Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 50-6. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, October 20,  2022. 07:00.

Discourse 50: The Eighteenth Chapter Continues – Knowing One's Duty-6.

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Bhaktyā mām abhijānāti yāvān yaś cāsmi tattvataḥ (18.55): 

The Lord says, “A true devotee knows what kind of person I am, what kind of Reality I am.” This means knowing what God is, what God does, what is the characteristic of God, and what one actually attains after reaching God. All these things will become clear when the devotion intensifies. Then, one enters into the Absolute. Tato māṁ tattvato jñātvā viśate tadanantaram: Knowing God as He is in Himself is a precondition necessary to enter into God. A conceptual appreciation of God's existence is different from an appreciation of His Existence as He is in Himself. This is possible only if you totally annihilate your egoistic individuality, do not conceive God as if He is something outside you, and do not go on insisting on your own individual existence also. Let God be, and you should not be. When God takes possession of all things, your existence ceases to be and you are no more there, and then it is that you have entered into the Absolute. When you are there looking at God, or thinking that you are there contemplating on God as an independent person, you have not entered. You are only outside beholding, conceptualising, thinking and intellectualising. That is not enough. The entering into the very substance of God is the final aim of life, which is possible only when you cease to be, by a total abolition of your encrustations of physical and psychical personality. Then your soul merges in God.

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Sarvakarmāṇyapi sadā kurvāṇo madvyapāśrayaḥ, matprasādād avāpnoti śāśvataṁ padam avyayam (18.56): 

If you work as a worship of God, whatever be the work that you do—let it be anything, even the littlest of activities of yours—may these activities be dedicated to God as a humble offering. By the grace of God, Who knows your goodness and your devotion, you shall attain to that Eternal Abode—śāśvataṁ padam avyayam.

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Cetasā sarvakarmāṇi mayi sannyasya matparaḥ, buddhiyogam upāśritya maccittaḥ satataṁ bhava (18.57): 

O Arjuna! I am telling you that with all your mind, with all your heart and with all your soul, be devoted to Me. Abandoning all other concerns in this world, and resorting to the yoga of contemplation through understanding, which is called jnana yoga, be rooted in Me, and let there be no other concern in your mind—maccittaḥ satataṁ bhava.”

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Maccittaḥ sarvadurgāṇi matprasādat tariṣyasi (18.58): 

“Because of your intense devotion to Me and your rootedness in Me, you shall cross over all the turmoil of life by My grace. But if you insist on your own ahamkara and say, ‘I shall do this, and I shall not do that'—then you will be responsible for what follows.” You shall actually perish if you insist on your egoism and say “I shall do this, and I shall not do that” as Arjuna said in the beginning of the First Chapter. 

Atha cet tvam ahaṁkārān na śroṣyasi vinaṅkṣyasi: “If you do not listen to this good advice and insist on your egoism again and again—well, you will reach nothing finally.”

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Yad ahaṅkāram āśritya na yotsya iti manyase (18.59): 

“Because of egoism, you are saying, ‘I shall not take up arms, I shall throw down everything, and I shall not do any work.'” This was the attitude of Arjuna in the beginning. “If you are so egoistic and you decide everything for yourself—okay, do it. This attitude of yours is not going to succeed finally, because prakriti will compel you to act. Even if people inwardly decide not to do anything, not to work at all, and maintain silence, it is not possible. As long as the body and mind—which are the properties of prakriti—are there, and because prakriti is always in a state of motion, it is not possible for any person to be inactive. Prakriti's gunas will compel you to act. So, don't say, ‘I shall not do.'”

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Svabhāvajena kaunteya nibaddhaḥ svena karmaṇā, kartuṁ necchasi yan mohāt kariṣyasyavaśo'pi tat (18.60): 

Even without your wanting to do a thing, you shall be forced to do it on account of the operation of the gunas. It is not that you deliberately want to do something. Even your so-called deliberate undertaking is a compulsion from a higher source, which you cannot avoid. Therefore, do not decide individually, egoistically that “I shall do, I shall not do”. Let there be no such individual decision on your part. Surrender yourself to the Almighty, and all shall be well with you.

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Next-

Discourse-51. The Eighteenth Chapter Concludes: The Bhagavadgita Concludes.

To be continued ...

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