raping Nirbhaya which is a sin, clamouring for the fruits of ones actions too is sin because we would have to come to this plane of consciousness time and time again. Anything that prevents salvation or self-realisation is a sin in Gita parlance. Actions themselves are not sinful or good. The way we treat them and the spirit in which we take them make them sin or liberation-giving ones.