The Moksha Gita: Chapter: 7 -Slogas - 26 to 30.. by Swami Sivananda - Commentary by Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 17, October 2026,06:00. 
Books
Bhagavad Gita & Hinduism
The Moksha Gita: 7-   Swami Sivananda.
Chapter 7: The Process of Sadhana: 26 to 30.
Commentary:  Swami Krishnananda.
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संनियम्येन्द्रियग्रामं सदोद्यद्भावनां जहि ।

निमज्जय मनोऽन्तस्थे ब्रह्मण्येवमतन्द्रितः ॥

येनानुभवितुं स्वस्य ब्रह्मणैक्यं त्वमर्हसि ॥२६॥

26. 

Restrain the senses. Silence the bubbling thoughts. Drown the mind in Brahman, who is within. Now you can realise your identity with Brahman.

The restraining of the senses is not done through forced suppression. No natural desire or instinctive impulse can be suppressed with might without allowing it to torment the individual at a later date. It is not punishing but coaxing the senses through discriminative understanding that can make them rest at peace. The senses are not the enemies, the mind that orders them to work is the real enemy of peace. The mind can never be killed by plucking the eyes or cutting the ears. It is by cutting the ears and plucking the eyes of the mind that true peace can be gained. There is nothing bad with things as such. It is the perceiving mind that is bad, that has to be taught lessons.

The bubbling thoughts can be silenced by tasting the bliss of the Atma. The mind throbs because it wants pleasures. Let it taste the bliss of the Self. Then it will work no more. When the mind is drowned in Brahman, when it becomes melted in Brahman, when it sports in the heart of Brahman, when it drinks deep the nectar of Brahman, when it is identical with Brahman, then it will cease to function, then it will crave not for pleasures any more. The drowning of individuality in Brahman is the supreme purpose of life. All activity is for this purpose. All bustle and business of life is for this purpose. If this is not achieved, nothing is achieved. If this is lost, all is lost. He is an unfortunate creature who dies without realising Brahman in this birth. For what other use is human life here? Nothing is great, nothing is noble, nothing is sacred before the act of the dissolution of oneself in the Supreme Brahman.

All aspirants for the ultimate Good aim at this end, whatever be the paths they may take, Glory to those people who have dedicated their lives for losing themselves in the Ocean of Brahman. Are there more blessed men than these fortunate, people?

चतुःसाधनसंपत्या युक्तो वाचं नियम्य च ।

संहत्य सकला आशाः शृणु वेदसरस्वतीम् ॥

विचिन्तय श्रुतं सम्यग्ध्यायंश्चैह्यात्मवेदनम् ॥२७॥

27. 

Acquire the four means. Control your speech. Annihilate all hopes. Hear the Srutis. Reflect on what you have heard. Then meditate. You will attain Self-realisation.

Viveka or discrimination between the Reality and the shadow is the first of the four means to self purification. All objects which are seen or heard are unreal. The whole universe is a dream. The world is a mere show. Brahman alone is the Truth. Anything that is sensed by the organs, thought by the mind or understood by the intellect is unreal. What remains is the Real. The knowledge of this fact is Viveka.

Such a Viveka leads to complete disgust for the shadow or the unreal phantasm. The mind wants the Real Brahman only and nothing else that appears. Being filled with an overwhelming love for Brahman, there arises in the mind a total dispassion for the separative and differentiated things. This dispassion for or renunciation of the three worlds, for the sake of attaining Brahman is Vairagya, the second of the four means. Vairagya should be the outcome of the intense desire for the Real, and other forms of false temporary disgust should not be mistaken for spiritual Vairagya.

Because of the appearance of Viveka and Vairagya, the Shatsampat constituting Sama (tranquillity of the mind), Dama (restraint of the senses), Uparati (cessation from activity), Titiksha (patience and endurance), Sraddha (faith in the scriptures, Guru and God), Samadhana (one-pointedness of mind), follows as a corollary. This treasure of the sixfold virtues is the third of the four means.

Thefourth is Mumukshuttwa or the fiery love for Moksha or Final Emancipation of the self. These qualities make a person fit for the practical courses of meditation – Sravana, Manana and Nididhyasana.

All hopes for acquiring name and fame should be buried under the love for the Eternal. Casting aside the earth and the heaven as worthless, the aspirant should get initiation from a Guru into the mysteries of meditation on Brahman. The grace of God and the blessings of the Preceptor will elevate the mind of the aspirant and make it successful in its meditation. The process of Self-realization will not become very difficult if the prescribed method of Sadhana is correctly followed with care and vigilance.

निर्विकल्पे समाधौ हि सुबोधं ब्रह्म निश्चितम् ।

ब्रहाण्येव विलीने स्यात्समाधिः शुद्मानसे ॥२८॥

28. 

Brahman can be clearly and definitely realised only through Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Samadhi ensues only when the purified mind is merged in Brahman.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is the highest expansion of the mind into Brahman-Consciousness. It is existing as Pure Satchidananda. This state is reached through the integration of personality. The rays of consciousness which are scattered through objectification are withdrawn and centred in the Root-Noumenon. When the sun comes to the centre of the head, there is no perception of the shadow, for it becomes identified with its source, the substance. When the consciousness-rays centre themselves in their Substance, the Imperishable Self, the shadow of the universe vanishes, for it gets merged in the Source of Brahman.

Nirvikalpa Samadhi is not Infinite Perception as in the case of Savikalpa Samadhi, but Infinite Being. The Upanishad describes this State as the Fullness of Perfection where one sees nothing else, hears nothing else, understands nothing else. It is called the Bhuma, the Great Plenum. It is without duality and hence without sense-cognition. It is the getting of everything, the fulfilment of all desires, the most supreme blessing, the only Ideal worth coveting. Nothing on earth or in heaven can give that joy. The joys of the fourteen worlds put together are a drop in the Ocean of Brahman-Bliss. The world cannot give that bliss, nor can it take it away. It is what is real in the absolute sense immutable, eternally existent, exempt from all change, all satisfying, undivided, Self-luminous, with neither good nor evil, neither past nor present nor future, disembodied, the glory beyond all grasp of thought, the peace that is the very purpose of all striving, nearer than the nearest, dearer than the dearest, the Self-Identical Existence, here and now. This is Brahman-realization experienced through the passage of Nirvikalpa Samadhi.

Here the highly purified mind is dissolved in Brahman and individual reality and egoistic independence is lost in the splendid light of the Real.

परे ब्रह्मणि विज्ञाते निर्विकल्पसमाधिना ।

भिद्यते हृदयग्रन्थिः कामोऽविद्या च कर्म च ॥२९॥

29. 

When Brahman is realised by means of Nirvikalpa Samadhi, then the heart's knot viz., Avidya (ignorance), Kama (desire) and Karma (action), is destroyed.

Avidya, Kama and Karma are the three knots of the heart. Avidya breeds Kama and Kama begets Karma. Avidya is the ignorance which makes the individual perceive pluralistic reality and dualistic truth and thus gives rise to Kama or desire to acquire the objects which are other than the self. Kama or desire puts forth effort or Karma to obtain the desired objects. Avidya goads Kama and Kama goads Karma. Karma perpetrates self-indulgence! This sinful activity of worldly life is kept up by the operation of Avidya, Kama and Karma.

The Hridaya-Granthi or the knot of the heart is cut asunder when the majesty of Brahman is beheld. All doubts are cleared. All Karmas perish. The experience of Samadhi is the identification of the Self with the natural Essence of Existence Here, the seed of Avidya is burnt beyond further appearance, and the darkness of unconsciousness is lighted up by the brilliance of Absolute Consciousness. Hence, Avidya being no more, the urge for desiring objects is brought to cessation, whereby the impulse for action is sublimated into its source.

Birth is overcome, death is negated. The joy of the completeness of Being cannot be had in a semblance of it appearing to reflect in a point of space. The thought-force is entirely sucked in by the Sun of Consciousness and together with it all its modifications. When the root is pulled out, the trunk and the branches and the leaves are all levelled down. Hence the physical body has to drop off of itself being not fed by thought-relations. In such an exalted condition the physical body cannot be retained for more than two or three weeks. All bodies are possessed by the same Consciousness and, therefore, one who has realised his identity with Absoluteness cannot be attached to any particular body in speciality.

विना संपूर्णवैराग्यात्समाधिस्ते न सिद्धयति ।

समाधि चात्मनो बोधी विना ते नैव जायते ॥

अन्तरा चात्मसंवेदं सम्यङ् मोक्षो न सिद्धयति ॥३०॥

30. 

You cannot have Samadhi without perfect dispassion; you cannot have Self-realization without Samadhi; you cannot have perfect freedom without Self-realization.

Samadhi is the equilibrium of Consciousness. Passion is the clinging to particularised consciousness. Hence Samadhi cannot be attained without dispassion.

Self-realization is the resting in the conscious equanimity of Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. It cannot be attained without reaching the equilibrium of Samadhi.

Perfect Freedom is the existence in the state of Absolute Independence or Kaivalya. Absolute Independence is Self-rootedness, Self-existence and eternal Self-sufficiency which is possible only after realising the non-related nature of the Self through its realization.

Kaivalya-Moksha is Absolute Liberation. The soul is drowned in the sea of Joy. Timeless and incorruptible, spaceless and absolute, a cessation of all life and a losing of everything, and yet, it is the real Divine Life, the being of All at once! It is the Zenith of Intelligence and Strength, of Knowledge and Power, of Wisdom and Bliss. The pride of individual greatness is superseded by a magical touch, a trembling shock, and the soul enters the Hall of Eternity. An intoxication of All-Unity overpowers the persisting multitudinousness, and there Pure Consciousness without ever losing its Self-Identity gives itself to the torrential flood of Limitless Bliss and Infinite Light. The Light is satisfied only in the supra-essential Essence. It is the simple ground, the still waste, wherein is nothing, but which is everything. It is the state where no man dwells, the immovable static being, and yet by this Immovability are all things moved. It is the vacuous plenitude, the dynamic statis, the great fulfilment effected by great renunciation. It is the Goal of life!

इति श्रीमन्मोक्षगीतासूपनिषत्सु ब्रह्मविद्यायां योगशास्त्रे

गुरुशिष्यसंवादे ब्रह्मात्मयोगो नाम सप्तमोऽध्यायः ॥७॥

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