THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 13
VERSE NUMBER 11
KSHETRA KSHETRAJNA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE KSHETRA AND THE KSHETRAJNA:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
adhyaatma jnaana nityatvam tattva jnaanaartha darsanam
etaj jnaanam iti proktam ajnaanam yad ato ‘nyathaa
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
adhyaatma jnaana nityatvam = constancy in self-knowledge: tattva jnaana artha darsanam perception of the end of true knowledge: etat = this: jnaanam = knowledge: iti = thus: proktam = declared: ajnaanam = ignorance: yat = which: atah = to it. Anyathaa = opposed.
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
Constancy in Self-knowledge, perception of the end of the knowledge of Truth; this is declared to be knowledge, and what is opposed to it is ignorance.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Sentimental devotion to the Maker is not sufficient. Divine love ought to be seasoned by a diligent inquiry into the nature of the Self and the non-Self. Brahman is Truth. All endeavours ought to be directed to the realization of this verity. The pursuit of Brahma vidyaa as provided in the Upanishads is the infallible means to this great end.
All the dispositions elaborated from the seventh stanza up to this, contribute jointly to the development of wisdom, the divine eye and the intuitive faculty leading to the realization of Brahman. These dispositions are all called Jnana because of their great and unfailing contribution to it.
Dispositions counter to them are vanity, self-esteem, injury, revengefulness, crookedness, indifference towards the teacher, dirty habits, fickleness, self-indulgence, longing for the objects of the senses, egoism, perception of pleasure in bodily life, earthy attachment, identification of self with son, wife, home and the like, restlessness due to occurrence of the desirable and the undesirable, lack of devotion to the Maker, longing for a social life and dislike for sacred studies. People inclined in these ways contaminate their minds; they do not grow in wisdom and Self-knowledge.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
How is it that we are not able to contact Iswara who is all-pervading? Standing by the side of a pond covered with moss and reeds, one feels inclined to think that there is no water in it. But the moss has to be pushed aside to see the water below. Similarly Maya with her concealing power has to be brushed aside from our mind before we are blessed with a vision of the all-pervading Iswara.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S. RADHAKRISHNAN:
It is clear from this list of qualities that jnaana or knowledge includes the practice of moral virtues. Mere theoretical learning will not do. By the development of moral qualities, the light of the ever changeless Self-witnessing all but attached to none is discriminated from the passing forms and is no more confused with them.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The liberated sage has a constant awareness of the Self. He knows that knowledge of the Self alone is permanent and all other learning relating to this word is ignorance. He knows that the knowledge which leads to the realisation of the Self is the only truth.
These attributes beginning with “humility” are declared to be knowledge, because they are conducive to knowledge: they are the means to knowledge. They are secondary or auxiliary causes of knowledge. The fruit of this knowledge of the Self is deliverance from the round of births and deaths. The spiritual aspirant should always keep the end of knowledge in view. Only then will he attempt to develop the various virtues which are conducive to the attainment of knowledge of the Self. What is opposed to knowledge, viz., lust, anger, greed, pride, hypocrisy, attachment, cunningness, diplomacy, injuring others, is ignorance. These evil traits which are the products of ignorance bind a man to Samsara. If you wish to attain the knowledge of the Self you will have to eradicate these evil traits which stand as stumbling blocks on the path of salvation. If you cultivate the opposite virtues, the evil traits will die by themselves just as the plants which are deprived of water in a garden die by themselves. It is difficult to eradicate the evil traits by fighting against them.
Comments by the blogger:
Sri Krishna has delineated what is pure knowledge and what is ignorance in these verses or slokas, starting from 07 ending with the verse 11.
In the Upanishads, it is asked of a Guru by a disciple as to what is that understanding which would amount to the understanding of all here in the world. And the answer comes from the Guru that the only knowledge which will amount to all knowledge to be attained here on the earth’s plane is knowledge about Brahman! So if we understand Brahman in other words if we attain self-realisation, that would amount to knowing all in the Universe.
What is the power of this knowledge?
Swami Vivekananda says that one who has attained the Self-knowledge, then whatever God does can be done by the self-realised Soul or Man except for Creation. For example, the Swami says, if the self-realised sage says to the heavenly bodies to change their course, that should be done! That the attama siddhis or eight-fold powers or attainments would not be of any use, and the attainer will have to come to the plane of this earth and work out his karma like any other persons. So the Self-knowledge means complete emancipation. In the face of such nirvikalpa Samadhi all other attainments and knowledge about the whole world pale into insignificance.
Truth in its purified state amounts to the Law of Nature and beyond that. Here Sri Krishna wants Arjuna (and us) to see Truth as the end of the Knowledge.
After Aristotle was confined to the prison and a sentence of death by drinking the poison, hemlock was also passed, he took it as a consummate philosopher that he was. Quite oblivious of the sentence, he asked his students as to the method by which his death sentence would be carried out. And he is told that by drinking a tumbler of hemlock, the poison, he would die a slow death; starting from his toes he would lose feeling and the legs thus become numb. This is how he would die. Then Aristotle askes one of the students to settle the loan of a chicken he had got from a particular person. And then among other things, before consuming the poison, the great philosopher thanked the Law of Egipt which had overseen his activities till then! Here the Law stands for what the Arians knew as Sanatana Dharma. So the law of Egipt here stands for the Moral Law of nature which guides every human being in his onward journey for the attainment of complete Knowledge.
From verse number 07 to 11 the Bhagavan has laid down the way in which Knowledge, secular and spiritual, could be attained. So all other knowledge which are against the above-said Self-knowledge is ignorance.
When we once attain the knowledge of the Self, all other secular knowledge shall have been attained. Swami Yoganandha’s Guru was Sri Yukteshwar Giri. The master of the master, that is, Sri Yukteshwar’s master was Lahiri Mahasaya. And this Swami Lahiri Mahasaya was the direct disciple of the famed Babaji, who is said to have retained his bodily existence for more than 400 years!
OK, what is so special about them, you might ask. Well, Swami Lahiri Mahasaya would often be asked about various kinds of Samadhi. As and when a disciple poses this kind of questions, the great Swamiji would say, “I don’t know! But if you will consent to stay here for a while I will go into that state and then tell you as to my experience!
Such is the power of Knowledge about one’s Self. This is called Self-realisation, among other things! We need not know all about the spiritual and secular things, for we can always go into that state and understand it through direct experience. Because the knowledge about the Self or Atman is the ultimate knowledge from which state we can understand every one of the laws secular and religious.
Truth is the Truth about God, the Creator. With this Truth and its attainment, the practitioner will be free of all the accumulated Karma spanning many a birth and death, which is called as Sanchita Karma, will be burnt up. But the balance of the Praraptha Karma will have to be worked out by the released practitioner. Why? The Sanchita Karma means the accumulated karma from activities carried out in the past incarnations. Thus Sanchita Karma is a bundle of karma which we will not be called upon, after our attainment of Self-knowledge, to work out. Indeed no one will be called upon to work out any part of the sanchita karma. But when we are born a part of this sanchita karma will be segregated which would form our Praraptha Karma. This Praraptha Karma can only be worked out through the various enjoyments and sufferings. This rule remains unaltered even after our attainment of Nirvikalpa Samadhi or Self-knowledge! If there is no fund of the praraptha karma after one’s attainment of Self-knowledge, the liberated person will attain Maha Samadhi, that is, die. But even the liberated Self will not be allowed to go scot-free so far as the working out of the balance of the Praraptha Karma is concerned.
This was why Sri Ramakrishna had a cancerous boil on his forearm and suffered at the fag end of his life on the earthly plane. All the sages whose Praraptha Karma are not exhausted will have to suffer the consequences. Ramana Maharishi is another example.
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