THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 6, DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION, VERSE NUMBER 04

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER 6

DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:

VERSE NUMBER 04

Text in Transliteration:

yada hi ne ‘ndriyaartheshu na karmasv anusajjate

sarvasamkalpasamnyaasee yogaaroodhas tado ‘cyate

Text in English:

Then alone is one said to have attained to yoga, when, having renounced all Sankalpas, one does not get attached to sense-objects and actions.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Yogaaroodha is one who has attained the acme of yoga. Human perfection reaches its zenith in him. deep dhyana or the meditation of the yogi develops external world which is the projection of the mind, is no more for him. there is no mentation in him to manipulate the senses. As in sound sleep, so in this self-sufficiency and beatitude of Samadhi the obligatory duties even get suspended. Freed from sankalpa, his mind is calm like an ocean without waves. In this plenitude of bliss the thoughts of this world and of any others likely to come, are all blotted out. The Eternal Presence alone is.

MANU AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Desires and doings are all born of sankalpa.

Mahabharata, Santi Parva 177-25 as quoted by Swami Sidbhavananda:

O desire, I know wherefrom you take your origin. You are born of sankalpa. I shall refuse to make sankalpa of you. Annihilation then, is your lot.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The brilliant presence of Iswara cannot be perceived in that mental firmament which is disturbed by the gale of desires.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Sarvasamkalpasanyasi; one who has renounced all purposes. We must give up our likes and dislikes, forget ourselves, leave ourselves out. By the abandonment of all purposes, by the mortification of the ego, by the total surrender to the will of the Supreme, the aspirant develops a condition of mind approximating to the Eternal. He partakes in some measures the undifferentiated timeless consciousness of that which he desires to apprehend.

The freed soul works without desire and attachment, without the egoistic will of which desires are born. Manu says that all desires are born of samkalpa or thought. Maha Bharata says: “O desire, I know thy rot. Thou art born of samkalpa or thought. I shall not think of thee and thou shalt cease to exist.”

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Yogarudha: “he who is enthroned or established in Yoga”. When a Yogi, by keeping the mind quite steady, by withdrawing it from the objects of the senses, has attachment neither for sensual objects such as sound, nor for the actions (Karmas, cf. Notes to V.13), knowing that they are of no use to him; when he has renounced all thoughts which generate various sorts of desires for the objects of this world and of the next, then he is said to have become a Yogarudha.

Do not think of sense-objects. The desires will die by themselves. How can you free yourself from thinking of the objects? Think of God or the Self. Then you can avoid thinking of the obhects. Then you can free yourself from thinking of the objects of the senses.

Renunciation of thoughts implies that all desires and all actions should be renounced, because all desires are born of thoughts. You think first and then act (strive) afterwards to possess the objects of your desire for enjoyment.

“Whatever a man desires, that he wills;

And whatever he wills, that he does.”

             Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, 4.4.5

Renunciation of all actions necessarily follows from the renunciation of all desires.

“O desire! I know where thy root lies. Thou art born of Sankalpa (thought). I will not think of thee and thou shalt cease to exist along with the root.”

                                                               Mahabharata, Santi Parva, 177.25

“Indeed desire is born ofthought (Sankalpa), and of thought, Yajnas are born.”                             

                                                                Manu Smriti, 11.2

Comments by the blogger:

This verse spells out the attributes of a Yogi: he is not attached to the sense-objects or to actions. He has renounced all thought. Renouncement of all thought amounts to the renunciation of the whole sense world!

Aristotle said, “I think, therefore I am.” Only thinking makes the worldly man or yokes him to the sense world. When we withdraw completely from the sense world, we become free of the prakrity or enslaving nature. Then no amount of sensual pulls exerted by Her could have any influence on us. And we become perfected yogis.

Now, not everyone could become a yogi of this type all of a sudden. Thousands of rebirths must precede such an elevated state which makes us understand we are coextensive with the Maker.

So what do we do?

This chapter or discourse is endowed to dhyana yoga or the yoga of meditation.

But the average ordinary men and women like me can take seriously to karma yoga and move toward the Maker by gradation, birth after birth. The trick is to come back to the plane of this earth repeatedly as human beings only. This will ensure our shedding of craving for sensual pleasures gradually. And at one stage we would become ready to turn into a yogi.

Here, in this chapter, the word yoga relates to meditation.