THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 09
RAJAVIYDYA RAJAGUHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE SOVEREIGN SCIENCE AND SOVEREIGN SECRET:
VERSE NUMBER 28
Text in Transliteration:
Subhaasubhaphalair evem mokshyase karmabandhanaih
Samnyaasa yoga yuktaatmaa vimukto maam upaishyasi
Text in English:
Thus shall you be free from the bondage of actions yielding good and bad results. With the mind firmly set in the yoga of renunciation and liberated you shall come to Me.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The good and bad results of karma contribute for the continuity of the cycle of births. But when they are all offered to the lord, they become as ineffective as the burnt up seeds, unable to sprout any further. The yogi is in this way freed from bondage.
The conflict between engaging oneself in action and emerging from it gets reconciled in sanyaasa yoga (the yoga of renouncement) all selfishness is renounced; that way it is sanyasa. Work is vigorously done for the sake of the Lord; that way it is yoga. Such a yogi is a Jivan-mukta while yet in body; he becomes a videha mukta when he drops his body.
The way of the world i s to commingle with those drawn together and to be indifferent to the others. Is not Iswara also behaving like the worldly? His real position is herein explained in the next stanza.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
What should you do when you are in this world? You should dedicate your everything to Iswara. You take refuge in Him. Then you will have no misery whatsoever. You will forthwith get to the Lord.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
By such giving and consecration, the whole life of the soul is given to the service of the Supreme and the ego is freed from its barriers and its acts no more bind the soul.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Evam; Thus—when you thus offer everything to Me.
Renunciation of the fruits of all works is Sannyasa. He who is equipped with the mind steadfast in the Yoga of renunciation is Sannyasayogayuktatma. The act of offering everything unto the Lord constitutes the Yoga of renunciation. It is also Yoga as it is an action. With the mind endowed with renunciation and Yoga thou shalt be freed from good and evil results while yet living and thou shalt come unto Me when this body falls.
An objector says, “Then the Lord has love and hatred as He confers His grace on His devotees only and not on others.”
The answer is, “Not so. The Lord is impartial and is beyond love and hatred. His grace flows towards all. But the devotee receives it freely as he has opened his heart to the reception of His grace”.
This is explained in the next verse.
Comments by the blogger:
The Lord says in verse 27, “Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer in sacrifice, whatever you gift away, whatever austerity you practise, O Kaunteya, do it as an offering to Me.”
By addressing Arjuna as Kaunteya or the son of Kunti, the Lord means to say that any ordinary average person born of the womb of a woman can make such an offering to Him.
In Verse 28 the Lord says by offering all acts to the Lord, one will be free from the bondage of actions yielding good and bad results. This action of the consecration of one’s acts to the Lord is known as Sanyasa Yoga or the Yoga of renunciation.
The modern example that readily comes to mind is Mahatma Gandhi’s life.
Right from the beginning, the Mahatma was wedded to Truth and non-violence. But his offering of all actions to Lord Rama can be inferred from many examples from his life. While still young he refused to take the jewelry offered as presents to him while he was leaving South Africa to India. While his wife, Kasturba Gandhi proffered the point that the marriage of their daughters must be taken into consideration and the jewelry were presents for the Mahatma’s good work in South Africa. But Mahatma Gandhi was vehement in refusing to use it for his family.
Another important occasion was when India won independence. At that midnight, when all the important persons belonging to the Congress Party was in New Delhi, Mahatma, the main architect of India’s independence was elsewhere to put down clashes between the Hindus and Muslims! Such was his renouncement of the fruits of his activated actions!
We can by gradation try to offer the day today acts to God. It is not an easy thing. The Prakriti’s main job is to beguile us by exerting on us strong pulls towards worldliness. Sanyasa Yoga is a great thing. But, by calling Arjuna in verse 27 as the son of Kunti, the Lord means to say with some effort it is feasible for all the devotees. Let us try. If we make a beginning in the present birth it would become reinforced in next births and we will be offering more and more of our actions to the Lord with no intent on securing the fruits thereof.
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