HOLY GITA
CHAPTER TWO
SAMKHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE
VERSE NUMBER 14:
Text in Transliteration:
maatraasparsaas tu kaounteya sitoshnam sukha duhkhadaah
aagamaapaayino ‘nityaah taams titikshasva bhaarata
Text in English:
The contacts of the senses with their objects create, O son
of Kunti, feelings of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure. They come and go and
are impermanent. Bear them patiently, O bharata.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMY CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The sense organs
such as the eye and the ear contact their objects which are form, sound ec. The
sensations caused by this way are both favourable and unfavourable. The former
feelings lead to pleasure and the latter to pain. These feelings come along
with sense contacts and disappear when the senses do not function. A sense
object that gives pleasure at one time gives pain at another time. Heat and
cold may be sited as examples. The food that is delicious and inviting while
one is in health turns loathsome when in sickness. Pleasure and pain are
therefore transitory. He who remains unaffected by them becomes firm in life.
Practice of “Titiksha” or forbearance is a sure means to healthy-mindedness.
The practiser thereof is not affected by pleasure and pain; he becomes
competent for enlightenment. The next verse describes how does such a one
become fit for enlightenment.
COMMENTARY BY DR. S. RADHAKRISHNAN:
These opposites depend on limited and occasional causes
whereas the joy of Brahman is universal, self-existent and independent of
particular causes and objects. This indivisible being supports the variations
of pleasure and pain of the egoistic existence which gets into contact with the
multiple universe. These attitudes of pleasure and pain are determined by the
force of habit. There is no obligation to be pleased with success and pained
with failure. We can meet them with a perfect equanimity. It is the
ego-consciousness which enjoys and suffers and it will continue to do so, so
long as it is bound up with the use of life and body and is dependent on them
for its knowledge and action. But when the mind becomes free and disinterested
and sinks into that secret serenity, when its consciousness become illumined,
it gladly accepts whatever happens, knowing full well that these contacts come
and go and are not itself, though they happen to it.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMY SIVANANDA:
Cold is peasant at one time and painful at another. Heat is
pleasant in winter but ainful in summer. The same object that gives pleasure at
one time gives pain at another time. So the sense –contacts that give rise to
the sensations of heat and cold, pleasure and pain come and go. Therefore, they
are impermanent in nature. The objects come in contact with the senses or the
Indriays, viz., skin, ear, eye, nose, etc., and the sensations are carried by
the nerves to the mind which has its seat in the brain. It is the mind that
feels pleasure and pain. One should try to bear patiently heat and cold,
pleasure and pain and develpp a balanced state of mind. (Cf. V.22)
Blogger’s comments:
In all religions, the Hinduism alone does not think there is
a certain Anti-God being, namely, the Satan who always tries his level best to
get human beings transgress God’s order to behave. The Satan harbours hatred
toward God, so he tries to get His beings and creations corrupt. There is
nothing wrong in this attitude. Because, there is every possibility and inducement
to do wrong and to indulge in sinful things and actions in
this world. To do the right thing, and to help the fellow beings does not come
easily. Even a man with a beautiful wife looks at askance at another girl and
woman who is also beautiful in another way! The world is filled with sensual
and sensuous things and thoughts. And we, as human beings are with senses like
the eye, and the mouth. All the five senses want to enjoy all the sense objects
available in this world. We cannot draw a line. It is as though there is a
hidden hand that goads us to indulge in sinful activities. And this aspect is
seen by the Christians and Muslims, as per their Scriptures, as Satan. So Satan
is man-made, while this earth and the world is God-made! But there is an
illusory pull. We are always pulled against God. And that is the trick the
sense objects have in the garb of sway over our senses! The world is both a
thought and matter. For those who take this world are majority. So the Hinduism
alone has given a perfect way out. It tells us, “No, problem! So, the world is
filled with the sense objects, yeah? And your senses react automatically even
against your best efforts, yeah? No, problem. Absolutely no problem! There is
no Satan. The prakrity or the Nature is as such. It is the samsaaraa, the life
in the world, into which you have been tossed. And this samsaaraa or worldly
life has three things: maya or illusion, kama or desire, and karma or action.
(we shall see this latter in detail) The illusion makes you to take the world
for the real one and not just a beautiful thought by the sporting creator. There
is no original sin or anything like that. God sports with his creations. And because
of the illusion, you mistake the beautiful thought for the real, and this leads
you up to kama or desire. When desire comes and you become afflicted with it. And
you have to indulge in karma or action. And most of all, and most of the times,
you yield to the pulls of the sense objects. Here is the trick. You are also
endowed with discrimination. The ball is there, but you cannot choose not to
play it as long as you take the game and the ball and other players for real,
and should play selflessly. That is the trick. Ok , most of the times, it is
not easy to have no desire in playing the game of life, but never indulge in
any foul play. Play the game to get pleasure to a certain extent. But if you
can play the game without any desire in the result, it is karma yoga, and you
would become a saint for whom this world will ultimately become a beautiful thought
and he will realize he is God indeed. By gradation you could attain this level
and it takes too many incarnations, and you get too many innings to play the
game in various garb. To the extent you become lest filled with desire and
indulge in action, your number of innings is reduced, and you can attain your
original state of Godhood and Godliness. Tatvamasi is the maha vakya; thou art
that. You are God. But to the extent you give way to desire and indulge in
action, your number of innings gets increased, and to that extent the
attainment is postponed. There is no sin or original sin or anything like that.
Take the worldly life as a game and indulge in it without desire in the fruits
of action. You have to play the game, Arjuna! You cannot run away from the
Battle Field. Life is a war between our five senses and the sense objects with
which the world is filled. You cannot choose not to play the game. Play it
Arjuna. Never have any desire in its fruits, then you will incur no sins or
negativities that increase your innings. Then your self-realisation will get postponed.
You will have to come here to this world time and again.
In the Hinduism, there is a concept of Ishwar’s sporting
with His creations. Since he is full of compassion, and since he has filled
this world full of sense objects and a natural pull towards them, He gives an
umpteen number of re-birth opportunities. He knows how difficult it is to do
actions without expectation of the fruits thereof. So, He advises us to be cautious
and play the game with as less desire as possible, so we will attain that
state, when we will start to look upon this sesory world not as matter but as a
beautiful thought. Hinduism alone has given this freedom. In other words, Hindu
saints and sages alone have fully understood the scheme of the Universe fully. To
prove this, even a non-Hindu can practise yoga and reap the benefit, as has
been proved by many white people who have realised the self as per the maha
vakya, tatvamasi, (thou art that) and attained Godliness.
About yoga being a science, Swamy Vivekananda has said that in
order to qualify as science, an experiment must produce similar results even if
it is made by hundreds of times by hundreds of people but under similar
stipulated circumstances. He argues that a Muslim or a Christian can indulge in
meditation and reap the fruit. So the yoga of meditation is a proven science! This
is the gift of the Vedopanishadic Saints and Sages to the entire humanity for
always. They alone have understood God’s scheme behind the universe and have
left us their immortal knowledge in the form of Vedas and Upanishads.
In this verse, Arjuna is called as the son of Kunti, as well
as the Barata! When he is addressed the son of Kunti, the Lord Krishna
addresses him as an ordinary son born of the womb of a mother, with his
confusion and despondency. In this sense, the Lord says and means, he has
yielded place to confusion and despondency like an ordinary human being brought
out of the womb of an average woman. But when he addresses Arjuna as
Barata, the Lord calls Arjuna’s
attention to his Great Race who could not have sired a weakling like Arjuna
thinks he is. He indeed has the mettle of his race, and can fight the battle
without anymore thought about its results. Leave it to me. Just play the game
is the Lord’s words. Since the war has come to the kshatriya or warrior,
Arjuna, unsought, it has become his self-ordained duty. And he cannot escape
from playing the game, leaving the consequences to the Lord. Because it is
Arjuna’s Swadharma.
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