THE HOLY GITA

Wednesday 5 December 2018

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 11, VERSE NUMBER 54, VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 11
VERSE NUMBER 54
VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
bhaktyaa tv ananyayaa sakya aham evamvidho ‘rjuna
jhaatum drashttum cha tattvena praveshttum cha paramtapa
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
bhktyaa = by devotion: tu = indeed: ananyayaa = single-minded: sakyah = (am) possible: aham = I: evam vidhah = of this form: arjuna = O Arjuna: jnaatum = to be known: drashttum = to be seen: cha = and: tattvena = in reality: praveshttum = to be entered into: cha = and: paramtapa = O Parantapa (O scorcher of thy foes).
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
But by unswerving devotion can I, of this form, be known and seen in reality and also entered into, O scorcher of foes.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Ananya bhakti is unswerving devotion. In this state, the sadhaka recognizes nothing but Iswara. He makes over his entire being to the Lord. All that he contacts through the senses and the intellect is He. Whatever he does is the Lord’s activity.
From the way in which the subordinates and attendants conduct themselves in a palace, the presence of the king in it can be inferred. One should not be satisfied with that inference. Seeing the king in person is superior to believing in his presence. There is a state greater than seeing the sovereign. Contact and communion with him is what is wanted. Ananya bhakti takes the devotee through all of these stages in his pursuit of the Lord. He feels first the presence of the Divine; he gets the vision of the Lord next; then he moves intimately with Him until unison is reached. Unswerving devotion provides all these possibilities.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Many have heard of milk. Those who have seen it are lesser in number. The partakers of milk are lesser still. Even such is the contact of man with God.
A talk arose whether man can see God with his physical eyes. No, He cannot be perceived with fleshy eyes. When bhakti is practised, the sadhaka or practitioner develops a superior sense organ, which has the power to see and hear supermundane things. With that spiritual eye, God is beheld and the devotee is commingled with Him.   

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Shankara defines an ideal devotee as one who realizes by all the senses only one object, God. He adores God with all his spirit and heart.
Saakshaatkara or the direct perception of the divine form is possible for the true devotees.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Devotion is the sole means to the realisation of the Cosmic Form.
Ananya-Bhakti: Single-minded devotion. One-pointed unbroken devotion; the devotion which does not seek any other object but the Lord alone. In this type of devotion, no object other than the Lord is experienced by any of the senses. Egoism and dualism totally vanish.
Of this form refers to the Cosmic Form.
By single-minded devotion it is possible not only to know Me as declared in the scriptures but also to realize Me, i.e., to attain liberation. The devotee realises that the Lord is all this and He alone is the ultimate Reality. When he gets this experience of illumination he gets merged in Him. (Cf. X.10; VIII.22)

Comments by the blogger:
My dear friends, you should not think that while the great Commentators have said what needs to be said, my comments about the very same slokas or verses is superfluous and even egoistic. While I don’t know about my comments as being superfluous I am far from being egoistic. The great Commentators, Srimat Swami Chidbhavananda, Dr.S.Radhakrishnan and Srimat Swami Sivananda, have said whatever there is to be said. To be precise and elaborate at one and the same time is possible to them. But I can’t be precise. Brevity is the soul of wit. To be precise is a great virtue. But I lack this virtue. And the three Commentators had to work under the constraint which forced them to not be very very exhaustive as the size of the book was constantly in their mind. But, as a blogger, I need not be brief and at the same time, I can elongate as long as possible. This is why I have been blabbering too much when I deal with each and every sloka or verse.  
Single-minded devotion is a great virtue.
Being single-minded means to not give to the worldly things and materialism overmuch importance.
Those great souls who could practise Bhakti Yoga or the Yoga of Devotion do not care about their daily needs such as a roof over their heads, food and clothing. The birds and beasts go to sleep every single night without any worry about their food the next morning. All their needs are taken care of by Nature. What is good for the goose must be good for the gander and if Nature takes care of the birds and beasts there is no reason as to why it should deny the same to us, the Homo Sapience.
I read a booklet published by a millionaire a couple of years ago. The said millionaire had a thirst for the Spiritual life. When the time came for him and his inner being would not leave him in (worldly) peace, he decided to become foot-lose. He simply gave the running of his various business concerns to others in the family and went on a pada-yatra or travel by foot. He decided to verify for himself that if beasts and birds of the jungle are followed by human beings the same Nature would provide with the daily needs of them or not. So he left his mansion one day without taking a rupee and not even a change of clothes! He became an aimless wanderer. He simply walked till he could and when he could no longer walk he was given a lift by some two-wheelers and thus he was able to wander mainly on foot. He says in this booklet that Nature indeed came to his great and timely help. Nature took great care of him by way of daily need of food and drinks and other wants. He was able to become a wanderer with no particular objective in mind. On his journey, he was time and again surprised to see how Mother Nature took care of all his basic needs. Food came to him as and when he needed it. In this respect, the millionaire also says that it was a great surprise how he needed only some morsels of food for every meal-time. Then only he realised how gross and wasteful he had been in stuffing his belly with choice food several times a day. That he had been feeding his desires for choice food items and the food he had taken gave him hankering and earning and craving for other comforts like the constant hankering for women’s society. He was sorry for having gulped down endless begs of foreign liquors. Now on his Spiritual journey, he was surprised to know that how a drink of water would rejuvenate him. There was no hankering for choicest food items. He ate what was given to him by various persons he had never known and would not be able to meet again! He had many a friend in his worldly life. But all of them were grossly materialistic and did not have any spiritual longing. Now the wanderer came to understand that the whole of humanity was his relatives. He had a stake in every one leading a good moral life. Simplicity was another discovery for the wanderer. Whether it was food and drink or clothing and a roof above his head, they were all very very simple and were enough to satisfy his daily wants. The doors of the houses by perfect strangers were opened for his pleasure. And the wanderer found out that he did not need liquor to go to bed. Nor did he want women’s society in order to go to sleep. Thus the wanderer found out during his foot-lose days, which was a couple of years, he lived with basic wants and no desire like the birds and beasts. Upon returning back to his mansion the millionaire started to live a simple and humble life. He had found out a great thing about Mother Nature!
Nature has all the things to feed all the people and beasts in this world. Likewise, mother Nature has the ability to quench all the rightful and minimum needs and wants of the people and beasts of this world. But ironically India alone has been a country in which more than thirty crore people go to bed on platforms or on the roadside with burning empty stomach. The world over there are teeming millions of people, all our brothers and sisters, who live below the poverty line and many millions of people belonging to the lower middle-class forced to live a life hovering on the poverty line.  
Mother Nature always puts in person’s mind a hankering for material things and thus keeps billions of people the world over under her mighty and enslaving illusion. Man’s journey toward his Maker is hampered by his constant urge to seek and get wealth beyond his normal wants and need. But once a man becomes enamoured of a spiritual lifestyle Mother Nature does everything in her infinite power to trip him up and draw him back to his early form of lifestyle. This period of life is a very hard one and an ineffable phase of life to get free from the Illusory pulls of Nature. But once the striving Man tries constantly to get himself free of Mother Nature it is Nature herself who had been playing a spoilsport helps in every way to uplift the man so he may strive in his Spiritual life and go up in his journey spread over a number of almost unending re-births toward God and realisation of his self.
Sri Krishna says in this sloka or verse that single-minded devotion would not only make and enable the Practitioner of the Yoga of Devotion to witness the Cosmic Form of the Lord of Gita but also enable the blessed Practitioner to enter into the Cosmic Form and become one with Sages and Seers of the world who also go into the mouths of the Lord not as frightened sinners but singing ecstatically the Praise of the Lord.
In this stanza also Sri Krishna calls Arjuna, His disciple as Paramtaba or O Scorcher of the foes. So Arjuna is given to understand that the materialistic and illusory yearnings and cravings enslaving Man’s five senses could be scorched by him if only he tried his level best.
Devotion comes easily to the majority of human beings of the world. The devotion of unswerving type holds the key for one’s realization of one’s Self and enter into God. Nothing less!


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