THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 08
AKSHARA BRAHMA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE IMPERISHABLE BRAHMAN:
VERSE NUMBER 21
Text in Transliteration:
avyakto ‘kshara ity uktas tam aahuh paramaam gatim
yam prapya na nivartante tad dhaama paramam mama
Text in English:
This Unmanifested is called the Imperishable; It is said to be the Ultimate Goal. Those who attain to It return not. That is my Supreme Abode.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Brahman is this Unmanifested Reality. It is designated in this way because It is incomprehensible and inaccessible to the mind, intellect and senses. It is further designated as the imperishable because of its being ever constant undergoing no modification whatsoever.
Prakriti also is called unmanifested when it is in pralaya or dissolution. It is then inaccessible to the mind, intellect and senses. But the difference between the two has to be borne in mind. Prakriti is ksharam, perishable while Brahman is aksharam, Imperishable. Beings involved in Prakriti continue to appear and disappear; beings that attain Brahman do not undergo these changes. Thy do not return. Brahman being the highest and constant abode for beings, It is called the Lord’s Supreme Abode.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
We escape from the cycle of birth and death or cosmic manifestation (prabhava) and non-manifestation (pralaya). Even to reach the status of the Indefinable Absolute whose status goes beyond the cosmic manifestation, we have to offer our whole personality to the Supreme. Even the supracosmic codition of the Eternally Unmanifested can be won through bhakti or devotion. By union with Him of our whole conscious being, we reach the perfect consummation. The supreme abode of the personal God, Isvara, is parabrahma, the Absolute: see also VIII, 2.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Para Brahman is called the Unmanisrested because It cannot be perceived by the senses. It is called the imperishable also. It is all-pervading, all-permeating and interpenetrating. Para Brahman is the highest Goal. There is nothing higher than It. This is the true non-dual state free from all sorts of limiting adjuncts. The attainment of Brahmaloka (the region of the Creator) etc., is inferior to this. Only by realising the Self is one liberated from Samsara. (Cf. XII.3; XV.6)
Comments by the blogger:
What is stated in verse 20 is rephrased here in verse 21 chiefly for the removal of doubts, and also to add an explanation.
Verse 20 makes it abundantly clear that beyond this unmanifested (i.e., prakriti or Nature), there is yet another Unmanifested Eternal Existence which does not perish even when all existences perish. Verse 21 states that this Unmanifested is called the Imperishable; It is said to be the Ultimate Goal. Those who attain to It return not. That is My(God’s or Brahman’s) Supreme Abode.
So with a declaration, the earlier verse is rephrased for the purpose of clarity.
There is a difference between the Unmanifested Nature or prakriti at the time of pralaya, and the Unmanifested Ultimate Reality to which once one goes to mingle with, there is no question of returning back to this earth’s plane. For this one should lose one’s naamaroopa or name and form or appearance. The attainment of Atman is the highest attainment and to offer it as oblation in the fire of devotion is called Atma Nivedhanam or offering of one’s Atman as the oblation. It is the highest form of sacrifice. And who sacrifices thus attains eternal beatitude like God Himself.
This is the chief difference, I have been telling time and again, between Hinduism and the two other major Religions of the world. The first difference is the doctrine of re-births. And then Man has it in himself to become God or part and parcel of God. This kind of salvation or emancipation is called by Shankara as Kaivalya Moksha or the attainment of oneness with the Lord and residing in His Supreme Abode.
In Mohammedanism and Christianity where only one birth is contemplated, the dead persons go to the Lord for the Judgement Day in their human bodies. That is why they inter or put the whole body beneath the ground in the cemetery. At the Judgement Day, the good ones will be given places in the Heaven and the bad ones will be tossed into Hell’s fire. They would be that way forever. There would be no hope of being scorched to death. Allah, the Great says every time one’s body is scorched new skin would be given to the sinners in the Hell and they would be living forever continuously being scorched. This, after giving only one chance to prove themselves. Men would be men and women would be women in the Heaven as well as in the Hell. Allah the Great says through the Prophet Mohammed, that the men in Heaven would spend their eternal life in grooves where rivers flow beneath the ground. The men and women in hell would be administered puss for a drink. While men would enjoy life in God’s Heaven with many wives! So women’s emancipation is not possible even there.
The world is an ocean and beings are tossed into it and they do not know their Godly antecedents. That is ignorance born of Lord’s illusion and because of that desire affects the embodied and that desire to enjoy this world gives rise to action which traps Man. So one chance only to prove one’s devotion to the Lord is the cruelest thing.
In the Hinduism, within the time of one Brahma(311,040,000,000,000 years), we can attain the oneness with God through a million of births and deaths, which is a process of gradual cleansing of the mind which is ensnared by the senses by always indulging in sense objects. This indulgence gradually becomes lesser and lesser as the rebirths go on taking place. And there is no guaranty for us to be born a man or a woman in the next birth. And after emancipation, we become one with the Ultimate Supreme which has no name or form. Whereas the worldly desires and enjoyments are contemplated for the men and women in God’s Heaven in the other Two Major Religions of the world! There is no chance of transcending the fleshy life and become God or part of Him.
Thou Art That is one of the three maha vakyas or important sentences in the Hindu Scriptures.
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