Commentary on the Srimad Bhagavad Gita- Discourse 5.9. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Monday, November 02, 2020. 10:59. AM.

Discourse 5: The Second Chapter Concludes – The Establishment of the Soul in Universality - 9.

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The soul does not think in terms of space and time and, therefore, we should not invite this unnecessary suffering by expecting a result of a particular action. “Today if I do something, tomorrow I will get something”—this idea must go because there is no tomorrow for our soul. All teaching is centred in this involvement of the soul in our action. That is called sankhya. Sankhya is nothing but the continuous action of our soul in every kind of action that we do. If the soul is outside and does not at all participate in our activities, and if our activities are only physical and sensory, then we will be like logs of wood in the ocean thrown here and there, not knowing which direction they will take.

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That is a sthitaprajna, a person so established in yoga that he wants nothing because he has everything. When we have everything, we do not want anything. It is because we do not have everything that we have a particular desire for certain things. This sthitaprajna is one whose consciousness is established in the Soul of the cosmos and, therefore, he wants nothing. 

The question of wanting does not arise on account of his soul being everywhere : 

"yena sarvam idam tatam." (BG- CH-2. SLO- 17).

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To him, this whole world looks like a dark dream, as it were. Where we see values, he does not see values; and where he sees values, we do not see values. For us, this world is the only reality, and God is a possible conceptuality. 

For him, God is the only reality, and the world is only a conceptuality .                                                                                                                                                                                                                            "Ya nisa sarvabhutanam tasyam jagarti samyami, 

yasyam jagrati bhutani sa nisa pasyato mune? (BG- CH-2. SLO- 69):                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 ------------------------------------                                                                                                               

This world is a dream for him, while for us it is a hard, waking reality. For him, the Ultimate Supreme Essence is the final waking, but not for us who, like owls in the daytime, know not that the sun is shining. In the bright light of the solar orb, the owl sees nothing but darkness; similarly, in this dazzle of the Supreme Being everywhere, in this pervasive action of the soul of all things perpetually, we are totally blind. The very existence of it is obliterated, as it were. The soul’s existence is completely obliterated from our perception because our perception is sensory, whereas spiritual perception is an insight into the soul.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                "Paranci khani vyatrnat svayambhuh

 tasmat parah pasyati antaratman: aiksat ;

kascid   dhirah   pratyag atmanam  aiksat

avrtta caksur  amartatvam  iccahan." (Katha Upanishad- CH-2.SEC-1 Mantram .1).                                                                                                                                                                                     

The Kathopanishad says that God has cursed us, as it were; Brahma cast an imprecation on every one of us by piercing the sense organs in an outward direction.

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Why has he cursed us like that? It is an imprecation, the compulsion of the sense organs in the direction of what is not the Self. That is, the anatman, or the object, is so intense that we live in the world of the sense organs only. 

Therefore, we are in a world of death and destruction. 

"Anityam  ma sukham lokam." (9.33); 

"duhkhalayam asasvatam" (  BG- CH-8. SLO- 15). 

Anityam is the word that is used in the Bhagavadgita for what the world is. The world is not at all permanent, and we should not expect any permanent value in this world. It is engendered by sorrow from beginning to end. 

Asukham lokam, duhkhalayam : This is the house of sorrow.

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To be continued ...

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