Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 24 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, March 03, 2022. 20:00.

Discourse 42 :

Chapter-15 Begins: The world as an Inverted Tree.

POST-24.

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Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 15, Slokam 6 :

"Na tad bhasayate suryo na shashanko na pavakah

yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama."

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#Na tad bhasayate suryo (15.6): This glorious sun, with so much brilliance, does not shine there. 

Na tatra sūryo bhāti, na candra-tārakam (Katha 2.2.15): There is no sun, no moon, no stars; what to talk of the fire of this world—kuto'yam agniḥ. Tam eva bhāntam anubhāti sarvaṁ: The sun shines, the moon shines, stars shine, fire blazes forth due to borrowing the radiance of another thing altogether, which is not of this world. Na tad bhāsayate sūryaḥ: The sun does not shine there, because the light of the sun is like darkness before that radiance. Na śaśāṅkaḥ: Not even the moon is there. Na pāvakaḥ: The radiance of the earth, which is born of the fire and heat, that too is not there to illumine.

The same point is again emphasised. #yad gatva na nivartante : Having reached which, we will not come back. How many of us are prepared not to come back? Because it is a frightening thing, we have to think thrice before saying yes or no to it. #yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama :  Because of the impurities in the mind, we cannot understand the meaning of ‘not coming back'. So the great Vedanta Shastras—the Upanishads, Bhagavadgita, etc., are not supposed to be studied by impure minds who are attached to family, things, and the value of the earth—minds who consider this earth as very solid and who think that there are values here which are permanent in their nature.

Na tad bhasayate suryo na shashanko na pavakah, yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama : “My abode is that, after having attained which, you will not return to this world of sorrow.”

We may put a question: “After reaching that state, what will I do there?” Many people ask this question: “What shall I do there, after reaching that place? You don't want me to come back, so will I sit there gazing at the face of God? But how long I will gaze? I will be tired.”

To remove this fear, the Vaishnava theology tells us that we will have a glorious feast, with rice made of gold. And the kshira-sagara, whose waves are dashing hither and thither, throwing little sprinkles of milk on the body of Narayana, shining thereby tenfold, a hundredfold, will attract our attention, and we will be very happy even to behold Him. There will be singing and dancing by the Parsadas, and we will also be one of the Parsadas. We will have no limitation of time or of space. There will be rejoicing, endless rejoicing. These kinds of illustrations are found in certain writings of acharyas like Ramanuja, who wrote one particular essay called Vaikuntha Gadyam—a prose essay on Vaikuntha, where gold paddy can be seen growing on all sides. But we are happy to hear that rice made of gold, emerald or diamond will be cooked and eaten.

There is no necessity to have fear of this kind, and it is impossible to describe in words why it is not good to come back, and why it is good to be there. By any kind of logic or scriptural quotation, one cannot be convinced as to why that attainment, from where there is no return, is necessary.

Some people try to give examples to convince us in some way, in a feeble manner. It is like going to the waking condition from the dream world. Would we like to go back to the dream world once again? Yesterday we had a good dream or a bad dream, and then we woke up. Now we have a very clear waking consciousness. Do we grieve that we have woken up from that dream, that we have lost our dream kingdom? We were Akbar Badshah or Caesar in the dream world, and now we have woken up as ordinary mortals. Which is better—being Caesar in the dream world or this perspicacious consciousness of waking?

This waking consciousness includes everything that we saw in dream. Not only the dream perceiver, not only the seer or the observer of the dream, but the entire space, time and objects—the whole universe of dream—are contained in the waking mind. That is to say, this wondrous universe to which we are so attached, from which we are afraid of leaving, is contained in that thing which we are attaining and from which there is no point in returning—as there is no point in returning from waking to dream once again.

We may say, “There are so many people in this world. Am I to leave them here and go alone, as a selfish man, to the abode of that from where I will not come back? What about other people in the world? Millions of mortals are suffering. Do you want me to go alone to the Eternal Abode? Is it not an act of selfishness?” The same analogy applies here. Did we not see many people in dream? We were fathers, we were mothers, we had children and family, and there was a big society of people. Why did we wake up, leaving them all in the dream world? We could have waited until all of them had woken up. We suddenly woke up, leaving all the family, etc., in the dream world. What happened to those many individuals whom we saw in dream? And the whole dream world with which we were concerned so much—what happened to it now that we have left it and, like a selfish person, have woken up into waking consciousness? These are some illustrations that will clear the cobweb of our mind and make us feel inwardly convinced that it is good to reach God, and it is not good to come back from That. 

Yad gatvā na nivartante: “After having reached That, you will not come back.” Tad dhāma paramaṁ mama: “That is My Abode.”

To be continued

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