THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 12, VERSE NUMBER 05, BHAKTI YOGA OR THE YOGA OF DEVOTION

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 12

VERSE NUMBER 05

BHAKTI YOGA OR THE YOGA OF DEVOTION:

TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:

kleso ‘dhikataras teshaam avyaktaasakta chetasaam

avyaktaa hi gatir duhkham dehavadbhir avaapyate

SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:

klesah = the trouble: adhikatarah = (is) greater: teshaam = of those: avyakta aasakta chetasaam = whose minds are set on the unmanifested: avyaktaah = the unmanifested: hi = for: gatih = goal: duhkham = (with) pain: dehavadbhih = for the embodied: avaapyate = is reached.

TEXT IN ENGLISH:

Greater is their difficulty whose minds are set on the Unmanifested, for the goal of the Unmanifested is very hard for the embodied to reach.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

Though the goal is the same, the worship of God without form is very difficult for the sadhaka soaked in body-consciousness. As he thinks of himself with a form he cannot help thinking of his God also as with a form. The worship of Saguna Brahman is easy. He who adores Nirguna Brahman has to be free from body-feeling right from the beginning. But the attainment of that state is not possible for all. The spiritually advanced soul alone rises to that level. The easy and natural course for the ordinary sadhaka is to proceed with the worship of God with form.

SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

The Jnani or the realized soul says “Aham Brahmasmi—I am Brahman”. But the body-bound man should not say so. It is harmful to him to say “I am Brahman” when actually he is the body. He deceives himself and the world by such a statement.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Search for the Transcendent Godhead is more difficult than the worship of the Living Supreme God, the soul of all things and persons. In the Avadhootageetaa, Dattaatreys asks: “How can I bow to Him who is formless, undifferentiated, blissful and indestructible, who has through Himself and by Himself and in Himself filled up everything?” The Immutable does not offer an easy hold to the mind and the path is more arduous. We reach the same goal more easily and naturally by the path of devotion to the Personal God, by turning Godward all our energies, knowledge, will and feeling. Cp. “With minds rapt in meditation, if mystics see the unqualified actionless light, let them see. As for myself, my only yearning is that there may appear before my gladdened eyes that bluish someone who keeps romping on the shores of the yamunaa.”

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Worshippers of the Saguna (Qualified) and the Nirguna (unqualified) Brahman reach the same goal. But the latter path is very hard and arduous, because the aspirant has to give up attachment to the body from the very beginning of his spiritual practice.

The embodied: Those who identify themselves with their bodies. Identification with the body is Dehabhimana. The imperishable Brahman is very hard to reach for those who are attached to their bodies. Further, It is extremely difficult to fix the restless mind on the formless and attributless Brahman. Contemplation on the imperishable, attributless Brahman demands a very sharp, one-pointed and subtle intellect. The Upanishad says:

Drisyate tu agraya buddhya

Sukshgmaya sukshmadarsibhih

(It is seen by subtle seers through their subtle intellect.)

He who meditates on the unmanifested should possess the four means. Then he will have to approach a Guru who is well versed in the scriptures and who is also established in Brahman. He will have to hear the Truth from him, then reflect and meditate on It.

He who realises the Nirguna (attributeless)Brahman attains eternal bliss or Self-realisation or Kaivalya (Moksha) which is preceded by the destruction of ignorance with its effects. He who realises the Saguna Brahman (Brahman with attributes) goes to Brahmaloka and enjoys all the wealth and powers of the Lord. He then gets initiation into the mysteries of the Absolute from Hiranyagarbha and without any effort and without the practice of hearing, reflection and meditation attains, through the grace of the Lord alone, the same state as attained by those who have realised the Nirguna Brahman. Through the knowledge of the Self, ignorance and its effect are destroyed in the case of the worshippers of the Saguna Brahman also.

Comments by the blogger:

The Lord of the Gita uses in this verse a word, embodied, which is the key to open the wisdom contained in this stanza or verse.

We all are embodied. Or most of us are embodied. The embodied is covered and constricted from all sides with sense objects. In the form of embodied, we have senses which behave like a drunken monkey which was stung by a scorpion! The monkey is known for mischiefs of unending type. When someone feeds it with liquor its mind becomes more restless. But suppose the drunken monkey is stung by a scorpion what would be its case! That is the state of our senses. It is difficult to get the better of our senses. I am a diabetic. But whenever I see an apple my mouth waters. I can take care of myself with great and untutored self-discipline with respect to all other man-made sweets. But when I see apples heaped up in fruit-stalls I am singularly unable to control myself. An apple a day is the doctor’s way. For a diabetic an apple a week could possibly be the doctor’s way. Like that the tender coconuts! I am irretrievably enslaved to the drink. But for the last 9 years, I have been on the continual watch and am avoiding all sorts of fruits and food items with sugar in them. Only I know and can vouch for the singular difficulty in avoiding the fruits and sugar-made food items. Now I am going through a lean patch. My blood sugar is far from being normal notwithstanding my dieting like mad. Our senses enslave us to this illusory world. Swami Vivekananda says that we are conscious of our bodies and we take us for mere corporeal bodies. He further says that if someone pinches our body, we cry out. See the slavery of it, the Swami exclaims. If I think I am merely a body how could I think I am pure spirit.

The Lord of Gita says to Arjuna that there was never a time when they (Arjuna and Sri Krishna) did not exist. There will never be a time when we shall not exist. He further says that they are immortals. But this bodily consciousness gives us the ego-sense and we think various actions as if we are the karta or owner of such activities instead of realising that all activities belong to God of this Universe and we are just instruments in His hands. God’s will is being carried out in this world on a continuous basis. Those of us who are confused because of our ego and ahankara take the activities carried out as ours because the bodies in which our Atman temporarily resides happened to be those bodies.

It is not a matter of choice whether we take up Bhakti Yoga or the Yoga of action or the Yoga of enquiry about our Self or Jnana Yoga or the Yoga of wisdom. Every one of us is impelled by our own  SVABHAVA OR NATURE. Following our Svadharma or one’s own dharma is the key to success in this and the other world. Dharma could be defined as duty or righteousness or religion or all these three and more. Nobody has been able to give a correct synonym to the Sanskrit word ‘dharma’! So the word ‘Svadharma’ can be taken as our righteous duty for the sake of this passage. Svadharma is one’s attitude behind one’s action or duty that sustains him in his present stage of evolution and also helps us to realize our ultimate destiny. The dharma or duty of a man is determined by his past experiences and tendencies and Samskaras. The Soul assumes different forms in different births for the gaining of experience. The works performed in every birth leave mental impressions or Samskaras. These impressions or Samskaras are stored up in the subconscious mind and as one is apt to think these impressions are never destroyed with the death of the body. After our death, the Soul will assume a new body. Immediately these impressions or Samskaras begin to operate. This is how these impressions or Samskaras form our Svabhava or character. They will determine our svadharma or duty and religion and righteousness, etc., and our sense of right and wrong. Education and environment only help a man to manifest what we have inherited from our own past...Thus a man’s dharma or Svadharma is the basis of his thought and action. To try to act against one’s Svadharma is to do violence to one’s nature. Sri Krishna asks Arjuna to cling to his own dharma or duty or kshatria dharma or the duty as a warrior. “Better is one’s own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well performed. (The above passage has been imbibed and re-told from an essay on Bhagavad Gita by Srimat Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Ramakrishna Math, Chennai.)

It is very hard to realize the Unmanifested through meditative enquiry. But the path of Devotion is open and readily available for all of us.

Every stage of the Universe or Yuga or Age has its own dharma. For one Yuga sacrifices were laid down as the easiest and most natural means of attaining the Knowledge of Brahman. The present Age or Yuga is known as KALKI. For the Yuga of KALKI Devotion has been assigned as the right marga or path. One form of devotion is preferred by the Sages and that is Nama Smarana or telling continuously the Name of the Ishta Devatha or Personal God. My personal God is Lord Siva in His Linga Form. In Linga Form He is known as LINGESHWARAR. So for the past twenty years or more, I have been telling Lingeshwaraya daily. When one is telling the Lord’s Name repeatedly every day a stage is attained whereby internalization of the telling of the Holy Name of the Personal God is achieved. This spiritual achievement is called ‘Jaba Siddhi’. Jaba Siddhi has become my forte. This is my character; even when I am seen to be doing nothing the God’s Name is told as Lingeshwaraya constantly. Any difficult moment and any happy moment is the right time for telling the Lord’s Name.

Thus Sri Krishna recommends the Yoga of Devotion in preference to the Jnana Yoga or Constant Contemplation of the Unmanifested Reality, that is, Brahman.