Commentary on the Bhagavadgita - 13- 1. Swami Krishnananda.

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BID FAREWELL
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Wednesday,  September 22, 2021. 8:10. AM.
Discourse 13: The Fifth Chapter Concludes  : 
The Characteristics of the Sage Who is Established in Brahman :
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Slokam-s under - are the concluding part of the Fifth Chapter : 

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na prahṛṣyet priyaṁ prāpya nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam

sthirabuddhir asaṁmūḍho brahmavid brahmaṇi sthitaḥ (5.20)

bāhyasparśeṣvasaktātmā vindatyātmani yat sukham

sa brahmayogayuktātmā sukham akṣayam aśnute (5.21)

ye hi saṁsparśajā bhogā duḥkhayonaya eva te

ādyantavantaḥ kaunteya na teṣu ramate budhaḥ (5.22)

śaknotīhaiva yaḥ soḍhuṁ prāk śarīravimokṣaṇāt

kāmakrodhodbhavaṁ vegaṁ sa yuktaḥ sa sukhī naraḥ (5.23)

yo’ntaḥsukho’ntarārāmas tathāntarjyotir eva yaḥ

sa yogī brahmanirvāṇaṁ brahmabhūto’dhigacchati (5.24)

labhante brahmanirvāṇam ṛṣayaḥ kṣīṇakalmaṣāḥ

chinnadvaidhā yatātmānaḥ sarvabhūtahite ratāḥ (5.25)

kāmakrodhaviyuktānāṁ yatīnāṁ yatacetasām

abhito brahmanirvāṇaṁ vartate viditātmanām (5.26)

sparśān kṛtvā bahir bāhyāṁś cakṣuś caivāntare bhruvoḥ

prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā nāsābhyantaracāriṇau (5.27)

yatendriyamanobuddhir munir mokṣaparāyaṇaḥ

vigatecchābhayakrodho yaḥ sadā mukta eva saḥ (5.28)

bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ sarvalokamaheśvaramsuhṛdaṁ

sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati (5.29)

These are the concluding Slokam-s of the Fifth Chapter. 

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Na prahṛṣyet priyaṁ prāpya nodvijet prāpya cāpriyam : The great sage who is established in Brahman neither rejoices on acquiring pleasant things, nor grieves when coming in contact with unpleasant things, because he sees with an equal eye the substances that are the components of pleasant things as well unpleasant things.

The atomic and molecular components of substances cause the differentiation of one substance from another. Milk can become poison if one molecule is removed. All things are just compositions of uniformly spread-out substances. Their permutations and combinations make things look different—beautiful or ugly, stout or thin, necessary or unnecessary, pleasant or unpleasant. Therefore, to the Universal vision of the basic substance of all things, there is neither joy at the perception of what is apparently pleasant, nor is there grief at the perception of what is apparently unpleasant. The pleasant and the unpleasant are actually not things; they are reactions set up by our personality in respect of certain compositions of things. 

Thus, things are actually neither good nor bad, neither beautiful nor ugly, neither pleasant nor unpleasant. We set up different reactions due to the peculiar setup of our psychophysical individuality, which can accommodate only certain things and cannot accommodate certain other things. Therefore, certain things look pleasant and certain things look unpleasant. But to the person who is non-individual, or super-individual—superman, atimanav—to that person who has an equanimous vision of the cosmos, things are neither pleasant nor unpleasant because he is established in the Universal Reality. Brahmaṇi sthitaḥ: Unshaken understanding is his, and establishment of the Self is in Brahman.

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Bāhyasparśeṣvasaktātmā vindatyātmani yat sukham, sa brahmayogayuktātmā sukham akṣayam aśnute : When we are totally detached from connection with the objects of sense, when the senses do not see any meaning in the objects outside and, therefore, do not pull the consciousness out in the direction of objects, when consciousness does not defeat itself through perception in terms of the sense organs, the energy of the person increases, and the Self realises itself, whereas the Self loses itself in the perception and contact of external objects. In all perceptions there is an element of losing consciousness. 

That is why, in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, even the perception of an object without any element of love or hatred is called a wrong perception from the point of view of yoga because all perceptions, even if they are so-called right perceptions, are partial. For instance, this is a building, and it is really a right perception; we do not say it is an elephant. 

To say that it is a building and not an elephant is indeed a right perception, but it is not a right perception from another point of view because the limited operation of the mind of an individual characterises certain shapes as ‘a building’, while actually, internally, we will find that which is in one thing is also in another thing.

To be continued .....

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