THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 07, JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION, VERSE NUMBER 04

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 07

JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:

VERSE NUMBER 04

Text in Transliteration:

bhoomir aapo ‘nalo vaayuh kham mano buddhir eva cha

ahamkaara itee ‘yam me bhinnaa prakrtir ashtadhaa

Text in English:

Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism: thus is My prakriti divided eightfold.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

An element is defined in one way by the modern science and in quite another way by the Indian systems of philosophy. According to the latter the five senses of perception are the means to take cognizance of the elements. The ear perceives sound which is characteristic of ether or Akasa. The skin all over the body is endowed with the sense of touch which is peculiar to air. The eye cognizes forms revealed by light or fire. The tongue experiences taste of things dissolved id water; but for the aid and agency of water nothing can be tasted. The nose contacts smell produced by earth. These five instruments of knowledge are thus recognized as the revealers of the five elements, of which the world is constituted.

The faculty of feeling is designated as the mind. The intellect is that which distinguishes the good from the bad, the agreeable from the disagreeable. That which creates the sense of agency is the egoism, without which action is based on the peculiarities of these three internal organs.

The eightfold Prakriti mentioned here is elaborated into twenty-four categories by the Samkhya system of philosophy.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

prakritih. Nature, which is identified with sakti or maayaa (illusion), the basis of the objective world.

These are the forms which unmanifested nature, prakrti, takes when it become manifested. This is an early classification which later becomes elaborated into twenty-four principles. See XIII, 5. The senses, mind and understanding, indriyas, manas and buddhi, belong to the lower, the material nature. For, according to the Saamkha psychology, which is accepted by the Vedaanta, they effect contact with objects and consciousness results only when the spiritual subject, purusa, illumintes them. When the self illumines, the activities of the senses, of mind and of understanding become processes of knowledge and objects become objects of knowledge. Ahamkaara or the self-sense belongs to the “object” side. It is the principle by which the ego relates objects to itself. It attributes to itself the body and the senses connected with it. It effects the false identification of the body with the spiritual subject and the sense of, “I” or “my” is produced.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

This eightfold Nature constitutes the ‘inferior Nature’ of Apara Prakriti. The five gross elements are formed out of the Tanmatras or root-elements through the process of Panchikarana or five-fold mixing. Tanmatras are the subtle root-elements. In this verse earth, water, etc represent the subtle or rudimentary elements out of which the five grosss elements are formed.

Mind stands here for its cause Ahamkara: intellect for its cause Mahat: Ahamkara for the Avyaktam or the unmanifested (Mula-Prakriti) united with avidya which is conjoined with all kins of Vasanas or latent tendencies. As Ahamkara (I-ness) is the cause for all the actions of every individual and as Ahamkara is the most vital principle in man on which all the other Tattvas or principles depend, the Avyaktam combined with the Ahamkara is itself called here Ahamkara, just as food which is mixed with poison is itself called poison.

Comments by the blogger:

The prakriti or Nature is the conglomeration of the five elements: they are the earth, water, fire, air and ether. To understand them we have nose (the smell of the earth), taste buds (water), eye (fir or light) the skin all over the body (air) and ear (the ether).

To start with, the there were only five elements. And after the Big Bang for millions of ears the earth, a tiny spec of that had flown away from the centre of the Universe after the big bang, became cool enough to usher in the single celled life. The huge heavenly bodies came down to crash on the earth. When such crashing happened onto the icy mountains of the earth, both the impact and the force had joined with the water in the ice to create single celled animals.

For the single celled animals feeling alone formed their sense. They did not have ears to hear the sound, taste buds to taste the water, eyes to perceive the day light and all the beauties that were all around them in the form of five elements. They did have the skin to feel. Then they divided to form multi celled animals and thus the process of evolution started from before the Big Bang. And the animals continued to evolve.

And when the human beings came along they had Ahamkara or ego. This ego is there in the evolved animals too. But in human beings, the Ego is very marked. Aristotle says I think, therefore I am. Man is a thinking animal. He has mighty ego sense. He is full of I and my consciousness. This is because of ego. The animals had intellect too which help their evolution. But in man intellect became more and more marked. And while the animals have the mind of their own, that is utilysed only to search for food and to procreation. But in man Mind is a more and more subtle and vital element.

All these eight-fold elements were necessary for the Mankind to evolve and became cultured.

But evolution as a process has not stopped. It continues. And the bodily evolution found closure in Man. But mental evolution must find closure in His Spiritual Emancipation.

For this Man has to unlearn all he had learned in his course of evolution from the stage of single celled state. He has to unlearn and get himself free from the dependence on the prakriti or Nature. His five senses should be employed in the consumption of God. The sound, taste, etc must make him aware intensely of God only. Man should not lead life for his own self. He should conduct life to win back his Godhood. For this he has to become free of the very five elemental Nature.