THE HOLY GITA

Thursday 6 December 2018

THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 11, VERSE NUMBER 55, VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM

THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 11
VERSE NUMBER 55
VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
matkarmakrrn matparamo madbhaktah sangavarjitah
nirvairah sarvabooteshu yah sa maam eti paandava
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
mat karmakrrt = does actions for me: mat paramah = looks on me as the supreme: mad bhaktah = is devoted to me: sanga varjitah = is freed from attachment: nir vairah = without enmity: sarva bhooteshu = towards all creatures: yah = who: sah = he: maam = to me: eti = goes: paandava = O Pandava.
  TEXT IN ENGLISH:
He who does work for Me, who looks on Me as the Supreme, who is devoted to Me, who is free from attachment, who is without hatred for any being, he comes to Me, O Pandava.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
It is in the nature of beings to work. The make of an individual is known from the work he engages himself in. To work for oneself is the way of the world. The devotee, however, works not for himself but for the Lord.
Worldly people strive for prosperity, power and enjoyment. The devotee strives to attain the Lord Supreme.
The mind thrives getting attached to one thing or another. But it does not cling to two things at the same time. As it grows in devotion to the Lord, its attachment to the world wanes.
Hatred is born of rivalry or mutual exclusion. But these base motives have no place in the devotee’s attempt to recognize the immanency of God in all beings.
Man gains that to which he applies himself. By giving himself to the Lord, he gets Him in return, and there is no gain superior to this.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Do you know what kind of devotion we ought to have towards our Maker? The love of a chaste wife to her husband, the attachment of a miser to his hoarded wealth, the craving of a worldling for sense-pleasure—all these rolled into one and directed towards the Lord make Bhakti. We shall verily gain Him in this way.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
This is the essence of bhakti. See XII, 13. This verse is the substance of the whole teaching of the Gita. We must carry out our duties, directing the spirit to God and with detachment from all interest in the things of the world and free from enmity towards any living being.
Whatever be our vocation and character, whether we are creative thinkers or contemplative poets or humble men and women with no special gifts, if we possess the one great gift of the love of God, we become God’s tools, the channels of His love and purpose. When this vast world of living spirits becomes attuned to God and exists only to do His will, the purpose of man is achieved.
The Gita does not end after the tremendous experience of the celestial vision. The great secret of the Transcendental Atman, the source of all that is and yet itself unmoved forever is seen. The Supreme is the background for the never-ending procession of finite things. Arjuna has seen this truth but he has to live in it by transmuting his whole nature into the willing acceptance of the Divine. A fleeting vision, however vivid and permanent its effects may be, is not complete attainment. The search for abiding reality, the quest of final truth cannot end, in emotional satisfaction or fitful experience.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
This is the essence of the whole teaching of the Gita. He who practises this teaching will attain Supreme Bliss and Immortality. This verse contains the summary of the entire philosophy of the Gita.
He who performs actions (duties) for the sake of the Lord, who consecrates all his actions to Him, who serves the Lord with the heart and soul, who regards the Lord as his supreme goal, who lives for Him alone, who works for Him alone, who sees the Lord in everything, who sees the whole world as the Cosmic Form of the Lord and therefore cherishes no feeling of hatred or enmity towards any creature even when great injury has been done by others to  him, who has no attachment or love to wealth, children, wife, friends and relatives, and who seeks nothing else but the Lord, realises Him and enters into His Being. He becomes one with Him.

Comments by the blogger:
The spiritual trick to attain the Lord and enter into Him is pithily stated here in this all-compassing sloka or verse.
First, the Lord of Gita wants His devotees to do all actions in this mundane world for the love of the Lord alone.
Whatever be the way of life, unflinching devotion must rule one’s style of living. This is indeed very hard. If we start to think of God in all our strivings there would be many things we cannot do. But our mind is a minefield. It fills all the dark nook and corner of our conscious self for secret enjoyment of many desires and actions to fulfil such desires of which we dare not discuss even with our spouse. Our Mind will also create and think of many an excuse in justification of our secret enjoyments. The man who constantly and continually strives for adding wealth to his already stupendous and enormous wealth will have a ready excuse for his fevered actions eighteen hours a day! The Man who is having it out with another woman and has an extra-marital relationship will have a ready excuse as to how his own wife is lackadaisical to his wants and needs. A politician who amasses wealth after coming to power will have an excuse that he had to save up an enormous amount of money and assets to face the next election. There was an MLA in our area who rose to fame and name from his ordinary average life and who has indulged in dishonest means used to justify the act asking our people or voters in our area, that is, the people belonging to his constituency that he was honest and did not indulge in any bribery in his own constituency! The Government employee would try to excuse his amassing of wealth saying that he had five daughters and had to save up an enormous amount of money to take care of their marriage. There was a smuggler of sandalwood illegally cut down in the forest area used to support his act of thievery by ejaculating that all the sandalwood smuggled to foreign countries always return to India in the form of gold bullion. Thus India is enriched by his act of smuggling! The same person said when once he was incarcerated for the act of adulteration of several hundred gunny bags of cement that if Mahatma Gandhi went to prison it was for his nation and this man went to jail for his family! There is a popular lyricist in Tamil Nadu who penned several erotic lyrics for erotic scenes in movies. His justification is that if he does not agree to write such lyrics there are always other lyricists who would gladly write such lyrics!
Thus our mind does not even consult our pure self whether the dishonest means to amass wealth was an acceptable action or not. Even without us knowing anything about it, our Mind prepares excuses, sometimes slightly justifiable on the face of it, and forces us to indulge in corrupt actions morally as well as spiritually.
On the contrary, if a person is able to do actions and consecrate them, as Srimat Swami Sivananda has written, to the Lord with least expectation of returns in the shape of money and or assets movable or immovable he is to be considered as a blessed man. For many people, it is just a case of fulfilment of their daily needs in the form of food,  drink and a place where he or she could put up his or her feet! It is only when the irreducible wants and needs are not fulfilled even half-way the average one is forced to practise falsehood and corruption. It is not easy, to be honest, and satisfied with one’s poverty as a way of life. Even Subramaniya Bharati, an extraordinary Tamil poet of the Twentieth Century, begged the Goddess Parashakti for a piece of land and a well and a few coconut trees so he could write poems of immortal kind continuously! The poet lived in poverty and died in poverty. Among other things, he has written a Tamil Epic on THE WOW OF PANJALI which is a soul-elevating work.
God is the supreme Spirit and the entity and we should look up to Him for guidance in every walk of life. The supremacy of the Lord is well established even among the non-believers. The Universe was created by the Lord with the help of an atom from His person. The remainder inheres outside the flux of this earth unconditioned by Time, Space and Causation. The Upanishad recites that out of the whole this Universe has come and even after the creation of such mighty Universe the remainder is also the Whole! There is no lessening of God’s Power and Prowess after the Universe came into being out of Him. And God inheres pervasively in the Universe filling up everything and being both movable and immovable, and sentient and insentient. Thus God’s supremacy goes without saying. He is said to be having no beginning and no end principally because He is out of the sway and flux of Time, Space and Causation. Since God does not have a past and future He is outside the scope and revolving of this Universe.
Not only the spiritual aspirants but even ordinary persons should bear no ill-will and enmity toward anyone. Every man is a cog in the Universal Machine and as important to the revolution and inhering of the Universe as any spiritually enlightened person. All human beings and flowers and fauna is filled up by God. Even insentient things are filled up with God. Every atom of this Universe is a vital part in the Grand Theme of the Lord for this Universe. Not only the good people but also the sinners are important to the inhering of this universe. So our most important duties are to worship God and then worship the Lord in all beings and non-beings.
One is asked by the Lord of  Gita to be free of all attachment. The attachment to this world and worldly things and life enslaves human beings. The Animal Kingdom has no attachment and they live and act purely by instinct. But human beings are given a choice. They may believe in God and lead a life of purity of mind which will automatically enure to all our thinking and actions. Or they might lead their lives in this illusory world with the ambition to create and earn wealth and comfort even at the pain of losing the Lord. The man who is satisfied with the minimum things in life is a blessed one. Wealth and actions to earn an enormous amount of wealth enslave Man to this earth and he has to come repeatedly helplessly to the plane of this sphere and go through likes and dislikes and other dualities.
Such a person who indulges in activities for the sake of the Lord, who looks upon God as the Supreme, who is devoted to God and free from attachment to worldly things and life in the world and who bears no enmity towards any creature goes after death to the Lord of Gita.      
                                     
iti sreemad bhagavadgeetaasoopanishatsu brahmavidyaayaam
yogasaastre sree krrshnaarjuna samvaade visvaroopa
darsanayogo naama ekaadaso ‘dhyaayah
In the Upanishad of the Bhagavad Gita, the knowledge of Brahman, the Supreme, the science of Yoga and the dialogue between Sri Krishna and Arjuna, this is the eleventh discourse designated:
                                              THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM



No comments:

Post a Comment