Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 21-1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, May 12,  2022. 20:00

Chapter 21.The Two Ways of Yoga -1.

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The Fifth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita is a broad discussion of varied themes connecting the philosophical disquisitions of the Third Chapter with the profound concentration laid down and many other similar issues of the Fourth Chapter, and also relating this entire theme to the most practical issue that will be taken up in the Sixth Chapter.

"Tad-buddhayas tad-atmanas tan-nishthas tat-parayanah

gachchhantyapunar-avrittim jnana-nirdhuta-kalmashah,"BG 5.17:

Translation :

tat-buddhayaḥ—those whose intellect is directed toward God; 

tat-ātmānaḥ—those whose heart (mind and intellect) is solely absorbed in God; 

tat-niṣhṭhāḥ—those whose intellect has firm faith in God; 

tat-parāyaṇāḥ—those who strive for God as the supreme goal and refuge; 

gachchhanti—go; 

apunaḥ-āvṛittim—not returning; 

jñāna—by knowledge; 

nirdhūta—dispelled; 

kalmaṣhāḥ—sins

Essence of this slokam :

 Those whose intellect is fixed in God, who are completely absorbed in God, with firm faith in Him as the supreme goal, such persons quickly reach the state from which there is no return, their sins having been dispelled by the light of knowledge.

Commentary :

Just as ignorance causes one to suffer in samsara, or the perpetual cycle of life and death, knowledge has the power to release one from material bondage.  Such knowledge is always accompanied with devotion to God.  This verse makes very emphatic use of words denoting complete God-consciousness.

Tadbuddhayaḥ means the intellect is directed toward God.

Tadātmanaḥ means the heart (mind and intellect) is solely absorbed in God.

Tanniṣhṭhāḥ means the intellect has firm faith in God. 

Tatparāyaṇaḥ means striving after God as the supreme goal and refuge.

Thus, the sign of true knowledge is that it leads to love for God.  Imbued with such love, devotees see Him everywhere. Such a divine vision is described in the next slokam.

Introducing the subject of the Sixth Chapter, as it were, here is a pronouncement : 

Non-return to this mortal coil will be the blessing of those whose understanding is perpetually rooted in That, whose entire soul is fixed in That, who have That alone as their sole foundation in life and who have no other goal to aspire for except That. These persons, the blessed ones, the exalted ones, the purified souls who are burnt and burnished in the fire of knowledge with all dross removed from them, they attain to that condition of non-returning to the finitude of life, to mortal existence, to the sorrows to which man is held.

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We can be rid of all sorrow; we can be free from every problem. What sorrow can be equal to that sorrow of being compelled to come and go frequently in this incessantly moving cycle of metempsychosis, the push of nature, the urge of evolution, the compulsion of abjectivity and the helpless state of affairs when we have to hang on other things for our existence? But this sorrow can be removed by gradual purification of ourselves, by basking in the sun of this Supernal Being. What that Being is, we have not been told yet. Very little reference is made here in the chapters that we have already traversed to this reference of tat, or That. Some indication is casually made here and there. “Fixed in That, one is free” or “Fix your mind in Me”. Such little suggestions are available, but we have not yet been told specifically as to what ‘That' is, or what this ‘Me' actually suggests. “Fix your mind in Me, root yourself in Me, and remember Me.” Who is this ‘Me'? It is not yet explained.

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Now the ‘Me' has been replaced by the word ‘That', tadbuddhaya: intellect entirely fixed in That. Our intellects are not fixed in any particular thing. Our present state of understanding is something like a judicial that sifts evidences that come from outer sense operations. A new qualitative knowledge cannot arise from such kind of judgment which is nothing but a synthesising agent, a coordinator of issues, a promulgator of ideas which are a logical outcome of material that is already available. New material the intellect of man cannot manufacture. Hence, though there is this internal independence which our understanding, or reason, exercises in being able to cast into a unity of purpose and synthesis the diverse evidences come through the variety of sense perceptions, in this sense we may say that the reason has an independence of its own, an independence which is revealed by its capacity to unify the diversity of sense perceptions which have practically no relation one to the other.

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The intellect in man is a passport holder of two kingdoms, as it were, belonging to this world and also to another world which is ruled by a different law altogether. On the borderland of two kingdoms is this intellect located. We have a very crucial, intriguing faculty in us: the understanding, the buddhi, the deciding factor which decides issues. On the one hand, it does not appear to be anything more than a mediator of the actions of the senses. It is like an umpire in a game, yet it maintains its relationship to the parties upon which it is to hold an opinion. In quality, in its individual frame of makeup, it does not seem to be far different from that to which it is related. The intellect is directly connected with this world. It is with the help of our intellect, our understanding, that we are able to know what this world is about, what is to be done here and what is not to be done, and what meaning we are to make out from the knowledge communicated to us by our senses. This work the intellect does. But it does not seem to belong entirely to the sense world.

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Philosophers find in this reason of man a transcendent element, apart from its empirical authority which it exercises over the sense operations. It is empirically related to the sense world but transcendentally placed on a high pedestal of an insight into a trans-empirical super-sensible experience, which is the philosopher's stock phrase: apperception rather than perception. The intellect apperceives, it does not simply perceive, so they call it transcendental apperception instead of empirical perception. The capacity to turn back upon oneself is the apperceptive faculty of consciousness. It can turn back upon itself and know itself, and not merely know what is outside it.

To be continued ....

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