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 08

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 08:

Text in Transliteration:

paritraanaaya saadhoonaam vinashaya cha dhuskrtaam

dharma samthapanaarthaaya sambhavaami yuge-yuge

Text in English

For the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of dharma I am born age after age.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Purgation is an unfailing process of Nature. The cleansing takes place at all levels in various ways. In the agricultural field it goes on as weeding and manuring. When the wicked become more in number in the world dharma would not thrive in their midst. War, pestilence, famine and such like forces inevitably come in both to strike a balance of the population and to set aright the perverts.

Among the three Gunas the predominance of Rajas and Tamas aggravates adharma which threatens to topple down the social fabric. The function of the incarnation is to induce Sattva, the chief and fore-most of the three Gunas into society. And along with it dharma begins to thrive. A balance of power among the three Gunas is necessary for social order to work on right lines.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

A viceroy is deputed by the monarch to quell lawlessness and disorder in a distant domination. Similarly an Incarnation is the man of authority sent by Iswara into society. He comes to put in order all lapses and deviations in the practice of dharma.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

It is the function of God as Vishnu, the protector of the world, to keep the world going on lines of righteousness. He assumes birth to re-establish right when wrong prevails.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Dushkritam: Evil-doers who lead a life of unrighteousness, who break the laws of society, who are vain and are dishonest and greedy, who injure others, who take possession of the property of others by force, and who commit atrocious crimes of various sorts.

Comments of the blogger:

Purgation is an unfailing process of Nature, according to Swami Sidbhavananda; he says that the cleansing takes place at all levels in various ways. He further says that war, pestilence, famine and such like forces inevitably come in both to strike a balance of the population and to set aright the perverts.  

War, pestilence, famine and such like forces are different from the Lord’s advent to protect the good, to destruct the wicked and to establish dharma, in the sense the effect of both are not always the same. One thing that takes place is that in both occurrences the world’s population gets reduced.

But when the Lord’s advent takes place it is solely for the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of dharma. In the process, the population of the world gets reduced.

But pestilence like the dreaded decease AIDS knows no way of protecting the good and destructing the evil and establishing dharma in the world. Ok, people became more cautious after the initial shock and condoms were sold like hot cake. Man’s degradation was such no one advised everyone should be morally correct and should not have premarital or extramarital sex. On the other hand, it was and is still advised men and women should conduct him/her selves more discretely.

AIDS knew no difference between the good and the bad. It need not necessarily transferred by the coitus activities alone. There were too many ways for contracting AIDS. Thus housewives who were morally correct contracted the decease when their amoral husbands who had had sex with AIDS affected women made love to them. And in case of good or bad pregnant women, the child in the womb, the quintessence of innocence, contracted prenatally the dreaded disease. Thus pestilences do not have any discrimination. Both good and bad, extraordinarily good and bad come to be affected by them.

What about the two world wars? Children, women and adolescents died wholesale.

Bengal famine in India during the British rule sent up lacks of souls to the nether world. children, women and adolescents were included in it. Mr. Winston Churchil, the legendary British Prime Minister at the time is said to have made a marginal note on the papers sent to his notice that the transfer of rice and other food items to the British soldiers at the war front, that “Let their Ghandhi, the Mahatma, protect them! Nearly five lakh men and women and children died because of one man’s class callousness!

But Lord Vishnu, the protector of souls, whenever makes his advent here had a mission in the protection of the good, for the destruction of the wicked and for the establishment of dharma. There is a quintessential difference between his advent and the visitation of wars, pestilence and famine.

There is a promise in this stanza for the conscience of the good and moral people. For everywhere we turn our head we see nothing but bad and anarchy. But in reality, it is not so. We as part of the human race still have hope for the Nature to set things herself. And even in this Kali Yuga there are a good number of people who are good. So the Lord’s advent would not happen for quite some time.