THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 06, DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION, VERSE NUMBER 41

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 06

DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:

VERSE NUMBER 41

Text in Transition:

praapya punyakrtaam lokaan usitvaa saasvateeh samah

sucheenaam srimataam gehe yogabhrashto ‘bhijaayate

Text in English:

Having attained to the worlds of the righteous and having lived there for countless years, he who falls from yoga is reborn in the house of the pure and prosperous.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Bhoga—enjoyment and yoga are exclusive of each other. Where the one is, the other is not. He falls from yoga, who covets bhoga. Such a fallen yogi goes to heaven and enjoys celestial pleasures for a very long time. He then takes his birth again on earth in the house of the pure and prosperous, it being conducive to secular requirements and sacred pursuits. According to the law of karma, souls reincarnate in the environments befitting their attainments.

There is another type among those who fall from yoga. His destiny is described in verse 42

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

saasvateeh: very many; not everlasting.

Suchinaam: righteous. In VI, II, cleanliness refers to the outer side; here inward purity is indicated.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Yogabhrashta: one who has fallen from Yoga, i.e., one who was not able to attain perfection in yoga, or one who climbed a certain height on the ladder of Yoga but fell down on account of lack of dispassion or slackness in the practice (by becoming a victim to Maya or his turbulent senses).

The righteous: Those who tread the path of truth, who do virtuous actions such as charity, Yajna, rituals, worship of the Lord, and who act in accordance with the prescribed rules of the scriptures.

Everlasting year means only a considerably long period but not absolutely everlasting.

The pure: those who lead a pure, moral life: those who have a pure heart (free from jealousy, hatred, pride, greed, etc.). (Cf. IX. 20 ,21.)

Comments by the blogger:

This verse contains a PROMISE of the Great Lord: He utters an ineffable truth which also contains a promise.

Every action has an opposite equal reaction. Simply speaking, no action, even a vague thought or imagination fails to give rise to a reaction. If there is an action, then the reaction is automatic. We already saw how St Peter, on one of his sojourns, was followed and tormented by a group of urchins and how the docile pigs on the pasture became aggressive and chase and ate all the urchins and went down a cliff to sure death. This was because St. Peter did not even entertain a hateful thought against the tormenting urchins. So the urchins’ actions found reaction through the pigs.

What is good for the goose is good for the gander. The action and reaction rule seems to apply to the high heavens too. After death, the body alone perishes and join the five elements, but the mind goes up to the nether world along with the Atman. So, thus, there is a continuum.

The half-baked yogi who tried his best in meditation but somewhere along the line he falls from yoga as a weakling and he started to enjoy these worldly things through his five senses does not come to grief is part of Krishna’s PROMISE. Since the half-baked yogi wanted sensual pleasures he lives in the nether world for countless years. Here Sri Krishna speaks like an ordinary average human being. Instead of saying for a long time such a yogi who fell down in his practice would spend in the Heaven before coming back to earth’s plane first as a human being, and then, that rebirth would take place in the house of pure and prosperous. Not just prosperous but pure. And such a rebirth is hard to get at. Because ordinarily there is no guarantee that we all would come back here as human beings. But those who read the Scriptures with faith would come back as a human being to continue to reading the Scriptures from where we have left at death! This is the ineffable promise all the human beings are given by the Lord of Gita.