THE HOLY GITA , CHAPTER 5, SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION, VERSE NUMBER 22

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER 5

SANYASA YOGA OR THE RENUNCIATION

VERSE NUMBER 22

Text in Transliteration:

Ye hi samsparsajaa bhogaa duhkayonaya eva te

Aady anta vantah kaunteya na teshu ramate budhah

Text in English:

The delights that are contact-born are verily the wombs of pain; they have, O son of Kunti, a beginning and an end; no wise man rejoices in them.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Misery to which man is so much prone is ever the outcome of the search for sense-pleasure. When the senses create contact with their objects, the initial agreeableness presents itself as pleasure. The prolongation of the contact as well as the separation of the senses from their objects transforms itself into misery. Like a flash of lightning the sensation called pleasure appears and disappears, and man pays dearly for it in the form of pang. The discerning one refrains oneself from the empty game, while the sense-bound one hunts after it.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

If people ever sighted a venomous cobra, they used to supplicate, “O deity of deadliness, may you hide away your head from our sight and present the powerless tail alone to our view.” It is good to recoil in this manner from sense-objects that drag down the mind. Instead of falling prey to them and then praying for redemption, it is better ever to keep aloof from them.

COMMENTARY BY SIVANANDA:

Which: the gain or the realisation of the Self or the immortal soul.

Wherein; in the all-blissful Self which is free from delusion and sorrow. The self is all-blissful Self which is free from delusion and sorrow. The Self is all-full and self-contained. All the desires are fulfilled when one attains Self-realisation. That is the reason way the Lord says: “There is no other acquisition superior to Self-realisation.” If one gets himself established in the supreme Self within, he cannot be shaken even by heavy sorrow and pain, because he is mindless and he is identify himself with the sorrowless and painless Brahman. One can experience pain and sorrow when he identifies himself with the body and the mind. If there is no mind there cannot be any pain. When one is under chloroform he feels no pain even when his hand is amputated, because the mind is withdrawn from the body.

Comments by the blogger:

Though the Hinduism believes strongly in reincarnations of the soul for umpteenth number of times before salvation, it does not approve of a life after the good things of life. Sri Paramahansa Yogananda in his autobiography says that the Christianity too believed in reincarnation in the beginning. But when seeing people becoming  overly worldly, a conference was held several centuries ago and decided by the Pope and other that Man has but one birth only. That this had been done with the good intention of turning the worldly people toward God, but this had an opposite effect in the old world with the people thinking if there was but one chance only one should enjoy all the worldly things at one attempt!

Hinduism stoutly proclaims in hundreds of birth a soul have to take before salvation. But at the same time gross worldliness is strongly frowned upon. The trick is to restrict the number of births and deaths and minging with God. For that it declares that the delights that are contact-born are verily the wombs of pain and they have a beginning and an end. That no wise man rejoices in them.

The Lord addresses his disciple as, “O son of Kunti”. There is loaded meaning in this. A Hindu has a partiality for a son to carry out his funeral rights after his death. And those who do not have a son are permitted to adopt one under the Old Hindu Law especially for this purpose. Even that kind of action, getting a son which fills the parents’ heart with joy is nothing but a source or womb of pain!

So what do we do? Commit hara-kiri?

The Taiteeria Upanishad advises us to live our life fully. But selfishness is not a full life. When India was accorded independence, Gandhi Mahatma was elsewhere to put a fullstop to the fratricide between Hindu and Muslim brethren! The Mahatma was a true karma yogi. But his life was full of non-stop action. Only he lived for others. Albert Einstein declared at the death of the Mahatma that the  succeeding generation would find it hard that a man like the Mahatma walked this earth in flesh and blood. Mother Teresa is the most recent example.

But of course, you and I can’t rise to their level. But we can love our neighbours in particular and the humanity in general. No one wants us to become a saint. But we need not pig it up either. Jesus Christ said there shall be moderation in everything. That kind of life we can easily adopt. We can read our Scriptures daily. Like the Lord of Gita says we may (at least try to) see the Lord alone in all, Man and the beast. Certainly this is not a tall order. And telling and chanting the Name of the Lord is a short cut in kali yuga for redemption. Kajendhira Moksham is all about the same.