THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 06, DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION, VERSE NUMBER 40

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 06

DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:

VERSE NUMBER 40

Text in Transliteration:

                                sri bhagavaan uvaacha

paartha nai ‘ve ‘ha naa ‘ mutra vinaasas tasya vidyate

na hi kalyaanakrt kaschid durgatim taata gacchati

Text in English:

                               The blessed Lord said

O Partha, neither in this world nor in the next is there destruction for him; for, the doer of good, O my son, never comes to grief.                 

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The word taata means father. It is father who has become the son. Therefore a junior or a son is addressed as taata indicating affection. The disciple is to the guru what the son is to the father. Therefore it is customary for the guru to address the disciple as son or as taata. The Lord addressing Arjuna this way is a mark of the flow of grace.

It is open to people to inquire whether this world is intrinsically good or bad. God it is that is revealing Himself as the phenomenon. The world therefore cannot be anything but good. Viewing it as filled with evil is a misnomer. One of the profoundest pronouncements of the Lord is “THE DOER OF GOOD, NEVER COMES TO GRIEF.” And the devotees of the lord are ever the standing testimony to this fact. A practitioner who slips from yoga never falls to a state inferior to what he has already attained.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

A man gets his desert in tune with his mental make up. The Lord is the Kalpataru the fabled desire-fulfilling tree to the devotees.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

No man of honest life can come to grief. No good man can come to an evil end. God knows our weaknesses and the efforts we make to overcome them. We must not despair for even failure here is success and no sincere attempt will go without its reward. Eckhart says: “If thou do not fail in intention, but only in capacity, verily, thou hast done all in the sight of God.” Cp. Goethe “Whoever strives and labours, him may we bring redemption.”

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

He who has not succeeded in attaining to perfection in Yoga in this birth will not be destroyed in this world or in the next world. Surely he will not take a birth lower than the present one. What will he attain, then? This is described by the Lord in verses 41, 42, 43 and 44.

Tata: son. A disciple is regarded as a son.

Comments by the blogger:

Sri Krishna calls Arjuna as Parth in this verse. Partha means, O son of Pritha, Kunti. Son of Kunti means ordinary average son born of the womb of a woman. Arjuna’s question related to the possibility that a practitioner of Yoga or Meditation finding it difficult to concentrate dies, would he not have lost this world as well as the other world. But Sri Krishna says there is no destruction for such a practitioner neither in this world nor in the next world. Before this, while describing the efficacy of the Karma Yoga or the Yoga of right Action, the Lord said even a little practice of that yoga or action saves the practitioner from great fear. Here He says and reassures that the practitioner of Meditation if died in the middle of it, would not stand to lose neither this world nor the next world.

Then He calls Arjuna as His Son and says that the door of good never comes to grief. Giving alms to a beggar is an act of good. Teaching a poor student without tuition fee is an act of good. Like this even we can do many such acts of good. But the ultimate act of good is the practice and performance of Meditation. Such doer of Good never comes to grief.