THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER THREE
KARMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF ACTION OR THE METHOD OF WORK
VERSE NUMBER 14
Text in Transliteration:
annaad bhavanti bhootaani parjanyaad annasmbhavah
yajnaad bhavati parjnah karmasamudbhavah
Text in English:
From food beings become; from rain is food produced; from
yajna rain proceeds; Yajna is born of karma.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Work performed with the right frame of mind gets converted
into Yagja (sacrifice). The effect of that work assumes a subtle force which in
the Vedic parlance is known as “apurva” (apoorva). This point can be clarified
through two concrete examples. The sun converts the sea water in the invisible vapour
which is equivalent to “apurva”. In its turn the vapour becomes rain. The rubbish
consigned to fire changes itself into the invisible carbon dioxide. It is “apurva”
in this state. It then forms food to the plants assimilated by their leaves. Similarly
man’s “yajna” changes into mental force which alone in reality is “apurva”. The
syllables chanted in “Yajna” do not themselves become mantras or mental forces.
It is the thought or the feeling that really constitutes the mental force—“mantra”.
The purer the man and his motive, the stronger is the mental force. It is the
intensity of the force of mind that becomes “apurva”. Influenced and regulated
by it the rainfall occurs to people on earth. The production of grains for food
depends on the availability of water caused by rain. That beings thrive on food
, is self-evident.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Here “Yajna” (sacrifice) means “Apurva” or the subtle
principle or the unseen form which a sacrifice assumes between the time of its performance
and the time when its fruits manifest themselves.
Karma: Action, Brahmodbhavam: arisen from the injunctions of
the Vedas.
VERSE NUMBER 15
Text in Transliteration:
karma brahmodbhavam viddhi
brahmaa
‘ksharasamudbhavam
tasmaat sarvagatam brahma
nityam yajne
pratishthitam
Text in English:
Know karma to have risen from the Veda, and the Veda from
the Imperishable. The all-pervading Veda is, therefore, ever centred in Yajna.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The phenomenon-jagat constituted of the three Gunas is known
as Brahma or as Veda. It is also constituted of time, space and causation. This
manifested universe expands into infinitude. It is therefore designated as
all-pervading. Having come out of Brahman the Supercosmic Intelligence, this
cosmos itself beams with intelligence . for this reason it is styled as Veda. This
phenomenon is again in a constant state
of flux. As such, karma and the somos are equated. When karma is
performed perfectly and with the best of motives it becomes “Yagna”. Eating for
example may be done as an act of glorifying the Divinty enshrined in one.
Living itself is turned into “Yajna” when directed to the service of the
Divine. An earthly government becomes ideal when all people are law abiding.on
a higher level still, when people take to the performance of “Yajna”, the
functioning of the universe itself become elevated and sublime. The universe is
therefore started to be ever centred in “Yajna”. It is possible for man to
convert the earth into heaven. And sacrifice is the sure means to it. The scheme
of Nature is verily centred on “Yajna”
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Action is rooted in the imperishable. But for the action of
the Supreme, the world will fall into ruin. The world is a great sacrifice. We read
in the Rig-Veda (X, 90) that the one Purusha was offered as a sacrifice and his
limbs were scattered to all the quartes of space. By this great sacrifice, the
world,s pattern is kept up. Action is a moral as well as a physical necessity
for embodied beings.
Brahma is also taken to
be prakti as in XIV, 3-4. Nature springs from the Divine and the entire
activity of the worl is traceable to it.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Brahma may mean “Veda”. Just as the breath comes out of a
man, so also the Veda is the breath of the imperishable or the omniscient . the
Veda ever rests in the sacrifice, i.e., it deals chiefly with sacrives and the
ways of their performance . (Cf. IV, 24to 32)
Comments by the blogger:
From food beings, all the flower and fauna come into existence,
for food rain is important. And the rain always proceeds from Yajna and karma
gives birth to Yajna. And Karma which begets Yajna comes into being from the
Veda, and the Veda comes into being from Braman, and thus Veda is , therefore,
ever centred in Yajna.
This universe itself is the Veda and all the actions done or
suffered by beings and nonbeing are that of Ishwara. Every action is that of
Ishwara. Ishwara’s actions are called “Yajna”. Dr. S.Radhkrishnan cites the
Rig-Veda which says this whole world is a sacrifice or Yagna. The Brahman’s
body and scattered limbs are the planets and living and non-living beings. Even
a rock is Brahman. All the flowers and fauna are Brahman indeed. The Hindus
have a habit: inside and outside the family and the market places, even if inadvertently
one’s foot comes in to contact of another human being’s body, they would touch
that person, even if he be a perfect stranger, with the hand and then touch
their forehead to the chanting of the Name of the Lord like Eeshwara, Siva. It is
not the equivalent of “sorry!” other religious people say by way of
apologizing; here, for a Hindu no question of apology, but they would treat the
body as God’s own limb and touch them reverently to the accompaniment of the
chanting of the Lord’s Name. This occurs even in the family of abjectly
ignorant and impoverished Hindu’s family.
This word, when seen as a beautiful thought, there is no
action for that “muni” or ascetic and he does not care about anything except
Ishwara inside him, in the “hrdyakuhya”—the cave in the chest, next to the
heart. But for all the persons for whom this world is real, then the world is
Brahman and all actions inhere in Him or takes place in Him. we are just the
media or agents of action or suffering action.
So Arjunan must act as an agent of the Lord and indulge in
His action. “By their conduct, they have already been done to death, Arjuna,
you just be an agent in my hands and just go through the motion and slay them,
your sworn enemies. And as far as the great people worthy of veneration like
the Acharya Drona and Bhishma they are past masters and the world’s illusion
would have no effect on them. Slay them too!”
From food beings arise and for food rain is necessary and
rain occurs as a result of Yajna and the Yajna itself is born of Karma.
British Indian History is notorious for Bengal famine. Famines
always occur where the people are indulging in unworthy or unbecoming action
which does not amount to Yajna. Famine was a punishment like the earthquake,
though there are scientific reasons for them like the tectonic shifts, even as
there are scientific reason for the seasons and the day and night!
India suffered and still suffers because of the crass material
pursuits by the later Brahmines who had become lackadaisical and used the karma
kanda of the Vedas to spread superstitions for their own somnolent benefit. They
set their eyes on a easy going life. Lord Buddha’s Avatar happened to chide
them and impart some discipline. But we, the inheritors of such supreme Vedic
culture, are still suffering because of the great Brahmines as a race washed
their hands off us. Everything was done by great and costly sacrifice. Tantras were
used for worldly purposes. Supertiotions and fears were sold to the nonplussed
people as well as the kings. Both the kings and ordinary people suffered under
the unbecoming inheritors of the Vedic Culture, and thus good actions and
Yajnas could not be done the nation over. So the Mohammedans came and did great
disservice to the Hindus, besides reqruiting Hindus under the sward to their
religion, and then British people came. With the result, the glorious India,
which was the super economic power of the period some five hundred years ago,
began suffering under Bengal Famine like famines and other furies of nature. Under
Modi’s regime there has come a chance to redeem India and the ancient Indian
Vedic culture, which did not know anything about castes. And the four varnas
were nebulous and had not become rigid. The Italian dynasty held sway even
after Independence for well over ten years. Before that Nehru Gandhi dynasty
ruled. At last the county breathes the real freedom. It is for Mr. Narandra
Modi to take the country to its economic and cultural super power stage it
occupied before a century when Gaudama, the Buddha was born!
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