HOLY
GITA
CHAPTER TWO
SAMKHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE
VERSE NUMBER 9:
Text in Transliteration:
Samjaya uvaacha:
evam uktvaa
nrsheekesam gudaakesah paramtapah
na yotsya iti govindam uktvaa tooshneem babhoova ha
Text in English:
Sanjaya said:
After addressing the Lord of the senses thus, Gudakesa, the
terror to the foes, submitted to Govinda, “I shall not fight,” and held
silence.
According to Ramanujar, Arjuna was in a circumstance where
the unwarranted compassion had come to him, when he thought giving the battle,
though it is his chatriya dharma or warrior-duty, as adharma or unrighteous,
and he also was in a situation that he surrendered his all in front of Sri
Krishna and begged him to give him advice at this critical juncture. Sri
Krishna thought in his heart that Arjuna needs wisdom about the atman or soul.
He further thought Arjuna will attain the wisdom about the soul “aatmagnana” by
indulging in this war without any expectation of the result or its fruits. Then
only Arjuna’s despondency will leave him. Sri Ramanujar also quotes from
“Alavandhar Geethaartha Sankraham” in which the later says that Arjuna thought
the dharma as adharma or the righteousness as unrightousness because of his
affinity with, and compassion for, those with whom he should not identify
himself, and Sri Krishna gave this precept or sastra (the Gita) to Arjuna who
had surrendered before Him.
The above passage has been taken from Sri Ramanuja’s
commentary to Bhagavat Gita. Neither Shankara or Madhva has given any
commentary for this verse. Their commentary starts only from verse number 10,
and we shall look into them from tomorrow.
According to Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, “na yotsye” means, “I
will not fight.” Arjuna, without waiting for the advice of the teacher, seems
to have made up his mind. While he asks the teacher to advise him, his mind is
not open. The task of the teacher becomes more difficult.
According to Swamy Chidbhavananda of Thiruparaithurai, the
descriptive names which the sagacious Sanjaya chooses to use here are all
pregnant with meaning. Arjuna is fittingly called Gudakesa—the conqueror of
sleep. In addition to the self-mastery of this type, he is always a terror to
the foes: he is the subdue of baseness within and without. A man of this
calibre is not likely to beat a retreat. The charioteer to this distinguished
hero is none other than Hrishikesa—the Lord of the senses and the mind. He is
moreover Govinda—the knower of the destiny of beings. The knowing one never
goes wrong in handling things and events. Against this background, chances are
very remote, of the war being called off, as is fondly hoped by dhrtarashtra.
Sanjaya throws a hint to this effect.
“na yotsye” – “I will not fight” becomes “I will not go to
school today. I want to play instead” in the case of a child. “I will not
fight” becomes “I will not care for my mother and father in their old age while
there are other brothers who are as well off as I am!” in the case of a
henpecked husband. “I will not fight” becomes “I will not care for my in-laws”
in the case of a wife. “I will not fight” becomes “I will not sign the file unless
you pay the amount of bribe as demanded by me!” in the case of a well paid
Government officer. But the men who sanctioned the liquor baron Mallaya rupees
nine thousand crores did not say “I will not fight” against the pulls of
illusion. That simply because the fellow promises me several paltry crores, I
will not barter away my soul! He faught against the charioteer inside him and
sold his soul to the Satan and squandered the public money to a habitual
defaulter! We, every one of us say, at one time or the other, “I will not
fight” in the face of a smiling charioteer inside us. We become the victim of
the senses and the promised sensual pleasures. We neve say “I will fight
against my senses and God’s illusion!” We never say “I will fight and find God
and realize my soul through a proper way of carrying out my allotted duty. What
we do for an honest living does not matter.
There is a story about this: a muni or hermit is seated
under a tree and a crane perched atop the tree on a branch lay its droppings on
the head of the hermit. Now the hermit is not an ordinary one. He has meditated
for long years and practised austerity and thus has gained high spiritual
merits and power. So, he looks up at the crane with anger in his eyes, and the
crane is reduced to ash. That is the kind of spiritual merits of the hermit.
And then he goes into the nearby village and begs at the door of a householder
for food, and the woman takes her time in coming out of the house with
alms(food) and the angry hermit looks at her in much the same way as he had the
crane, and the chaste woman smiles before asking the hermit,”Did you take me
for the crane, O wandering monk?” The hermit is much taken aback at this
spiritual power of an ordinary householder who has no time for high and intense
“tapas” or meditation! He humbly asked of the woman as to how she got to know
what had happened to the crane in the woods. She smiled further and said that
such of the spiritual merits I might have got came from my dutiful service to
my husband. While you were waiting in front of my house, I was serving food for
my husband! At this, the chastened yogi or hermit asked her to inform him as to
the art of “atmatatva” or the philosophy of knowing the Atman or the
realization of the soul. She told the hermit that she was not fit for that, but
directed him to a sould-realized person in the neighbourhood. And when the
hermit went to him, it turned out that he was a butcher by profession. This
surprised the hermit even more. On being questioned by him, the butcher said,
“Though by profession I am a butcher, I know the art of carrying out my
self-ordained duty without any expectation of the fruits thereof!
We have to fight a daily battle. Our body is the chariot.
The senses are the five steeds. The mind and discrimination is the reign. And
the soul is the charioteer inside us. We have to wage our individual fight
without any expectation of the fruits thereof. Then there would be no stain
attached to whatever we do or whatever be our rightful profession! This way,
lawyers, doctors, engineers, Government Officers have a greater and much larger
field to fight the personal war at the kurutchetra, which is our daily life in
this world of samsaara that have the trinity of ingredients: illusion or maya,
desire or kama and action or karma. The illusion bound us to the world by
making and driving us to do things that should not be done or to do a thing in
the way not ordained by our individual duty. Every person has his/her duty cut
out, and how great or low we are does not matter before the Lord, but how and
in what manner we carried our ordained duty matters much! We progress in our
spiritual life to the extent we do our duty without expectation of the fruits
thereof to the fullest and utmost power of ours!
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