A Study of the Bhagavadgita : 46 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday 21, Aug 2024, 06:20.
A Study of the Bhagavadgita:
Chapter 8: The Stages of Yoga-4.
Swami Krishnananda
Post-46.

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Asmad ajnanasanbhutam hrtstham jnanasinatmanah: 


Therefore Arjuna, rend asunder, break this darkness of ignorance that is veiling your consciousness. You have to rend asunder this veil by the effort of your own mind. Here is a very concentrated statement on what Yoga practice is. More details will be told in the Sixth Chapter. By Yoga, by jnana, by attainment of true Selfhood, you pierce through the veil of ignorance which makes you feel always that you are a finite individual, not knowing the fact that there is an infinitude that is around you in the form of this very vast space-time cosmos. This space-time cosmos itself is your larger self. Your true being is as wide as this vast space. Can you imagine that you are as wide as space?

The consciousness that you are finite is also involved in the consciousness of there being something above the finite. How would you know that the finite is actually finite? How do you know that you are bound, unless there is a consciousness of it being possible not to be bound? You have already assumed the presence of an infinitude of yourself in the very consciousness of your being finite. A finite thing really cannot know that it is finite. As a larger involvement of it is already there beyond the boundary of finitude, it vaguely feels that it has to break through this finitude. Unless you are immortal in your nature, you will not fear death. A thing that is really bound to death cannot fear death. The fear of extinction of personality, which is death, is due to the immortality of your essence. You are really undying in nature; therefore, you would not like to know that death will take place. And you are restless in your finitude because you unconsciously feel inside that there is something more in you than the finitude that is harassing you. Unless you become as large as space itself, your finitude will not diminish. As wide as space and enduring as time has to be yourself. Infinity and eternity should blend together in one single experience, which is God-experience. Until this is reached, you will never have peace here. Even the heaven of the gods is not adequate for your longing.

"Brahmarpanam brahma havir brahmagnau brahmana hutam,

 brahmaiva tena gantavyam brahma-karma-samadhina." (Gita 4.24): 

"is a little higher teaching that comes afterwards." 

The consciousness of the Universal should decide and determine your every thought, feeling and action. Whatever you do should be in the light of the Universal, of which the so-called particular is a part and parcel. The consequence that is in your mind when you perform an action should be considered as integrally connected with the action itself. It is not something that will take place in the future. Then all action becomes a little bit of the Universal, and it is not a little work that you do from your own initiative. All that you do is an offering to the Absolute. This is the greatest yajna, or sacrifice, that can be conceived.

A sacrament which is dedicated to the Supreme Being is "brahmarpanam." 

What you offer to the Supreme Absolute cannot be something that is external to you. That which is external to you does not really belong to you, so it cannot be offered. How will you give a gift of something which is not your property? What is really yours can be offered; then it becomes charity, a gift. That which is totally outside you is not your property, because of the fact it is outside. So any amount of material gift is no gift unless you yourself are also there as a part of the gift. Something of you has to go.

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Continued

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