Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 22-5. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, July 13, 2022. 05:00

Chapter 22: The Integration of Sannyasa and Yoga - 5.

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"Bhoktaram yajna-tapasam sarva-loka-maheshvaram

suhridam sarva-bhutanam jnatva mam shantim richchhati." (BG 5.29). 

God, like a loving parent, tells us, “I am with you, my dear children. Don't cry, don't weep! I am your friend, I am your caretaker, I am your protector, I am your father, I am your mother. I shall bring whatever you want. I shall secure everything. You shall be taken care of by Me. Why do you bother about yourself?”

So here is the promise in the Bhagavadgita. Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as the great master yogin, speaks, representing the Almighty here. Bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ: I am the receiver of the fruits of every celebrated performance. Any offering comes to Me. Sarva deva namaskaram kesavam prati gacchati: All prostrations go to the Supreme Being. In any direction you prostrate yourself, and it goes to that Supreme Being only. You are offering prostration to that. All the rivers go to that ocean. Wherever they may move, they shall find themselves there. The river shall find itself in the one ocean.

The holy effect of your religious and spiritual exercises, tapas and yajna, all these go to that One Being. He consumes everything, as the master consumer. He is also the master producer. You are not the doer of actions. This has already been told. So you are not the producer. He is the master producer, and the master consumer: bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ sarvalokamaheśvaram. Here is the Lord of the universe speaking. The Supreme Master of all creation here speaks. What does that Master say? “Friend of all am I.” Touching is the statement, which will melt your hearts. The contrite heart, the hardest flint-like heart, shall melt at this glorious, motherly, touching, balming statement of the Almighty: “I am your friend.” Suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati: You shall attain to peace having known this.

It is a beautiful conclusion, a grand culmination, a magnificent promise, and we shall be purified even by listening to these great thoughts. Even by thinking these thoughts, our sins are destroyed. Thousands of yajnas or manifold dips in holy rivers cannot equal this purification that can be effected by the entering of such thoughts as this. Every cell shall be purified. Iron that is this body shall become gold, lustrous. With this wondrous message, the great Lord, the Friend of all, our Father and Mother, speaks in such a tender voice. 

With this, the Fifth Chapter concludes.

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The Sixth Chapter is called The Yoga of Meditation, dhyana yoga, which is a concentrated presentation of whatever Patanjali tells in his sutras. 

"Anashritah karma-phalam karyam karma karoti yah

sa sannyasi cha yogi cha na niragnir na chakriyah." (BG 6.1); 

"Yam sannyasam iti prahur yogam tam viddhi pandava

na hyasannyasta-sankalpo yogi bhavati kashchana/"(BG 6.2). 

This jivanmukta lakshana, this liberated stage even while living apparently, is the life of a sannyasin, the life of a yogin. But who is a sannyasin, and who is a yogin?

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Anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṁ: not hanging on that so-called fruit of an action that is performed. There should not be that psychological hangover of slavish dependence on a product that may be reaped out of something that we do. It is improper for us to expect for our own personal benefit the fruit of any action. All this has been told in large detail already. We need not reiterate it. The actions are not your actions; they are not my actions. They are the actions of that Great Being who spoke just now. So no individual apparently living in this body can be justified in thinking of an object outside as a fruit coming from an action performed. Therefore, we should not hang on or depend upon a result, or a fruit of an action, because no one has complete control over the result that can be produced by any action.

All action is basically impelled by a cosmic purposiveness; therefore, individuals cannot decide what sort of result will follow from this particular channeled motivation called individual action. Not only that, the fruit, which is the so-called effect produced by a cause which is the action, is identical with the cause in the cosmos. 

So either way, there is no point in thinking that there is a fruit of action. Therefore, one does not unnecessarily and foolishly depend on a so-called external fruit of an action, anāśritaḥ karma-phalaṁ, yet one is doing action.

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“If there is no fruit coming, why should I act?” 

This idea should be dropped in light of the knowledge that we have now acquired by traversing this large gospel in the earlier chapters. There is nothing expected from the performance of an action, yet action is performed. Action is to be performed because that is the duty of every part that belongs to the whole, which cannot expect anything except the satisfaction of the whole. 

Kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥ: He who performs action diligently, without any motivation towards an externalised fruit of an action; sa saṁnyāsī: he is a sannyasin. He is a yogi: ca yogī ca. Sannyasa and yoga mean the same thing. 

Ekaṁ sāṁkhyaṁ ca yogaṁ ca (BG 5.5) it was said. Earlier it was said that sankhya and yoga are the same. Now we are told that sannyasa and yoga are the same. They mean practically one and the same thing. 

We may say that what is sannyasa is sankhya; what is yoga is, of course, known.

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Na niragnir na cākriyaḥ. 

‘Sannyasi' does not mean a non-active person, an idler; a physically silent individual is not a sannyasin.

 A sannyasin is one who does duty, does work intelligently, perfectly, precisely, because it is a necessity under the scheme of things, and not because something comes from it. Nothing will come to the sannyasin. He is a pauper physically speaking, but he is the richest of people. A sannyasin has nothing, but yet the sannyasin has everything. He has nothing because he is not an individual person owning some property from outside. 

But he has everything because the whole world is with him. His thought is his action. 

He is the yogi also: sa saṁnyāsī ca yogī ca. He is united with the facts of creation. Therefore, he is a yogi. He has no attachment to anything; therefore, he is a sannyasin.

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So one who is united to the reality of the cosmos is a yogi; one who is detached from any kind of craving for external results of action is a sannyasin. Merely not lighting a fire and not performing agnihotra like a householder – not touching this, not touching that physically, and sitting idle without doing anything – that is not sannyasa, that is not yoga. It is an internal unifiedness of spirit with the purpose of the whole of creation. 

That explains both sannyasa and yoga. This is the first verse of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita.

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Next - Chapter 23: Introduction to the Sixth Chapter

To be continued .....

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