VERSE NUMBER 21 OF SAMKHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE

 HOLY GITA

CHAPTER TWO

SAMKHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE

VERSE NUMBER 21:

Text in Transliteration:

veda ‘vinaasinam nityam ya enam ajam avyayam

katham sa purushah paarth kam ghaatayati hanta kam

Text in English:

He who cognizes the Atman as indestructible, eternal, unborn and changeless, how can he slay, O Partha, or cause another to slay?

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANADA:

   Atman is actionless. The knower of Atman is free from egoism; therefore the feeling of agency is not in him. Karma does not, for that reason, taint him. Slaying and causing to slay are apparently terrible actions. But because of the absence of egoism in an enlightened person, even such evil actions do not tarnish him. An aspirant tries to be free from egoism while discharging his duty.

Swami Chidbhvananda gives quotes Sri Ramakrishna, who tells a story about the absence of ego:

   Absorbed as a saint was, he was passing along a crowded street. Then by chance he trampled upon the foot of a wicked man. That ruffian became enraged and recklessly assaulted the holy man, until he fainted and fell down. He was forthwith carried to the Ashrama and tenderly nursed by his disciples. When he regained consciousness he was asked if he could recognise the one attending on him. “The hand that beat up this body is now nursing it”, came the reply. The knower of Brahman distinguishes not the assaulter from the assaulted.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

The enlightened sage who knows the immutable and indestructible Self through direct cognition or spiritual Anubhava (experience) cannot do the act of slaying. He cannot cause another to slay also.

Comments by the blogger:

It all depends on ones consciousness. “Bragnanam Brahmam” is one of the maha vakyas or Great Sentences of the Vedas. That means “consciousness is Brhamam or God!” “Thou art that” or “you are That” or “You are God” is another maha vakya or Greate Sentence of the Vedas. Are we indeed the Brahman who is immutable and indestructible, eternal, and unborn indeed? How could it be true when it is the fact, that we have been born to our parents and we move, eat, drink, lie, with that consciousness? How could it be proved we are not born? How could it be proved we are immutable when each year adds to the senility of ours when we are past our prime?  How could it be proved that we are indestructible, while we know a strong blow with even a blunt sword should put an end to us? During the freedom struggle, occasionally there occurred fratricidal killings between Muslims and Hindus. In the book, “Freedom At Midnight” the authors write about Hindu and Muslim children at school killed each other by piercing each other in the stomach with their sharpened pencils! And still, we should believe we are immutable and eternal and changeless. Sheer docotomy, indeed! Isn’t it?

What is here spoken about is not the body but the embodied. Till we realize the fact that we are not this body but sheer Atman which is actionless and suffers no action, we are mutable, changeable, destructible, since what we take us for is just this body. Body is not the same as the embodied. The embodied treat this body just as a shirt. When the shirt becomes old and tattered, the Atman or Soul leaves this body and takes a new body to work out the further karmic accumulation! When all the karma comes to an end, we become pure soul or self and there is no action in it. It is not negative as that of a copse that lies without action. Even in a corpse there can be putrefied action. The Atman is actionless not because it is not able to act, or does not want to act, but IT IS SUPREMELY FREE FROM ACTION! We cannot remain inactive in our bodily life even for a moment.  Even when we sit idely, there is much action wrought out in our mind. Mind is the womb where all actions are born. Our imagination and thought is activated self. That is why, the practitioners of meditation, without trying to free themselves immediately free from all actions, indulge in ONLY ONE ACTION. And that is a continuous flow of thinking and concentration of God or one of His Attributes. That action is meddled with by our mind.  Thousands of thinking arise when we sit to meditate. We are advised not to fight them. We are to witness them without being an entertaining party. Thoughts will arise. But we should not give up our concentration on the object or attribute of concentration. Slowly, stage by stay, the rising of the thousands of thoughts will decrease and at one point of time we will be with only one action, that is concentration studiously on one chosen object or attribute. And at one level that attribute, for example light or truth will fill our whole being. And that is one type of consciousness of Samadhi. But before the state of super-consciousness  or the state of MAHA SAMADHI or NIRVANA we will have to attain several more arduous level of consciousness. So actionlessness is not tantamount to idleness or slothfulness. It is a supreme freedom from action. Where no action takes place, that mind is free of all actions done by the body in which it is lying. This is the state of consciousness Sri Krishna wants Arjuna to attain. When such a state of consciousness is attained, there would be no ego sense. When there is no thinking about the doer, there would be nil-action, even when the body goes through the stipulated actions with no expectations of fruits thereof. This is the state that Sri Krishna wants all of us to attain. When we attain this level, even killing will not affect our soul. Because of our total identification of the soul, we forget our body, and just go through the motion, knowing full well that it is the body that goes through the action being an instrument of God. Then, every action would become the action of Ishwara. And no such action will bind us, including the slaying of the enemies in the war!