The Moksha Gita: Chapter: 7 -Slogas - 21 to25. by Swami Sivananda - Commentary by Swami Krishnananda.

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Friday 25, September 2026,06:00. 
Books
Bhagavad Gita & Hinduism
The Moksha Gita: 7-   Swami Sivananda.
Chapter 7: The Process of Sadhana: 21 to 25.
Commentary:  Swami Krishnananda.

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अभ्यासेनात्मनो ब्रह्मविचारं सहजं कुरु ।

तदैव ते मनस्तिष्ठेदात्मनो निपुणं वशे ॥

नश्यन्ति मनसो ब्रह्मविचारेण मलानि हि ॥२१॥

Slogam - 21. 

You should make Brahma-Vichara habitual in you by constant practice. Then only your mind will be under your perfect control. All the impurities of the mind will be washed away by Brahma-Vichara.

Brahma-Vichara should be the habit of every aspirant in his life. It is his identification with some particular aspect of the Infinite Whole that is his individuality. The life of circumscribed isolation and suffering is the fruit of affirming the Self to be something, for the moment one affirms something, the other aspects of the Absolute Whole are denied their unified existence and are neglected and treated as the not-self. The Whole can never be separated into parts and therefore there is a desire in every self to obtain the not-self. The number of these not-selves runs up to infinity and the self wants to have the entirety of things regarded as not-self. This possession of infinite things requites the self to pass through several births and deaths. Hence, the desire for the Infinite being uncontrollable, the state of Samsara will have to be continued till infinite objects are obtained, i.e., till the realization of the Infinite Whole as one's own Self is achieved.

How, then, to cease from self-affirmation? The constant Vichara on the nature of Brahman as constituting all, even the not-self which is ignored and the self which is asserted, the earth and the heaven, and body, mind and soul, will negate the belief in parts and make the aspirant look on all beings with an equal eye. If at any time the aspirant is unable to deny his individuality, and it the self asserts itself persistently, then he should also affirm simultaneously that he is also all those that are denied as not-self, and thus be true to the Absolute Nature.

This sort of Brahmavichara will wash away all sins and impurities and the aspirant will be liberated from bondage even in this very life. He becomes a Jivanmukta.

कोऽहं कुतो जगज्जातं कथं जन्ममृती पुनः ।

बन्धमोक्षौ च कावेवं मीमांसामनिशं कुरु ॥

तदा हि शाश्वतानन्दपदं यास्यसि चाक्षतम् ॥२२॥

Slogam-22. 

Enquire unceasingly: "Who am I? Whence came this universe? How did birth and death come? What is bondage?" You will be able to attain the imperishable abode of eternal bliss.

Constant enquiries into the essential nature of the universe and Samsara, their origin, their unreality, the cause of birth and death, the nature of bondage and freedom from pain, will thin out the mind in due course.

Who is the Jiva? The Jiva cannot be truly an individual, for individuality is perishable. But the essence of the Jiva persists to exist. The sheaths of the body merge into their original elements. Earth merges in water, water in fire, fire in air, air in space, space in Mula-Prakriti, and Mula-Prakriti in Brahman. The elements of the body equally dissolve themselves. Hence all the effects are transient, only the eternal is true. The Jiva should cease from being too much occupied with a part of the whole and begin to cling to the Whole. The bodies are sustained only by the thoughts of them, and when the individual withdraws the thoughts, feelings and interests from the bodies, they can no longer be felt to be an item of Pure Consciousness.

Whence came this universe? The universe must either be a creation of the Absolute or of the Cosmic mind or of the individual mind. The Absolute does not create any universe, because the Absolute is secondless and unchangeable. The Cosmic mind must have projected the universe out of the stuff of its consciousness. But, then, how is it that the change in subjective consciousness changes the appearance of the forms of the objects? When the imaginative mind changes its mode of thinking, the object of its perception appears to exist only in relation to the subjective consciousness. Moreover, when the Jnani's mind rises high into the transcendental region, the universe vanishes from his view. Hence, the universe may be a creation of the subjective individual.

But, then, again, when the individual becomes a Jnani and when it realises the Infinite Being, the world still exists for the other individuals who have not realised the Truth. Hence the world cannot be the creation of the subjective imagination. It must have an objective reality. Thus, we come to the dilemma that the subjective and the objective aspects of consciousness are both creators as well as not creators of the universe. But the truth seems to be that both are partly true and partly incorrect. The universe is the production of the collective totality of all the individual minds put together. This totality is termed the cosmic Mind. When the individual realises Brahman, the world vanishes to it, for the nature of Brahman is contrary to that of the world. But the world exists to other individuals even after the Self-realization of an individual, for the world is sustained by the mental forces of the remaining individuals.

Thus the loss of an individual through its Self-realization must effect a great change in the universal force of creativity. The universe is thus the construction of thoughts that are interrelated. Birth and death are of such cause, individuality is due to such reason, as is the nature of the creation of the universe.

यदि ते ब्रह्मसंलिप्सा लक्ष्यतृष्णां विनाशय ।

दूरीकरोषि चात्मानं विषयेभ्यो यथा यथा ॥

तथा तथा त्वयि ब्रह्मतेजो वत्स प्रदीप्यते ॥२३॥

Slogam-23. 

If you want to attain Brahman all longings for objects should perish. The more you are removed from objects, the more the effulgence of Brahman will radiate in you.

When the desire for Brahman is generated, the consequential attitude of the one who desires for it should be a distaste for the objects of the senses. The desire for the part cannot be cherished together with a yearning to gain the whole. The mortal and the Immortal are utter contradictions. When the shadow is run after, the substance is left behind. When there is love for the world, the love for the Infinite is cast aside. The mind cannot think of diversity and Unity at one and the same time. In fact, it cannot even think of two objects at a time. It cleverly manages to shift its centres of imagination from one object to another presenting a false appearance that it is centred on one idea. To rest on one idea is not in the scheme of mental activity. When it is forced to centre itself in the thought of Brahman, it must drop down all the clustering objective thoughts

There are grades in reality. The more the mind is centred in Truth, the more is it detached from particularised thinking. The whole universe is a stage where different individuals in the different degrees of their consciousness are let to play their own parts. Each individual has its own thought-form or the imagined world based on its own degree of consciousness. From the highest Ishwara to the lowest straw things are arranged in the various orders of consciousness. This consciousness-order is due to the degrees of their connections with the plural universe. Thus the highest Ishwara is the least connected with the pluralistic reality of the universe. He is the nearest to the Absolute or Brahman. When even the dual consciousness which characterises the region of Ishwara is transcended, the individual is no more an individual, it is absolutely cut off from objective relation, it becomes Brahman, the Great!

रागद्वेषरुषाऽहतामानैर्यदि न मुच्यसे ।

पद्माद्यासन संविष्टोऽप्येकाहं नैव शक्नुयाः ॥

समाधि तर्हि निर्वेष्टं कदापीह निबोध तत् ॥२४॥

Slogam-24. 

You will never be able to go into Samadhi although you can sit in the Padma or Siddha Asana for six hours at a stretch, if you are not free from attraction and repulsion, anger, egoism and pride.

Samadhi or the Balance of Consciousness is not the outcome of formalistic practices. Formality is concerned with externality and externality is not the cause of the misery of Samsara. Asanas and breath-regulations alone cannot steady the consciousness of the individual. It is the regulation of thought-functioning that gives rise to higher experiences in the spiritual realm. In Vedantic Sadhana the physical body and the vital are not taken much into account. They being the products of subtler powers that control the life of the individual, the control of those internal forces implies the stoppage of the activity of all their manifestations. Therefore the Vedantic aspirant controls his mind and the intellect, subdues anger, egoism and pride, and thus gets control over the whole nature.

Attraction and repulsion are the main twin-powers which keep in tact the existence of the world. Love for a certain object automatically indicates indifference or hatred towards other objects. Here is created a difference in the undivided nature of Truth. Where there is difference, there is the seed of sorrow, pain, death, birth and all that is undesirable.

Pride is seated in the intellect. The sense of superiority which gives rise to pride creates a difference between things of the universe. Egoism and anger are very powerful agents which bring in sharp differentiation within the One Indivisible Brahman. Thus they are the creators of the appearance of untruth, and as long as these are not held in check, the state of Samadhi cannot be experienced, for Samadhi is an experience of utter Oneness of Consciousness.

The entire ideal of all Sadhanas for Self-realization is to root out differences in life. When this is done, it is immaterial whether one is sitting on Asana or not, practises Pranayama or not. When the sun rises, there is no need of lighting a candlestick. The stars shine only so long as it is not day-break.

विलापय वचश्चित्ते चित्तं बुद्धौ च शेमुषीम् ।

तत्साक्षिणि परां शान्तिमुपभुङ्क्ष्व ततः परम् ॥२५॥

Slogam-25. 

Merge the speech in the mind; merge the mind in the intellect; merge the intellect in the witness of the intellect or Brahman and enjoy the Supreme Peace.

Speech is loud thinking. It is the manifestation of thought only. When speech is hushed, the activity of the mind is accelerated. Talking is a method employed by the mind to keep itself in touch with the external universe. Speech is, therefore, a desire to materialise. Hence if self-expression is to be checked and the same power directed inward, speech is to be checked and the energy that is spent in talking should be stored up in the internal mind.

The mind, again, is a gross form of consciousness. It is itself a materialisation or a self-expression of the higher intelligence. To effect self-withdrawal, the mind should be merged in the higher intellect which is the reflection of Brahman or Atman within.

The intellect is only a shadow of Consciousness. It acts like a projection of the Self-existent and Self-luminous Self. It has got the nature of distracting Self-awareness because it is characterised by the quality of Rajas. Hence, the intellect should be merged in the eternal Self, Atma or Brahman.

This is the progressive involutionary method of meditation. Those who cannot at once practise the deep affirmation of the One Reality may practise this gradual process of turning back objectivity into the inward Self.

The method of this withdrawing of external consciousness can be practised only when there is not much of disturbance from the outside world. The objective reality of the world is as much true as the subjective reality of the body, and hence it cannot be easily thought that because the world is an imagination of the individual, abstraction of senses can be practised amidst bustle, business and hurry. The influence of the external universe is terrible on the individual, because the individual is a part of the universe. The part cannot deny the whole of the world unless it has transcended worldly consciousness. Therefore, in the beginning, seclusion, silence, penance are all necessary for the disciplining of the brutal self.

Continues

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