THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 07, JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION , VERSE NUMBER 01

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 07

JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:

VERSE NUMBER 01

Text in Transliteration:

                               sri bhagavaan uvaacha

mayy aasaktamanaah paartha yogam yunjan madaasrayah

asamsayam samagram maam yathaa jnaasyassi tac chrnu

Text in English:

                               The Blessed Lord said:

Listen, O Partha, how, with your mind clinging to Me, and taking refuge in Me and practising yoga, you will without any doubt know Me in full.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The term mad aasrayah connotes complete indifference to the fruits of action, fame, name and such like earthly acquisitions and a staunch attachment to the Lord alone.

Samagram signifies the glory, might, energy, overlordship and similar divine attributes of Iswara.

He who perceives the perfect functioning of a government cannot help appreciating it. Similarly one’s admiration is carried on to a divine level when one devotes oneself to the study of the cosmic functioning of the Lord.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

The author wishes to give a complete or integral knowledge of the Divine, not merely the Pure Self but Its manifestation in the world.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

He who wishes to attain some result or reward performs the ritual known as Agnihotra or does charity, sinks wells, builds hospitals, resting places, etc., with Sakama Bhavana (with an inner profit motive) and attains them. But the Yogi on the contrary practices Yoga with a steadfast mind and takes refuge in the Lord alone, with the mind wholly fixed on Him, on His lofty attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, infinite love, beauty, grace strength, mercy, inexhaustible wealth, ineffable splendour, pristine glory and purity.

The servant of a king, though be constantly serves the king, has not got his mind fixed on him. the mind is ever fixed on his wife and children. Unlike the servant, fix your mind on Me, (the all-pervading one), and take refuge in Me alone. Practise control of mind in accordance with the instructions given in chapter VI. Then you will know Me and My infinite attributes in full.

If you sing the glory and the attributes of the Lord, you will develop love for Him and then your mind will be fixed on Him. Intense love for the Lord is real devotion. You must get full knowledge of the Self without any doubt.

He who has taken refuge in the Lord, and he who is trying to fix or has fixed his mind on the Lord cannot bear the separation from the Lord even for a second.

Comments by the blogger:

Knowing the Lord in full and becoming one with the Lord is peculiar to Hinduism. In other religions, the emancipated soul would attain the Heaven, the Lord’s House and live there forever. But in Hinduism, complete emancipation and soul realisation connotes that he or she has become part and parcel of God. The devotee or the yogi completely mingles with the Lord. Hence the maha vakya or the great sentence, Thou Art That.