Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 24-1. Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, August 13, 2022. 06:20.

Chapter 24: Sannyasa and Yoga are One -1.

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Chapter Six of the Bhagavadgita, which is called dhyana yoga, or the yoga of meditation, is also known as atma samyama yoga, or the yoga of self-restraint. In some editions of the Bhagavadgita we will find the concluding colophon worded as atma samyama yoga, while in others it is termed dhyana yoga because dhyana is the height of atma samyama. Meditation is the crowning point of self-control.

We were referring yesterday to the terms sannyasa and yoga, which appeared to suggest or indicate two different approaches to life, sannyasa meaning ‘abandonment, relinquishment', tyaga meaning ‘renunciation, non-attachment or non-possession of anything that is of the nature of a belonging', and yoga meaning in one context ‘right action, rightly motivated conduct and behaviour, or communion with Reality'.

It is possible that the human mind, which is accustomed to think in crude ways and in a prosaic manner, accustomed to take things for granted in the way they are formally presented in the world, taking the letter for the spirit mostly, such a mind is likely to see no vital connection between yoga and sannyasa. Bhagavan Sri Krishna makes out at the very outset that sannyasa and yoga mean one and the same thing. 

Yaṃ saṃnyāsam iti prāhur yogaṃ taṃ viddhi pāṇḍava, na hy asaṃnyastasaṃkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana (BG 6.2): What is called sannyasa is the same as yoga, and what is called yoga is the same as sannyasa.

In a more homely way, we can say that freedom from illness is health, and health is freedom from illness. Sannyasa is freedom from illness, and yoga is health. What is the difference between these two conditions? We may say there is a difference because in freedom from illness we are engaged in or have achieved non-contact with something, whereas in health we are established in something. But we have to exercise our subtle understanding here to appreciate that non-contact is the same as self-establishment. They cannot be two different things. Self-establishment gets vitiated to the extent that there is external content, and to the extent that we are free from any kind of outward contact, to that extent we are in our own selves. Therefore, there need not be much of a difficulty in accepting that health and freedom from illness are not two entirely different things. So sannyasa, which is non-contact – and therefore non-possession, non-craving, non-longing and non-association, nonattachment – cannot be entirely different from union with fact.

The fact of the matter, with which union has to be established by the practice of yoga, is the main subject of this chapter on dhyana yoga, meditation. That which engenders the spirit of contact with external things, rather, making one feel that there is a total dependence of oneself on external factors, is the creative will of the individual. It is called sankalpa in this verse that I recited just now. Sankalpa is a determination of the will in respect of an external achievement and the fulfilment of a wish. This must be done, this has to be obtained, this situation should prevail. Such are some of the features of a creative volition, or will. But it is here mentioned in this verse that no one can be a yogi with this kind of creative will. 

Na hy asaṃnyastasaṃkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana: One cannot be oneself and also another at the same time. Either we are somewhere else, or we are here. We cannot be in two places at the same moment. Any creative projection of consciousness in the form of a wish for satisfaction from outside sources is an alienation of the Self. An alienation of oneself is a movement of oneself from oneself into something else which is not oneself. So if yoga is union with Reality, we shall be told shortly that the Self is the greatest reality; therefore, to be in the state of yoga, which is to be in union with Reality, would be to be established in the Self, and that would imply the non-association of consciousness with anything that is not itself.

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To be continued ....

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