Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 18-6. - Swami Krishnananda.
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Friday, February 18, 2022. 20:00.
The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita
Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).
Chapter 18: Reconciling Knowledge and Action - 6.
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First of all, you must understand what a person is. If you think that you are the body, naturally you cannot become the action, you cannot melt the body in action. But you are not the body. This is what we are dinning into the ears of everyone. You are a status, a consciousness, an awareness, an idea, a concept. This must be accepted first. This we have already understood to some extent when we considered this issue a few minutes before. Therefore, your engagement in action does not mean the body getting engaged – yourself getting engaged. And what are you? Just consider what you are. You are an ideal, an idea, a sense of being, a consciousness, an attitude; you are something very ethereal, as it were. You do not seem to be a solid person, even to your own self. You are something different from your body and, as I mentioned just now, bodily relationship does not count much. The body is practically nothing in comparison with ideological issues which are the life and death of everybody.
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SBG - Chapter 4. ( Jnana-karma-sanyasa-yogam. ) -
Slokam-24.
"brahmarpanam brahma havir brahmagnau brahmana hutam
brahmaiva tena gantavyam brahma-karma-samadhina."
Translation of slokam in one line :
BG 4.24: For those who are completely absorbed in God-consciousness, the oblation is Brahman, the ladle with which it is offered is Brahman, the act of offering is Brahman, and the sacrificial fire is also Brahman. Such persons, who view everything as God, easily attain him.
Translation by word (s) :
brahma—Brahman;
arpaṇam—the ladle and other offerings;
brahma—Brahman;
haviḥ—the oblation;
brahma—Brahman;
agnau—in the sacrificial fire;
brahmaṇā—by that person;
hutam—offered;
brahma—Brahman;
eva—certainly;
tena—by that;
gantavyam—to be attained;
brahma—Brahman;
karma—offering;
samādhinā—those completely absorbed in God-consciousness.
Commentary :
Factually, the objects of the world are made from Maya, the material energy of God. Energy is both one with its energetic and also different from it. For example, light is the energy of fire. It can be considered as different from the fire, because it exists outside it. But it can also be reckoned as a part of the fire itself. Hence, when the rays of the sun enter the room through a window, people say, “The sun has come.” Here, they are bundling the sun rays with the sun. The energy is both distinct from the energetic and yet a part of it.
The soul too is the energy of God—it is a spiritual energy, called jīva śhakti. Shree Krishna states this in verse 7.5.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu stated:
jīva-tattva śhakti, kṛiṣhṇa-tattva śhaktimān
gītā-viṣhṇupurāṇādi tāhāte pramāṇa
(Chaitanya Charitāmṛit, Ādi Leela, 7.117)[v19]
“Lord Krishna is the energetic and the soul is his energy. This has been stated in Bhagavad Gita, Viṣhṇu Purāṇ, etc.” Thus, the soul is also simultaneously one with and different from God. Hence, those whose minds are fully absorbed in God-consciousness see the whole world in its unity with God as non-different from him. The Śhrīmad Bhāgavatam states:
sarva-bhūteṣhu yaḥ paśhyed bhagavad-bhāvam ātmanaḥ
bhūtāni bhagavatyātmanyeṣha bhāgavatottamaḥ (11.2.45)[v20]
“One who sees God everywhere and in all beings is the highest spiritualist.” For such advanced spiritualists whose minds are completely absorbed in God-consciousness, the person making the sacrifice, the object of the sacrifice, the instruments of the sacrifice, the sacrificial fire, and the act of sacrifice, are all perceived as non-different from God.
Having explained the spirit in which sacrifice is to be done, Lord Krishna now relates the different kinds of sacrifice people perform in this world for purification.
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When the person, which is the real person I am speaking about, becomes identical with the process – when the performer becomes the performance itself, when the performance does not become an exterior occurrence on the skin of the performer – then action being one with the performer, there is no question of its getting motivated in the direction of an exterior result, because the result also is a part of the person's relationship with reality. Therefore, action does not produce reaction, and it is not to be considered as an action at all. It is a kind of play: lokavattu l?l?kaivalyam (B.S. 2.1.33). It is a joy to act. It is a satisfaction to work, because you are moving within your own self. Work does not mean drudging. It is not a slavish mentality. You are not working for somebody's sake. This idea of ‘somebody' is the great sorrow of man. There is no somebody here. You yourself are in your cosmical relationship, and again remember, not in a material sense but in a wider, deeper, profound, universal sense.
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So you are in a friendly world, you have friends everywhere, and you see yourself everywhere. In this visualisation of the structure of the universe in its relation to you, you will see the God of your creation in the littlest of your actions. You will see yourself in the Almighty, and the Almighty in yourself, which is another way of saying you will see the universe reflected in you. The macrocosm is scintillating in every little microcosm, and vice versa, in the microcosm you will find the representation of the cosmos. Hence, every action becomes a yoga.
SBG- Chapter-4. Slokam-41 :
"yoga-sannyasta-karmanam jnana-sanchhinna-sanshayam
atmavantam na karmani nibadhnanti dhananjaya."
Translation of slokam :
BG 4.41: O Arjun, actions do not bind those who have renounced karm in the fire of Yog, whose doubts have been dispelled by knowledge, and who are situated in knowledge of the self.
Translation :
yoga-sannyasta-karmāṇam—those who renounce ritualistic karm, dedicating their body, mind, and soul to God;
jñāna—by knowledge;
sañchhinna—dispelled;
sanśhayam—doubts;
ātma-vantam—situated in knowledge of the self;
na—not;
karmāṇi—actions;
nibadhnanti—bind;
dhanañjaya—Arjuna, the conqueror of wealth.
Commentary :
Karm is actions involved in prescribed rituals and social duties, sanyās means “to renounce,” while “yog” means “to unite with God.” Here, Shree Krishna has used the word yogasanyasta karmāṇaṁ, referring to “those who renounce all ritualistic karm, dedicating their body, mind, and soul to God.” Such persons do their every action as a service to God. Shree Krishna says that their work performed in devotion do not bind them.
Only those actions bind one in karma, which are performed to fulfill one’s self-interest. When work is done only for the pleasure of God, such action becomes free from all karmic reaction. They are like multiplying numbers with 0 (zero). If we multiply 0 with 10, the result will be 0; if we multiply 0 with 1000, the result will remain 0; and if we multiply 0 with 1 million, the result will still be 0. Similarly, the works that enlightened souls perform in the world do not bind them, because they are offered to God in the fire of Yog, i.e. they are done for the pleasure of God. Thus, although doing all kinds of works, the Saints remain unfettered from the bonds of karma.
By renouncing all deleterious aspects usually connected with individual action, and rooting that purified action in knowledge, about which we made reference just now, and establishing the self in the Self, karma does not bind.
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