The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 9.6. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, 07 Sep 2023 07:30.

Chapter 9: The Majesty of God-Consciousness- 6.

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Chapter 11: Visvarupa Dharsana Yogam :

"Na veda-yajnadhyayanair na danair

na cha kriyabhir na tapobhir ugraih

evam-rupah shakya aham nri-loke

drashtum tvad anyena kuru-pravira."

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Translation

BG 11.48: 

"Not by study of the Vedas, nor by the performance of sacrifice, rituals, or charity, nor even by practicing severe austerities, has any mortal ever seen what you have seen, O best of the Kuru warriors."

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Commentary

Not anything that man can do or an individual is capable of, can be considered as adequate for this purpose. What is necessary is the total abnegation of oneself. God does not require anything from us – no prasad or sacrament. Nothing can be offered to God because everything belongs to Him. There is nothing with us because we possess nothing here. What can we offer to Him? Perhaps the last thing that we have is our own individuality, our egoism, our personality, our being. God asks that we may be offered to Him, and not anything that we may have. He does not want a temple to be built for Him, a house of brick and mortar, calling it a chapel or a church. He does not want any offering because all these offerings are not our properties. We are offering to Him what does not belong to us – this is not a charity. But what we consider as our property is ourself only. The last thing that we can part with, the dearest and the nearest of our possessions, that object which we love most, it is our own self – let this love melt into God-love.

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"Bhaktya tvananyaya sakya aham evamvidho" (Gita 11.54): 

This bhakti, this devotion spoken of here, is not a little lip sympathy that we show to God. It is not a bowing of the head, it is not the folding of the hands or the striking of the cheeks – it is the melting of ourselves in the menstruum of God-Being. We can only speak, but our reason cannot grasp what all this means. 

"Matkarmakrt matparamah madbhaktah samgavarjitah, 
nirvairah sarva-bhuteshu yah sa mam eti (Gita 11.55). "

Again to repeat, 

"Ananyas cintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, 
tesham nityabhiyuktanam yogakshemam vahamyaham." 

Commentary

Recite this sloka every day – contemplate its meaning. Nobody can harm us. There is nobody who is not under the subjection of God's rule, and therefore when we are in communion with this Great Master of the World, who can do harm to us? The whole army of God will protect us, provided we are honestly in fraternal relation with Him and we regard Him as All-in-All. In a way, the response from God is proportionate to the response from us in respect of Him. The way in we envisage Him, or contemplate Him, or understand Him, that perhaps is the way in which He will respond. "As you do to Me, so I shall do to you – what you think of Me, that I will think of you – and what you give Me, that I also give you." If we give ourselves, God will give Himself. God does not give any material prosperity, though He can give that also. But when He Himself gives His Own Being, why should we expect any material prosperity? Do we not think that God is more than all matter, all the wealth of all creation? But God will offer Himself only when we offer ourselves to Him – not before. If we offer only a tidbit or tinsel, the response will be of the same type.

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Thus it is that the Self-offering of God is an automatic, instantaneous occurrence as a response to the whole-souled offering of ourselves to Him. Here is bhakti reaching its culmination, its logical completion. The word 'bhakti' is not the proper word to describe this condition. It is not jnana, it is not bhakti, it is not yoga – it is every blessed thing. When we love a thing with all our soul, with all our heart, with all our being, we do not know how to describe it in our language. It is not devotion, it is not affection – it is something more than all this. Do not use any words from language; it is something more. Thus is the devotion, thus is the bhakti that is the surrender, that is the yoga and that is what is expected of us here when we reach the supreme culmination of yoga which is the vision of the Absolute in the Vishvarupa. 

Jnatum drashtum ca tattvena praveshtum ca parantapa (Gita 11.54): 

To know It, to visualise It and to enter into It. These are the duties of man, finally. God-realisation is the goal of life. Union with God, entry into God, merging into the Absolute is the final goal of all things everywhere, all beings, living, non-living, visible, invisible.

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Thus, yoga is an art of attaining to God-consciousness. The various types of yoga, which are the ways we understand for the purpose of this grand culmination, are described in the twelfth chapter, briefly, later on.

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Next

Chapter 10: The One Supreme Absolute Alone Is

To be continued

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