THE HOLY GITA CHAPTER 14 VERSE 03 GUNATRAYA VIBAHGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 14

VERSE NUMBER 03

GUNATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS:

TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:

mama yonir mahad brahma

     tasmin garbham dadhaamy aham

sambhavah sarvabhootaanaam

     tato bhavati bhaarata

SANSCRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:

mama = my: yonih = womb: mahat brahma = germ: dadhaami = place: aham = I: sambhavah = the birth: sarva bhootaanaam = of all beings: tatah = thence: bhavati = is: bhaarata = O Bharata:

TEXT IN ENGLISH:

My womb is the Mahat Brahma (Prakriti); in that I place the germ; thence,  O Bharata, is the birth of all beings.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANANDA:

The Prakriti is called Mahat Brahma, the four-faced entity. He is constituted of the three Gunas. He is the material cause of everything movable and immovable. Whatever is manifest as the universe with its multitudinous beings is He; and His unmanifest state is immensely more. For this reason he is known as the Mahat Brahma—the great entity. All pervsiveness is His.

A seed is sown in the soil. In this act, the seed is the germ and the soil, the womb. In a baby’s coming into being, its mother and father function as the Prakriti and the Purusha respectively. This act takes place in a macrocosmic scale too. In the great womb of the Prakriti the germ of aatma chaitanya is embedded. The blissful union of the Kshetra and Kshetrajna takes place in this way, leading to the coming forth of Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic embodied being. And the countless Jeevaatmaas are none other than the rays radiating from this cosmic being. The Jivatman is also called the Kshetrajna because of his being endowed with the faculty of understanding. Variations and grades in the Jeevaatmaas are all due to the limiting adjuncts (Upaadhis) caused by desires which are all born of ignorance. Consequently the Jivatmans are all of infinite aptitudes and temperaments.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN

If we were merely products of nature, we could not attain life eternal. This verse affirms that all existence is a manifestation of the Divine. He is the cosmic seed. With reference to this world, He becomes Hiranyagarbha, the cosmic soul. Shankara says: “I unite the kshetra with the kshetrajna, giving birth to Hiranyagarbha, hence to all beings.” The Lord is the Father who deposits in the womb which is not-self, the seed which is essential life, thus causing the birth of every individual. The world is the play of the Infinite on the finite. See note on II, 12. The author here adopts the theory of creation as the development of form from non-being, chaos or night. The forms of all things which arise out of the abysmal void are derived from God. They are the seeds He casts into non-being.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:

My womb is the great Nature. The cosmos is evolved out of His Nature. Nature is called the great Brahma for She is the resting place of the five subtle elements and also the Mahat (cosmic mind). She is called the great Brahma, because through Her the whole manifestation takes place.

All changes arise out of this great Nature. So She has got the name Mulaprakriti or Primordial Nature or the original principle. From the point of view of the Unamanifest She is called Avyakta. The Vedantins call Her Maya (illusion). The Sankhyas call Her Prakriti.

This Prakriti is called great because She is greater than all Her effects. This Nature made of the three qualities, is the material cause of all beings. As She is the source or cause of all Her modificastions and also nourishes all the modifications with Her energy, She is called Brahma.

I place in it (the Mahadhrahma) the embryo of life; then all beings begin to come to life therefrom. In the great Brahman or Nature I place the germ or the seed for the birth of Hiranyagarbha; and the seed gives birth to all beings. The birth of Hiranyagarbha or Brahma (the Creator) gives rise to the birth of beings. The Primordial Nature is like the clay. She cannot create the forms Herself. She gives birth to Brahma Who creates all beings just as the potter creates various forms from the clay. I am endowed with the two Saktis, viz, the superior and the inferior Natures (Cf. VII. 4 and 5), the field and its knower. I unite these two (the Spirit and the matter). The individu soul comes under the influence of the limiting adjuncts, viz., ignorance, desire and action. On account of ignorance (Avidya), the individual soul forgets his  original divine nature, gets himself entangled in the meshes of desire (Kama) and action (Karma ), and revolves in the wheel of birth and death. The individual soul turns towards ignorance without knowing his own true divine nature. The Jiva (individual soul) being overpowered by ignorance and the modifications, forgets its pristine purity and moves in various forms.

The Primordial Nature or the Unmanifested is a dark matrix with infinite potentialities. It is not a substance.  Sound and energy are in an undifferentiated state in It. The whole world gets involved into It during the cosmic dissolution. There is no relationship of substance or quality between It and the three Gunas. The qualities are the Mulaprakriti and the latter is the former in a state of poise or equilibrium. This manifested world of the three qualities is compared to a twisted rope of three colours, viz, white, red and black. Each colour represents a Guna. Sattvic is white, Rajas is red and Taas is black. The three are not in a state of equilibrium in the manifested world.

Water and the seed coming in contact with the earth produce sprouts which grow into trees. In the womb of Nature, the seed develops into the eightfold elements—earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism.

There are four classes of beings, viz., Jarayuja, Andaja,  Svedaja and Udbhijja. The Jarayuja is born of the placenta (viviparous). Human beings, cows, elephants, horses, etc., belong to this class. In this variety the five senses of knowledge exist. The Ajdaja is born of eggs (oviparous). In this variety the elements of wind and ether predominate. Lice come under the categtory of Svedaja: they are born of sweat. In this variety fire and water predominate. Trees that are born of seeds are classified under the head Udhijja: in this variety earth and water predominate. (Cf. VII.6: IX. 17; XV.7)

Comments by the Blogger:

This chapter is named as THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS. This earth is a conglomeration of the Three Gunas. This is one way of understanding the Cosmic Play by the Lord. Another way to understand the same is telling that the this Cosmos is made up of the coming together of The Five Elements, namely, the earth, the water, the fire, the wind and the sky. Both of them are true. It is just a matter of looking at the Nature from a particular point. The Truth is multi faceted. Shankara says the whole Nature is nothing but Maya or Illusion. The Saivism holds that this Cosmos is true, and the individual human beings are true and both have a different role to play; and they both are eternal and imperishable. That the Jivatmas or the Individual human beings, after their emancipation and freedom from the chain and the vicious cycle of birth and death, go up to live an eternal life in the Presence of God. Thus for the Saivaits the earth, the human beings who are capable of attaining emancipation and the Lord are eternal.

Thus the same Truth is perceived from different angles. In the Principal Upanishads the Creation of this Cosmos and all the beings are explained in different creative ways. Mostly the Creation of some one of the Five elements is said to be the first element God created and that element created this world  for God. There have been great thinkers ever since the Vedic Period holding that this world is a concret one so far as the Karma Kanda of the Rig Veda is concerned they alone matter in the final anaylisis and one should studiously perform various elaborste Sacrifices stipulated in the said Karma Kanda which will fetch for longish years in the heaven. So all that matters is the various kinds of joy and enjoyment. Thus unrelieved and continuous enjoyment of the riches of the heaven are the goal for human beings, as they understood the Vedas.

This is why in Srimad Bhagavad Gita we find some stanzas that categorically hold that the Practitioners of the Four Kinds of Yogas should not give much importance to the ornate words and passages of the Vedas, as there are much in the Vedas that are very worldly and exclusively materialistic  which are not condusive for a rigorous practice of various kinds of Yogas stipulated in the Gita.  

THE HOLY YOGA CHAPTER NUMBER 14, VERSE NUMBER 02, GUNATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 14

VERSE NUMBER 02

GUNATRAYA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DIVISION OF THE THREE GUNAS

TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION

idam jnanam upaashritya mama saadharrmayam aagatah

sarge ‘pi no ‘pajaayante pralaye na vyathanti cha

SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:

idam = this: jnaanam = knowledge: upaashritya = having taken refuge in: mama = my: saadharmyam = unity: aagataah = having attained to: sarge = at the time of creation: api = also: na = not: upajaayante = are born: pralaye = at the time of dissolution: na = not: upajaayante = are born: pralaye = at the time of dissolution: na = not: vyathanti = are (they) disturbed: cha = and.

TEXT IN ENGLISH:

They who, having devoted themselves to this knowledge, have attained to unity with Me, are neither born at the time of creation, nor are they disturbed at the time of dissolution.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

The doll of salt consigned to the sea loses its assumed individuality and regains its natural state. Even such is the case with the Jnaani. He gets himself identified with Brahman, who is beyond the modifications of Prakriti. Transmigrations involving him in births and deaths do not trouble and tarnish him.

SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

Boiled paddy does not sprout when sowed in the field. But the unboiled grain keeps on propagating. The man bathed in the fire of Brahma jnana is no more troubled with births and deaths. But the ignorant one cannot escape from that ordeal.                                                                                               

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Life eternal is not dissolution into the indefinable Absolute but attainment of a universality and freedom of spirit, which is lifted above the empirical movement. Its status is unaffected by the cyclic processes of creation and dissolution, being superior to all manifestations. The saved soul grows into the likeness of the Divine and assumes an unchangeable being, eternally conscious of the Supreme Lord who assumes varied cosmic forms. It is not svaroopataa or identity but only samaanadharmataa or similarity of quality. He becomes one in nature with what he seeks, attains saadrrsyamukti. He realizes the divine in his outer consciousness and life. Cp. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” Mathew v. 48. Shankara’s view is different from this. He holds that saadharmya means identity of nature and not equality of attributes.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Having resorted to this knowledge they (the sages) are assimilated into My own nature.  They have attained to My Being. They have become identical with Me. They live in Me with no thought of “thou” or “I”. They go beyond birth and death. There is no birth for them when creation begins and there is no death for them at the time of dissolution. Having reached Me they attain eternity, immortality and perfection. Having become identical with Me through the attainment of the knowledge of the Self by practising the necessary means, they are neither born at the time of creation nor are they disquieted at the time of dissolution. Knowledge of the Self is eulogised by the Lord in this verse.

Comments by the blogger:

  

What indeed happens when a man or woman is freed completly from the birth-death compulsion to which ordinary mortals like us are subjected?

One viewpoint is, as Dr.S.Radhakrishnan puts it succinctly, that the completely emancipated Souls attain to immortal life, having become freed from the yoke of the Time—the past, present and future—and partake of the attributes of God, the Creator of the Cosmos. This way the emancipated Souls shed the worldliness and go up to the loka or nether world to live a never-ending life of Pure Spirits in the presence of God. They don’t simply merge into God. This is important and should be noted and understood against the Philosophy of Sri Shankara who holds that men and women in the worldly life become, after their emancipation, one with God and merge into Him. But the other view is that the  individual expressions of the Spirit who have shed the compulsion of having to take re-births as human beings and suffer the onslaughts of the Illusion of this world become individual beings and live in Spirit in the presence of God forever.

Goutama, the Buddha did not have any faith in the existence of God. He was neither a  theist nor atheist; he simply refuses to talk about God, the Creator of the Universe as we know and understand. When asked to tell his views about God, the Buddha simply said he did not know anything about God as we understand and that he was not bothered about God. Though agreeing with the essence of the Vedas and the Upanishads, the Buddha said he did not know anything about God and he did not want to enquire about God. The Buddha agreed with the Hindu belief in re-incarnations and the soujourns of Man, the Soul, between the earthly life after being born and other-worldly life after death. He indeed preached that Man is helplessly sent back to the earthly plane to work out the accumulated Karma over the past births and thus Man has to take numberless re-births before his complete emancipation and liberation from having to be born and come back to the earthly plane again and again. Reincarnation is fundamental to Hinduism. The Buddha agrees with this belief. He says that the Desire is the reason for Man’s misery. That Desire goads Man toward unending actions and accumulate Karma again and again on the earthly plane. The man starts his journey toward complete emancipation only when he gives up Desire. But Man has to indulge in constant actions on the plane of this Earth. So Man has to live his repeated earthly life without selfish desires. Thus Gautama, the Buddha agrees with the main and fundamental teaching of The Holy Gita! We should not forget that Bhagavad Gita had come into being several thousand years before the birth of the Buddha. The Buddha also preached that Man must indulge in constant and never-ending actions on the plane of the Earth without any selfish deires in the fruits of His actions. Thus Man must reduce, birth after birth, the bundle of Karma and thus at some stage all His karma shall have been exhausted and Man will become freed even like the Buddha from having to take any more birth.

But what will happen to the completly emancipated Soul? Here The Buddha denies the existence of God or just does not worry about God, and says when a man becomes a free soul and attains to immortality, he goes to the  world of immortal souls and live there forever.

Thus Gautama, the Buddha is neither theist nor atheist, but an Agnoist. He says he knew nothing about God’s existence and he did not lose anything because of his ignorance. It should be remembered that the Buddha’s reaction came in the background of sheer materialism practised by the  Priestly community among the Brahmins or Arians. The teachings of The Bhagavad Gita and the other Upanishads were forgotten in favour of the relentless pursuit of shameless materialism by the priests who conducted various Sacrifices recommended in the Vedas. And these elaborate Sacrifices cost the moon. The populace of that times found it life-threatening to not pay heed to the avaricious priests’ words who recommended various Sacrifices which posed an unbearable monetary problem. Even the Rajas of those times found it a Herculian task to successfully conduct a Sacrifice. Huge quantities of gold coins and hundreds of cows had to be given to Brahmins as gifts prior to the conduct of Sacrifices. Thus the only community that thrived in those days belonged to Brahmin community or Arians. For every act of daily and day-to-day activities, various Sacrifices were prescribed. If you wanted rain you had to conduct a sacrifice. If you wanted to avoid a deluge you had to conduct various sacrifices. If a householder wanted a son to carry on his lineage, he had to conduct Sacrifices which would almost cost all the savings of the poor man. Even great merchants and rich men found it hard to go on conducting Sacrifices. As an offshoot of this culture of Sacrifices paralysing superstitions were spread by the Priests. It was a perfect time for the birth of a fearless reformer. And Lord Buddha footed the bill. He neither accepted the existence of God nor denied the same. Instead, he said that he did not want to search for God. And this did not posit any loss or harm to him. He just wanted his followers to be ridden of selfish desires of all kind and do their allotted karma. This would purify the practitioners’ mind and after death, he would come back to this earthly plane with the enabling karma that would goad him strait away toward the prescribed pursuit of doing his swadharmic (self-ordained) duty in life without having a stake in the result.

Here in this verse Sri Bhagavan says that whoever got the knowledge he is going to elaborate will attain unity with Him!

Well, Sri Shankarar’s interpretation of this verse is that, after earning the emancipation through real Knowledge about Him and His Cosmic Form, such great souls would literally enter into Ishwar and become one with Him.

I have one problem with this interpretation. If what Sri Shankarar utters is true, then we will have no existence in bliss outside of God, for we will have attained oneness with Him. Then what is the meaning of our striving against His Maya or Illusion birth after birth, death after death? For countless reincarnations is spent in our slow progress of liberation from the pulls and pressure of this Illusory world. We strive like anything. We shed tears. God’s illusion trips us up birth after birth and we have had to stand up and walk again on the path of righteousness. How much we have had to struggle! Right from the beginning, according to Sri Bhagavan’s words in Gita, we were pure spirits only and not human bodies with which His illusory power makes us identify with. That is the first thing or false step we take the moment we are born. Then we cultivate relentless desire to enjoy this world. And these desire-born activities bind us to this worldly life for still more re-births. What a waste of time and struggle! We were Spirits only before we were sent down to this world. Once sent down to this material world, we become desirous of getting the whole world under our say-so. We are made to forget our godly status prior to our first birth. We, birth after birth and death after death, strive and dig and dig like an Australian miner. All our energies of mind and body are focussed to activities on this earth, quite forgetting our elevated status. We commit horrendous commissions and omissions in the wake of our relentless pursuit after bliss. We even commit murder and all other types of sins and thus enchain ourselves to life on this earthly plane. It is very difficult for us to become tired of this world and start to strive for spiritual excellence. But that is only the beginning. Once we turn our attention to the spiritual side, this world redoubles its power and efforts to get us demoralized and it is an effort at every puny step we take toward the spiritual side. Even great Saints mourn about their inability to fight a manly war against the redoubled pulls of this material life and the constant vigil they have to have against the attractions of this worldly life in order to be able to stay in the spiritual path. if that be the case with great saints like Manikkavasakar, could one ably and fully describe puny little selves like us and the thankless war we have to wage against the thraldom of the materialistic world?

And what for all these painful struggles spread over numberless re-births? If we are only going to enter into Ishwar and become part and parcel of Him with no independent existence, what about all the struggles and miseries we encounter for teeming number of times birth after birth? How many tragedies we court in our pursuit of the material world? Could all these struggles through teeming number of re-births be put aside without any accounting?

All our struggles and tragedies and miseries we court in our pursuit of materialistic life could be  explained only if we could have an independent existence in the holy presence of God.

In the second chapter of Bhagavad Git, the Lord tells Arjuna, “There was no time when you and I and these Rajas were not in existence and there shall be no time we will cease to exist.” We should never forget the import of this world. Every man and woman, after all the struggles in this material world, at the end of the Spiritual day, will become pinpoints of eternal life in pure Spirit, of course, in the presence of the Lord our God.