THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER 4
JNANA KARMA SANYASA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF RENUNCIATION OF ACTION IN KNOWLEDGE OR THE WAY OF KNOWLEDGE:
VERSE NUMBER 09
Text in Transliteration:
janma karma cha me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah
tyaktvaa deham punar janma nai ‘ti maam ‘rjuna
Text in English:
He who thus know My divine birth and action in true light, having dropped the body, comes not to birth again, but comes unto Me, O Arjuna.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The unborn Iswara puts on the appearance of birth and growth by His divine power. Similarly the actionless Entitiy stages holy activities for the good of the world. those spiritual men who intuit these facts about the Lord are able to live unaffected by the world even as the incarnation does. Ultimately, while yet in the human frames and after casting them off, those blessed ones get themselves merged in the Absolute. Pondering over the play of the Divine as the human, is a sure means to get at his great goal.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Treat not the personalities such as Rama, Sita, Krishna once in body and flesh as you are now. But because of their spiritual perfection they seem ore fictitious than factual. Iswara and His Incarnations are one and the same even as the ocean and the waves are.
A visitor to a place can see only some portions of it. But the prince apparent can have free access to all parts of the palace. Likewise Incarnations of God easily get into the various states of spiritual consciousness.
It is rather difficult to comprehend the Infinite sporting in the finite human form.
During the advent of Sri Rama it was given to seven Rishis only to understand His divine descent. This way all Incarnations are understood by only a few during their life time.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Krshna as an avatar or descent of the Divine into the human world discloses the condition of being to which the human souls should rise. The birth of the birthless means the revelation of mystery in the soul of man.
The avataara fulfils a number of functions in the cosmic process. The conception makes out that there is no opposition between spiritual life and life in the world. if the world is imperfect and ruled by the flesh and the devil, it is our duty to redeem it for the spirit. The avataara points out the way by which men can rise from their animal to a spiritual mode of existence by providing us with an example of spiritual life. The Divine nature is not seen in the incarnation in its naked splendour but is mediated by the instrumentality of manhood. The Divine greatness is conveyed to us in and through these great individuals. Their lives dramatize for us the essential constituents of human life ascending to the fulfilment of its destiny. The Bhaagavata says, “The omnipresent Lord appears in the world, not only for destroying the demoniac forces but also for teaching mortals. How else could the Lord who is blissful in Himself experience anxieties about Sita, etc.” He knows hunger and thirst, sorrow and suffering, solitude and forsakenness. He overcomes them all and asks us to take courage from His example. He not only teaches us the true doctrine by which we can die to our separate temporal selfness and come to union with Timeless Spirit but He offers Himself to be a channel of grace. By inviting souls to trust and love Him, He promises to lead them to the knowledge of the Absolute. The historical fact is the illustration of a process ever unfolding in the heart of man. The avataara helps us to become what we potentially are. In Hindu and Buddhist systems of thought, there is no servitude to one historic fact. We can all rise to the divine status and the avataras help us to achieve this inner realization. Cp. Gautama the Buddha: “Then the Blessed One spoke and said, ‘Know Vasettha, that from time to time a Tathaagata is born into the world, a fully enlightened one, blessed and worthy, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy with the knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to erring mortals, a teacher of gods and men, a Blessed Buddha. He proclaims the truth both in its letter and in its spirit, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation. A higher life doth he make known in all its purity and in all its perfectness.’” According to Mahayaanaa Buddhism there have been many previous Huddhas and Gautama would have a successor in Mettreya (Maitreya). Gaytama himself passed through many births and acquired the qualitites which enabled him to discover the Truth. It is possible to for others to do the same. We hear of disciples taking the vow to attain the enlightenment of a Buddha. These systems do not believe in any exclusive revelation at one unique instant of time.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The Lord, though apparently born, is always beyond birth and death; though apparently active for firmly establishing righteousness, He is ever beyond all actions. He who knows this is never born againd. He attains knowledge of the Self and becomes liberated while living. The birth of the lord is an illusion. It is Apradrita (beyond the pale of the Nature). It is divine. It is peculiar to the Lord. Though He appears in human form, His body is chinmaya (full of consciousness, not inert matter as are human bodies composed of the five elements).
Comments by the blogger:
During the Divine incarnation, the Lord comes into the earthly plane and indulges in actions. The Lord in His Turiya state is totally free of action like our Atman. Because, there is no illusion and desire to attain for the Lord. There is nothing He has to attain. There is no necessity for Him to act. In His quintessential state God requires nothing. His essential state is sat-chit-ananda. He is ever in His ecstatic state. But when He comes into the earth’s plane He is full of action. Swami Sidbhavananda says that in the Epic Mahabharata the totality of actions of all the characters were to be put on one side of the scale and that of the Lord Krishna’s on the other, that one will go down! Because Lord Krishna is full of action. Even at the war, He is the driver of the Car or the Charioteer! He does not see that job disproportionate to His state and status!
Knowing the Divine birth of the Lord is not restricted to the people who happen to live at the time. Indeed, many of the Jews did not know the Divine birth of Jesus Christ and argued before the Roman officer to put him to death by hung on the Cross. Even during the Lord of the Gita’s birth, there were important people like the blind king and his son Dhuriyodana who were not fully aware of the fact. When it came to select between the unarmed Lord Krishna and His whole Army when Arjuna selected the son of Vasudeva, Lord Krishna, the foolish Dhuriyodana rejoiced within that Arjuna did not ask for His army and chose Krishna’s mighty Army
The Divine birth of Sri Rama is said to have been revealed only to a handful of sages and saints!
What I am driving at is that while there were persons who were foolish enough not to have understood the divine nature of the Lord, after the time of the Lord’s life on the earth was over both in the cases of Lord Rama and Lord Krishna truly devout men and women countless have been able to attain Moksha or Salvation simply by putting faith unassailable in the births of the Lord as Rama and Krishna by studying the Epic Ramayana and the Holy Gita respectively and observing the yoga of devotion.
Thus it stands to spiritual reason that while there were unfortunate people in the Lord’s time of incarnation and saw Him just as the son of Dhasarata and Vasudeva respectively, we can now attain the Moksha or Salvation and go to the Lord as it is said in this stanza by simply putting our unflinching faith in the truth of the Lord’s incarnations and live according to the Lord’s teaching.
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