THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 06
DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:
VERSE NUMBERS 20, 21,22 and 23
Text in Transliteration:
yatro ‘paramate cittam niruddham yogasevayaa
yatra chai ‘vaa ‘tmanaa’tmaanam pasyann aatmani tusyati
Text in English:
When the mind, disciplined by the practice of yoga, attains quietude, and when beholding the Self by the self, he is satisfied in the Self;
Verse number 21 Text in Transliteration:
Sukham aatyantikam yat tad buddhigraahyam ateendriyam
Vetti yatra na chai ‘vaa ‘yam sthitas calati tattvatah
Verse number 21 Text in English:
When he feels that supreme bliss which is perceived by the intellingence and which transcends the senses, and wherein established he never moves from the Reality;
Verse number 22 Text in Transliteration:
yam labdhvaa chaa ‘param laabham manyate naa ‘dhikamtatah
yasmin sthito na duhkhena gurunaa ‘pi vicaalyate
Text of the verse 22 in English:
And having gained which, he thinks that there is no greater gain than that, wherein established he is not shaken even by the heaviest affliction;
Text in Transliteration of the verse number 23:
tam vidyaad duhkhasamyogaviyogam yogasamjnitam
sa nischayena yoktavyo yogo ‘nirvinna cetasaa
Tex in English of the verse number 23:
Let this disconnection from union with pain be known by the name of yoga. This yoga should be practised with determination and with an undistracted mind.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
For verse 20
Quietude of mind and the experience of satisfaction in the Self are concomitant. Self-knowledge and Self-satisfaction are interrelated.
For verse 21
Bliss is the characteristic of the Atman; therefore the extroverted senses cannot have access to it. Purified intellect grasps it to some extent. Bliss is everlasting because of its belonging to the Atman. The yogi does not want to divert himself from this bliss to the impermanent pleasures of the senses any more than the fish wants to get to land abandoning its watery abode.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
While in Samadhi the yogi dives deep into the ocean of sat-chit-ananda. In that state his senses become defunct.
For verse 22
The fleeting earthly pleasures are all ever selective.but getting into the infinite beatitude of the Self, the yogi has nothing else to seek, even as the fish in the ocean has no other abode to seek. The yogi established in the bliss of Brahman has no body-consciousness. The body hangs on him just as a shadow hangs on to a body. Any harm done to the shadow does not hurt the body; any harm inflicted on the body does not afflict the yogi established in the Self.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Whatever may be the suffering that falls to the lot of the body, the power and glory of the devotion and knowledge of a true devotee do not in the least get diminished thereby. What all tribulations the Pandava brothers had to undergo during their exile! But the exuberance of their wisdom was in no way affected even for a momen by those ordeals.
For verse 23
Bliss is the real nature of man. It is because of ignorance that he courts misery and suffers under its weight. When this assumed state of affair is alienated is alienated, he beams in his original bliss again. This act is like rousing up a man from the pangs of a dreadful dream and putting him in his wakeful state. The meaning of yoga is to yoke one with one’s supreme nature. There is no justification for anybody to invite sorrow on himself. That person who makes himself over to affliction is unfit for yoga. He who takes to yoga with buoyancy of mind, fixed intention and constancy of purpose, achieves it. Sound mental climate is not prelde to the yogis getting back to beatitude, his original state.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SIDBHAVANANDA:
Milk in a vessel continues to boil and bubble so long as there is fire underneath. But when the fire is removed, its simmering stops. On this wise, the man who takes to the practice of yoga out of curiosity pursues it vehemently for sometime and then abandon it once for all. He gains nothing. Steadfastness in yoga is essential.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
For verse 21
See Katha Upanishad., III, 12. While the Supreme is beyond perception by the senses, it is seizable by reason, not by the reason which deals with sense data and frames concepts on their basis but reason which works in its own right. When it does so, it becomes aware of things not indirectly, through the medium of the senses or the relations based on them, but by becoming one with them. All true knowledge is knowledge by identity. Our knowledge through physical contact or mental symbols is indirect and approximate. Religion is contemplative realization of God.
For verse 23
In verses number 10—22 the intense fixation of the mind on its object with a view to liberation is taught. It is the repose of the liberated spirit in its own absoluteness and isolation. The self rejoices in the Self. It is the kaivalya or the Samkhya purusha, though in the Gita, it becomes identified with blessedness in God.
Anirvinnachetasaa: nirvedarahitena chetasaa. Shankara. We must practice yoga without slackness of effort arising from the thought of prospective pain.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
For verse number 20
The verses 20, 21, 22, and 23 must be taken together.
When the mind is completely withdrawn from the objects of the senses, supreme peace reigns within the heart. When the mind becomes quite steady by constant and protracted practice of concentration the yogi beholds the Supreme Self by the mind which is rendered pure and one-pointed and attains to supreme satisfaction in the Self within.
For verse number 21
The infinite Bliss of the Self(which is beyond the reach of the senses)can be grasped (realised) by the pure intellect independently of the senses. During deep meditation the senses cease to function, as they are involved in their cause, the mind. The intellect is rendered pure by the practice of Yama (Self-restraint) and Niyama (observances and disciplinary practices) and constant meditation.
For verse number 22
Which: the gain or the realisation of the Self or the immortal Soul.
Wherein: in the all-blissful Self which is free from delusion and sorrow. The Self is all-full and self-contained. All the desires are fulfilled when one attains Self-realisation. That is the reason why the Lord says: “There is no other acquisition superior to Self-realisation.” if one gets himself established in the Supreme Self within, he cannot be shaken even by heavy sorrow and pain, because he is mindless and he is identifying himself with the sorrowless and painless Brahman. One can experience pain and sorrow when he identifies himself with the body and the mind. If there is no mind there cannot be any pain. When one is under chloroform he feels no pain even when his hand is amputated, because the mind is withdrawn from the body.
For verse number 23
In verses 20, 21, and 22 the Lord describes the benefits of Yoga, Viz., perfect satisfaction by resting in the Self, infinite unending bliss, freedom from sorrow and pain, etc. He further adds that this Yoga should be practised with a firm conviction and iron determination and with non-depression of heart. A spiritual aspirant with a wavering mind will not able to attain success in yoga. He will leave the practice when he meets with some obstacles on the path. the practitioner must also be bold, cheerful and self-reliant.
Comments by the blogger:
In verse 20, there is a distinction sought to be made between the Self and self which is not adopted in the original Sanskrit version! This is the problem of the commentators. How a mind is disciplined, we have already seen. Earlier verses categorically describe how the mind should be disciplined. And here in verse 20, it is stated that when such a disciplined mind rises up one more notch through unswervingly regular meditation and attains quietude the mind can see the Self. The beholder also is the Self. But since the antecedents of this beholder self was as such it had to go through its millennial journey till at last took to the regular practice of yoga, it is shown as self and not Self. In actual fact, the Self only goes through the delusional lives till its possessor takes up to yoga. But since this Self is not fully realized it is denoted by the commentators as self and not Self! Otherwise, there is no distinction between the self and the Self. Self only, even as it is bound by worldly notions and passions of the person possessing the Self, sees the Self at last and the man is satisfied the prototype Self indeed which had been inhering in himself hitherto!
When the so-called self( Self indeed)which used to be bound by the sheerness of the worldly things and notions attained through various discipline and regular practice of Meditation as have been written above feels the supreme happiness or bliss or Brahma bliss, as we have already seen in the verse number15 in my comments, he, the possessor of this Self never moves from the reality. Because one Brahma bliss is such that it transcends the five senses and he is firmly established in the bliss. Here both the perceiver and the perceived mingle into one. This is the source of Ananda or insatiable Bliss Brahma! In this state all the dualities and sensualities are transcended.
Verse number 22 is not the icing on the cake but further elucidation by the consummate Teacher that the Lord is to Arjuna and through him to the people of the world. When a person becomes the possessor of Self and the consequent Brahma Bliss he rightly thinks that there is no greater gain than this quintessential state. When he is established firmly in this state of Existence Bliss he is not shaken even by greatest of sorrow. Because he is the possessor of his Self and he has also become one with the Universal Self, and as such the Bliss is such that ordinary human drama which is not everlasting but transitory, the possessor of the Self is not moved even by greatest of sorrow. He knows he won’t be coming back to earth here afterward. For example, His Holiness Sri Jayendira Chandrasekarendira Swami of Kanchi mutt was once giving a discourse to a group of devotees. At that time the telegramme containing the news of his mother’s demise was handed over to him with trepidation. But what the Swami or Periyavaal as he was fondly called by his devotees, did was to hold an analysis as to the death of a hermit to this world once he became one, and as such could such a corpse have a mother in its present life as a hermit with complete Self-possession! Such is the case of those who have become established in Self.
Verse number 23 proclaims in unequivocal words and terms that this disconnection from union with pain should be known by the name Yoga. That is why this yoga should be practised with determination and with an undistracted mind. There must be a single-minded devotion to the practising of this emancipating Yoga. The practitioner should give all that he has lived by, his/her spouse in the case of a householder taking to this yoga, and every possession of worldly life. Because, the possession of the Self is the ultimate possession, and to attain to that status one should practise regularly. Swami Vivekananda says that such practitioners attain this state of Self-possession within six years if he/she has meditated for a minimum of eight hours daily. Some attain freedom in twelve years. Some attain in twenty-four years. And even those who die before attaining this stage and established in the Self takes up to the yogic path in the next birth quite early from where he/she had left off in the erstwhile birth. This meditation is very scientific and belongs to the entire humanity transcending all notions of religion and caste.
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