THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 08
AKSHARA BRAHMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE IMPERISHABLE BRAHMAN:
VERSE NUMBER 19
Text in Transliteration:
bhootagraamah sa evaa ‘yam bhootvaa-bhootvaa praltyate
raatry aagame ‘vasah paartha prabhavaty aharaagame
Text in English:
This multitude of beings, coming forth again and again, merge, O Partha, in spite of themselves, at the approach of night, and remanifest themselves at the approach of day.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Man’s free-will is a misnomer. Beyond a certain limit man has not got the freedom to keep awake or to go to sleep. He is a helpless creature of his own mind given to the modifications of wakefulness and sleep. Much more helplessly than this, the multitude of beings are dragged into creation or the manifest state when Brahma wakes up and they go into the unmanifested when he retires to sleep. The process of being revolved in this wheel of birth and death has to go on indefinitely, sometimes even through the life periods of a few Brahmas, until perfection is reached and mukti (emancipation) obtained.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
This periodic emergence and dissolution of all existences does not affect the Lord of all existences.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Avidya (ignorance), Kama (desire) and Karma (action) are the three knots that bind the individual to Samsara. Desire is born of Avidya. Man exerts to attain and enjoy the object of his desires. During this activity he favours some and injures others through the force of Raga-Dvesha (love and hatred or attraction and repulsion). Therefore he is caught in the wheel of Samsara or transmigration. He has to take birth again and again to reap the fruits of his own actions. He repeatedly comes forth and dissolves through the force of his own Karma.
The individual souls have lost their independence as they are bound by ignorance, desire and activity. Therefore they are subject to the sorrows, miseries and pains of this Samsara. In order to create dispassion in their minds and a longing for liberation in their hearts, and to remove the fallacious belief that a man reaps the fruits of what he has not done or that he does not reap the fruits of what he has done, the Lord has said that all creatures involuntarily come into being again and again at the coming of the day and dissolve at the coming of the night (on account of the actions or Karmas caused by desire born of ignorance)
Comments by the blogger:
We shudder at the statement by Swami Sidbhavananda when he says, “the process of being revolved in this wheel of birth and death has to go on indefinitely, sometimes even through the life periods of a few Brahmas, until perfection is reached and mukti or emancipation obtained.”
Now one Brahmas lifespan is given by Swami Sivananda in his commentary for the verse 17. According to Suryasiddhanta, as quoted by Swami Sivananda, one Brahma lasts for 311,040,000,000,000 years! SOMETIMES (mind you not always) the wheel of birth and death has to go on, EVEN THROUGH THE PERIODS OF A FEW BRAHMAS!
This should not dishearten us. Swami Sidbhavananda uses the words SOMETIMES and EVEN. So it does not apply to us. This must apply to heartless beasts like the Delhi bus rapists (the rapists of Nirbhaya).
There are serial killers. In history, we come across kings like Aurangzeb. And a year ago I saw a news bulletin then read about the youth who had raped and killed more than 20 young children. In a foreign country, a man of several children chose to rape one daughter repeatedly for years together and gave her as many as eight children! You might have come across the news. It was within ten years from today. And that man was not a psycho. He merely took an abnormal desire to one of his daughters. He had incarcerated the daughter in the basement. And he killed several children born of his daughter. On a couple of occasions, he killed children by burning the newborns in the stove. I tell you he was not a psycho. Because he had the sense to hide his face and head from being photographed at the time of being brought to trial. The Juries had a hard time in hearing various acts of repeated raping while the daughter was kept chained to a post in the basement!
There have been beasts like him in history. In this wise history of cruelty and wayward taking of life is being rewritten by the men and some women actively belonging to the ISI.
What about the terrorists who come across the border from Pakistan and kill innocent people in India? For the beasts among men, it will certainly take several Brahmas’ life periods. Because they will time and again come like beasts and each time they will increase the number rebirths by the hundreds.
Then what about persons like Hitler? He, one person, killed millions of Jews. Among them how many women, pregnant women, and small cute children were involved. All of them were killed in the gas chambers. Now, Hitler was no psycho in the sense he did not know what he was doing.
So such beasts among men and women would certainly go through several life periods of a few Brahmas. There is no other go for them.
For the majority of human beings, one period of Brahma should be more than enough. Especially the Hindus, who are and have always been in varying degrees of Bhakti Yoga (Yoga of Devotion) and Karma Yoga (Yoga of action). This does not mean other two major religions do not show and people belonging to them have got no way out of the wheel of birth and death. But they only and chiefly have got one form of yoga only and that is the yoga of Devotion. But they have created saints. The recent example is Mother Teresa. But their chief drawback is that their scriptural philosophy has not found the way into the heart of even the ordinary and unlettered men and women as in the case of the Hindu Religion. Here we have got Puranas, Epics, and Itihasas which have successfully brought the philosophy of the Hindu Scriptures to the last man and woman.
Swami Sidbhavananda says Man’s free-will is a misnomer. It is absolutely true so far as human beings are dragged into creation or the manifest state when Brahma wakes up and they go into the unmanifest state when he retires to sleep. Absolutely.
But during the day of Brahma we have a personal choice. So for 311,040,000,000,000 years when a Brahmas day goes on, we have personal choice. For example, I could take it easy as today being the eave of Deewali. But I have chosen to write all the blogs not only today but tomorrow also. But if today starts Brahma’s night we are helpless creatures and we would be dragged into the unmanifested stage. During the day of Brahma, we have the choice and therein the Lord’s greatness inheres and lies. He is the greatest mystery novel writer. Our deliberate choices may take us up the ladder and we could take to meditation and write gloriously our emancipation within a few rebirths! That would be a wonderful thing, wouldn’t be?
And Swami Sidbhavananda’s commentary to this verse should make us resolve firmly to become unflinching devotees of the Lord and since for the Kali Yuga, the means of emancipation consists in chanting the name of the Lord or Devi, we must take to it in real earnest.
And, dear readers, I have been writing that Darwin’s theory of evolution is a faulted one and the real evolution commences when the Universe comes into existence. So the revolution and the Big Bang must be included and accommodated within the period of Brahma’s lifespan, which is 311,040,000,000,000 years!
In this verse, the Lord addresses Arjuna as Partha which means the son of Pritha or Kunti. So it must be taken to mean every man and woman born of the womb of a woman must be subject to the inexorable way the multitude of beings are dragged into existence when Brahma wakes up and they go into the unmanifested or prakriti when he retires to sleep. Only the emancipated souls are exempted from this ineffable rule.
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