Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 24-3.Swami Krishnananda.

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Monday, August 22, 2022. 06:00.

Chapter 24: Sannyasa and Yoga are One -3.

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Hence, the term sannyasa used here is to be understood in a highly elevated spiritual sense. It is not a ritual. 

It is not something that is done outwardly. The whole system of the yoga of the Bhagavadgita is an inwardisation, gradually, stage by stage, of what we have to call selfhood. Outwardly, the bound man's self is in the objects to which he is attached. The self of the mother is in the son or the daughter, the rich man's self is in the money, the proud man's self is in his power and position and authority, so the self can also be somewhere outside the physical body, as in the instances cited, because the self, for all practical purposes, is in that location of the mind of the person. So wherever the mind is seated, the self projects itself there. The consciousness animates psychological operations, and we become totally alienated persons in our day-to-day life of humdrum occupation.

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So na hy asaṃnyastasaṃkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana, yaṃ saṃnyāsam iti prāhur yogaṃ taṃ viddhi: 

To be healthily established in one's own self is to be detached from everything that is not oneself. Hence, yoga and sannyasa are one and the same thing. 

Yadā hi nendriyārtheṣu na karmasv anuṣajjate, sarvasaṃkalpasaṃnyāsī yogārūḍhas tadocyate (Gita 6.4): 

That person is to be considered as established in the state of yoga who is inwardly unconcerned with actions performed, or with the objects of sense. Attachments are psychological and also physical. We may be sensorily attached to corresponding physical objects or we may be psychologically attached to a kind of self-respect that we maintain, an egoism that we have, a recognition that we assume for our own selves, or a status that we seem to be occupying in our own eyes. This is also an attachment.

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In the practice of yoga, therefore, the Bhagavadgita makes out here that a careful, detached attitude should be maintained not only in respect of one's psychological operations, but also in respect of one's sensory actions. 

Action is psychological as well as physical, and contact also is of this nature. 

Nendriyārtheṣu na karmasv anuṣajjate: When we are not helplessly tied down by the bonds of attachment to the works that we do and the objects that are around us, we are free from that binding inward conduct called psychic or creative willing: sarva sankalpa sannyasa. Such a person is automatically established in the state of yoga.

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Now, what does one mean by saying that there is such a thing called ‘establishment in yoga'? 

We have to go slowly here in making things a little clear. Gradually the theme will be unfolded as we move forward. It is the same as establishment in the Self – restraint of the self for the sake of establishment in the Self. This is, again, a little intriguing position and description. We restrain that, the very thing on which we have to establish ourselves. The self has to be controlled in order that one may become the Self. That which troubles us is the Self, and that which shall bestow freedom on us is also the Self. 

Our sorrow is caused by a kind of self, and our joy also shall be in the Self. What is the kind of self that troubles us? 

What is the kind of self in which we are going to be established when we are said to be rooted in yoga.

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The ‘self' is used in various significations in the language of the Bhagavadgita. 

The physical body is considered by us as our self. “I am coming just now.” When we make statements like this, we mean that the body is coming. “I am hungry, I am feeling cold, I am feeling thirsty, I am tired.” These are statements associated with the physical self. Or when the mother says that she is dead because her child is dead, she does not refer to her physical self. It is another self altogether which she was considering as her son or daughter, or some child. Or a rich man says that he is dead because all his wealth has gone. The wealth is dead; therefore, the person himself feels he is dead. So here is one kind of self which exclaims, “I am gone!”

To be continued ....

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