THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 06, DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION, VERSE NUMBER 43

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 06

DHYANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF MEDITATION:

VERSE NUMBER 43

Text in Transliteration:

tatra tam buddhi samyogam labhate paurva dehikam

yatate cha tato bhooyah samsiddhau kuru nandana

Text in English:

There he regains the knowledge acquired in his former body, and he strives more than before for perfection, O joy of the Kurus.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The prospective yogi born in the house of the pure and prosperous begins his new life with the enjoyment of some harmless pleasures which he innocently harboured in his heart in the previous birth. Facilities for the fulfilment of those sinless desires are in abundance in the new setting. No sooner are the guiltless pleasures gone through than this aspirant takes to the practice of yoga. But that yogi who is born in the family of wise yogis has a better start. The favourable environment draws out the latent yoga elements in him. he feels as though he were going through the old lessons again. His inborn tendency ministered by the helpful surroundings, leads him on rapidly towards the ideal.

Swami Vivekananda and his guru Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa were perfect yogis born solely for the salvation of mankind. It is very striking to note that the former was born in the house of the pure and prosperous and the latter in a family of a wise yogi.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Progress on the path to perfection is slow and one may have to tread through many lives before reaching the end. But no effort is wasted. The relations we form and the powers we acquire do not perish at death. They will be the starting point of later developments.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

When he takes a human body again in this world his previous exertions and practice in the path of Yoga are not wasted. They bear full fruit now, and hasten his moral and spiritual evolution.

Our thoughts and actions are left in our subconscious minds in the form of subtle Samskaras or impressions. Our experiences in the shape of Samskaras, habits and tendencies are also stored up in our subconscious mind. These Samskaras of the past birth are revivified and re-energised in the next birth. The Samskaras of Yogic practices and meditation and the Yogic tendencies will compel the spiritual aspirant to strive with greater vigour than that with which he attempted in the former birth. He will endeavour more strenuously to get more spiritual experiences and to attain to higher planes of realisation than those acquired in his previous birth.

Comments by the blogger:

Here Arjuna is eulogised as the joy of the Kurus. Kurus is the clan Arjuna belonged to. Likewise, the Yogi who is born in a family of wise yogis will regain the knowledge acquired in his former body, and he will strive more than before and become a joy of that family.

That apart, the Lord Krishna reinstates in verses 40 to 45 what is necessarily the Law by which this Universe of His revolves.

Moreover, He himself has said in describing the Karma Yoga that there is nothing to fear in this yoga and even a little of this will save one from great fear.

The law of the Universe is that every action has the equal opposite reaction. In this verse, the Lord says the knowledge acquired in the yogi’s former body; how can body acquire knowledge? But the brain, for that matter, is nothing but part of the body. And the deeper consciousness we call the sub-conscious is nothing but a part of the brain. So, essentially the body acquires the knowledge and not the Atman. For the Atman need not newly acquire any knowledge. It has the ultimate Knowledge about the Lord Master. It itself is knowledge performed.

Moreover, in a way, what is repeatedly said in verses 40 to 45 can be dubbed by a fool like me as redundant!

Why?

Not just the Yogi who falls from Yoga in this life, but for that matter, every person from an abject beggar to a millionaire, is/are governed by this Law of Nature. The Lord Master created the Universe and there is rta or laya or rhythm as the Rig Vedic Sages found out some four or fourteen thousand years ago that the world revolves in conjunction with.

Even a beggar, in his next birth gets the kind of birth according as his thoughts and deeds in the present innings or birth. He might come back as a human being or a beast or a bettered human being.

Life is nothing but Yoga.  

All the beasts and men and women are inexorably moving from birth after birth only toward that Universal Soul which when It exists outside this Universe It is called Turiya.

All life form is carrying out great Yoga only. This happens without their knowing anything.

 We will discuss this aspect in verses to come.