THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER TWO
KARMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF ACTION OR THE METHOD OF YOGA
VERSE NUMBER 16
Text in Translitration:
evam pravartitam chakram naa ‘nuvartayati ‘ha yah
aghaayur indriyaaraamo mogham paartha sa jtvati
Text in English:
He who does not follow on earth the wheel thus revolving,
sinful of life and rejoicing in the senses, he, O Partha, lives in vain.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANADA:
Factories are set up for curing, treating and processing the various things. The wheel of Nature is
likewise set up by the Lord for nursing, training, disciplining and elevating
all beings at varying levels of existence. A pupil who declines to be educated
does not derive the benefit of his being school. A visit to a town is as bad as
no visit if the visitor fails to see or do anything there. Having come into
this world if man does not do what is expected of him, his advent amounts to
nothing. As a drone he drags on a wretched existence. He is no asset but a
burden and dead weight to society. Instead of fulfilling , he frustrates the
divine plan and plan and purpose of Nature. Man ought to be a fulfilment and
not a failure in life.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHKRISHNAN:
In these verses the Vedic conception of sacrifice as an interchange
between gods and men is set in the larger context of the interdependence of
beings in the cosmos. The deeds done in the sacrificial spirit are pleasing to
God. God is the enjoyer of all sacrifices. Yajno vai visnuh. Sacrifice is the
Supreme. It is also the law of life. The individual and the cosmos depend on
each other. There is a constant interchange between human life and world life. He
who works for himself lives in vain. The world is in progress because of this
co-operation between the human and the divine. Only the sacrifice is not to the
deities but to the Supreme of whom the deities are varied forms. In IV , 24, it
is said that the act and the materials of the sacrifice, the giver and the receiver,
the goal and the object of the sacrifice are all Brahman.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
This is the wheel of action set in motion by the Creator on
the basis of the Veda and sacrifice. He who does not follow the wheel by
studying the Vedas and performing the sacrifices the sacrifices prescribed therin
but who indulges only in sensual pleasures lives in vain. He is wasting his
life. He is leading a worthless life indeed. One who does not live in
accordance with this law and who is selfish commits sin. He violates the law of
the Creator and that is the worst sin.
Comments by the blogger:
In the previous verses, namely 14 and 15 the nature of the
wheel is described. Beings depend on food which is brought forth by rain which
in turn is the result of sacrifice and sacrifice issues forth from action,
which action comes from Brahma and he comes from the imperishable, and
therefore, logically the Brahma’s source is sacrifice. To understand the
Brahmic wheel, we can change the version thus: from sacrifice Brahma comes
forth, and sacrifice is an action that comes forth from the Imperishable and
sacrifice is but an action and rain occurs because of sacrifice and food come
from rain and beings are sustained by food!
Thus for beings Brahmic sacrifice is the warp and woof of existence.
Here interdependence is the highlight, and interdependence
is properly highlighted also. And this is the wheel of nature. Verse 16 is the
logical corollary. Sri Krishna restates the two previous verses and put
everything in context only. Nothing new is stated in the verse 16. It is a
restatement.
Man and beast and the cosmos inhere in a set up whose basic
notion is interdependence. Nature does not wish to overpower Man. Beast know
this by instinct. But Man has always tried to overpower the Nature besides
playing a foul game. “The deserted village” is a poem by Oliver Goldsmith. The poem
is a rendering of the stark reality and the foul play Man has played on the
Nature. Sylvan villages and fertail acreage are deserted and people go to the
newly formed cities and become coolies. They lack the basic amenities. Laks of
people live in shacks and under inhuman conditions under the name of industrial
revolution. Charles Dickens also has painted this picture.
Man is a mule. He has never been able to rationalize properly.
There are exceptions, of course. The Rig-Vedic sages and Upanishadic sages. In every
quarter of the world such noble souls have risen to proclaim the nature of the
wheel described in verse number 16, whose conditionality is one of
interdependence. Nature has never forsaken Man and the beast. The beast, by
instinct, can’t betray Nature. But Man has always been betraying Nature.
Before the invasion of Irak, George Bush the Junior and the
then PM of England, John Major are said to have gone down on their respective
knees and pray for guidance. Did they here the voice of God! No. They heard
what they already planed to do. See the result of the invasion! And the world
is praying for the finishing of the ISI before the goons finish off the world! What
was the terms of the prayer before the invasion of Irak? Did the noble souls
pray like George Washinton or Mahatma Gandhi for guidance whenever a snag
cropped up? Here the two guys prayed to tell God that they were going to invade
an independent and sovereign Nation, Irak! Petrol money was the shameless
consideration. Now we have to pay with our blood for the two leaders’
unwarranted prayer. Man is a mule, I say, but for the minority like the
Vedopanishadic saints.
We neve know the limit of our ambition. Today crass
materialism is followed and advised and adverted and glorified. Three years old
marriage crumble and the fourth year see both or either of the two to the
contract move the court and the foundation of justice and want a divorce. Three
day virgins and mother whoring monsters can go around with impunity if she or
he had enough money and other assets.
Mane is a mule.
Wathc a sparrow. How limited is its wants! Our wants also
are very limited. But a minority of us want to own the world and the cosmos. The
tobacco barons are the cancer mongers. And their hefty donations are needed to
win the election. Man is a mule. Gun culture has gone over the limit twenty
five years ago. Now five years old children get access to guns. Teenagers go
into a nursery. Who are there. Simple daffodils with human legs and arms. And the
teenager let off with the gun and many of
the simple and unsullied flowers are done to death. But there is no way
to stop the gun barons. Electoral funds speak. They are as bad as our sand and
granite mafia. Man is a mule. Nature punishes repeatedly. But Man has gone so
far he can stop even if he realise his folly.
Man is a mule!
There is an interdependence between man and man and beast
and beast and man and beat and Nature. Still, India alone house three hundred
million people living under the notorious poverty line. This poverty line was
originally drawn by the invading Mohammadans and then later the British. But it
has been fosterd by Indira Gandhi and her dynasty. After more than 65 years of
independenc, India still fights its fight against one dynasty that refuses to
let go after repeatedly being shoe-beaten by the electorate. Indira Gandhi
herself never lead a majority government. She , like the damned Brish governors
divided the minority for votes from the majority Hindus saying but for her
dynasty the majority Hindus would swallow up the minorities. Thus she got major
portion of the minority peoples votes and the Hindu majority votes were not
garnered by the important opposition parties. Thus with the minotiy government
indira Gandhi repeatedly divided and ruled. And saw to it there wont be proper
education and the poverty line will linger as her vote banks. In a country of
one hundred and twenty five crore people, where just fifteen crorse people constitute
the minorities, the Hindus have to feel ashamed to call themselves as Hindus. The
basic tenets like death and re-incarnation is openly derided. And the
proliferation of the minorities go unhindered. The average Hindu feels shy in
the national forum to own up as such. And deriding the Hinduism by the Hindus
is taken as a great mark of mordernism and education and the resultant
civilisation. Mark my word, friends, a day of reckoning would come in a quarter
of a century’s time and the world would turn to the Hinduism for sustinence and
preservation!
The world and man is so interdependent, that if you think a thinking,
the whole cosmos feel the rippling effect instantaneously, whether it is a good
and noble thought of base one. Every action has its own reaction commensurate
to the positive force. Man can cure the world by positive thinking alone. That is
how the cosmos and the Man-animal-kind is interdependent.
The wheel set by Sri Baghavan Krishna must move, and each of
us should give shoulder to the wheel so that the proper momentum is sustained. Those
who fail to give shoulder to the further movement of the cosmic wheel are
sinners indeed.
In the meanwhile, yes brother and sister, Man is a mule!
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