THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 5, SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION, VERSE NUMBER 17

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER 5

SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION:

VERSE NUMBER 17

Text in Transliteration:

tadbuddhayas tadaatmaanas tannishthaas tatparaayanaah

gacchanty apunaraavrttim jnaananirdhootakalmashah 

Text in English:

Those who think on That, merge in That, get fixed i n That, have That as the goal, they attain to non-return, their taints being dispelled by knowledge.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The sun can never see darkness wherever it may go. It is ever in brilliance. The knower of Brahman has nothing but Brahman to cognize. Distinctions such as inside and outside do not exist for him. one undivided, interminable consciousness is for him. The man of this experience does not take birth again; he attains mukti.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

 Brahman is experienced vaguely through discrimination, somewhat vividly through meditation and in Its Original Splendour in Samadhi.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The false ego determined by works disappears and the jeeva realizes its identity with the Supreme Self and works from that centre.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

They fix their intellects on Brahman or the Supreme Self. They feel and realise that Brahman is their self. By constant and protracted meditation, they get established in BrahmanThe whole world of names and forms vanishes for them. They live in Brahman alone. They have Brahman alone as their supreme goal or sole refuge. They have Brahman alone as their supreme goal or sole refuge. They rejoice in the Self alone. They are satisfied in the self alone. They are contented in the Self alone. Such men never come back to this Samsara, as their sins are dispelled by knowledge (Brahma-Jnana). (Cf. IX.34)

Comments of the blogger:

Here there is much for Sri Shankara’s Adhvaidham. The beings, after getting the knowledge of Brahman become Brahman. But we should not think that this is the religion of the Holy Gita. There is much for others belonging to Dhvaidham of Sri Ramanucharya and Vishistadhvaidham of Sri Madhva. Bhagavat Gita is a holistic book. The Lord openly says and claims that people belonging to various faiths and rituals come to Him only. And, what’s more, He declares that people from all sides come to Him. The only deviation from this cosmopolitan view and attitude is when the Lord claims that those who worship their Pitrus (the deceased forefathers) go to the Pitru Loka or consciousness and those who worship Him come to Him. And at yet another context the Lord of Gita proclaims that even those who offer worship to various Devas and Devdas come to Him only, as their worship is born of ignorance!

When knowledge is attained about Brahman (the Upanishadic God) all the effect of the past karma becomes extinct. But that portion of the Prarabdha would linger without effect. And it will affect only the bodies of the Knowledgeable and never their inner person. This was how Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Ramanamagarishi had cancerous warts on their hands before throwing off their mortal bodies.