Bhagwad Gita - Post 34

Verse 65

Prasaade sarvaduhkhaanaam

Haanir asyopajaayate;

Prasannachetaso hyaashu

Buddhih paryavatishthate.

In that peace all pains are destroyed,

for the intellect of the tranquil-minded soon becomes steady.

Lord Krishna now explains that when the mind is placid and pure, it has enacted for itself the cessation of all miseries arising from conjunction with prakriti materialism.

Prasanna-chetah refers to that delightful one whose mind is expunged of all impediments that hinders it from realizing the eternal soul while bestowing the spiritual intelligence needed for illumination. Thus, when the mind has been purified, all sorrow is terminated.

When one strives for pleasure, he undergoes lot of pain / lot of struggle for getting that pleasure, when he gets it, there is a pain / fear of losing it, when he actually loses it, then it is again lot of pain.

And, if he does not get at all in the first instance, there is pain from the very beginning.

Non-attachment is the key by which we can dilute the harmful effects of desire and hatred and we can escape from vicious cycle towards destruction of mind.

Just this awareness, the discrimination, the understanding in mind that I am unattached with outer world, I am in control of the self or supreme self, I am with ‘him’, can lower the power of the overpowered senses, it can eliminate desire and hatred and then even though we interact with the senses, we attain peace.

In peace, all sorrows are withdrawn from oneself. And mind becomes clear. He who is clear minded, intelligence immediately becomes steady.

Verse 66

Naasti buddhir ayuktasya

Na chaayuktasya bhaavanaa;

Na chaabhaavayatah shaantir

Ashaantasya kutah sukham.

There is no knowledge of the Self to the unsteady,

and to the unsteady no meditation is possible;

and to the un-meditative there can be no peace;

and to the man who has no peace,

how can there be happiness?

Lord Krishna now reveals the controlling of the senses as a means of attaining spiritual intelligence in a converse way. The Lord states that one with an uncontrolled mind can never possess spiritual intelligence even if well versed in the Vedic scriptures and is taught by a Realized master.

Why is this true? Because with an uncontrolled mind it is not possible to have spiritual intelligence, without spiritual intelligence one cannot meditate and without meditation it is not possible to realize the Ultimate Truth. 

So, one who has an uncontrolled mind is bereft of this, for one who cannot meditate, who is unable to enlighten themselves within there is no peace and where there is no peace, how can there be happiness?

There are various manifestations of a mind which is uncontrolled like Anger, Greed, Envy, Worldly ambition etc. They are all different but when one transcends all these, the peace experienced is the same

Shanti or peace refers also to liberation. Shanti, moksha or liberation and nirvana all have a similar meaning denoting termination of the samsara or worldly existence.

Swami says,

"Once a man is free from undue attachment to the body and its appurtenances (things attached to "the body"), he is liberated also from the pulls of joy / grief / bad / pleasures / pain etc. He is firmly established in equanimity, fortitude and undisturbed balance" - (Message of the Lord).

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 33

Verse 64

Raagadwesha viyuktaistu

Vishayaanindriyaishcharan;

Aatmavashyair vidheyaatmaa

Prasaadamadhigacchati.

But the self-controlled man,

moving amongst objects with the senses under restraint, 

and free from attraction and repulsion,

attains to peace.

In the last shloka, Shri Krishna explained the “ladder of fall”, or how constant thinking about material objects leads to a fall from equanimity. In this verse, He explains the exact opposite scenario, where bringing the senses and the mind under control brings us to a state of happiness. Here’s the sequence of events:

Bring senses and mind under control à one becomes devoid of attraction and revulsion à he can experience the material world without any problem à his mind becomes tranquil à his intellect becomes steady à he has no more sorrow à he attains the state of happiness.

Attachment and aversion are two sides of the same coin. Aversion is nothing but negative attachment. Just as, in attachment, the object of attachment repeatedly comes to one’s mind; similarly, in aversion, the object of hatred keeps popping into the mind. 

When the mind is free from both attachment and aversion, uses only the intellect for any action outward and is inwardly absorbed in devotion to God / contemplation on the SELF, one receives the grace of God and experiences unlimited divine love / bliss of SELF. 

On experiencing that higher taste, the mind no longer feels attracted to the sense objects, even while using them. Thus, even while tasting, touching, smelling, hearing, and seeing, like all of us, the sthithaprajña is free from both attachment and aversion.

The jñānīs who propound the worship of the undifferentiated attributeless Brahman do not understand this point when they recommend giving up all attachments. However, Shri Krishna states: “Those who attach their minds to me with unadulterated devotion rise above the three modes of material nature and attain the level of the supreme Brahman.” (Bhagavad Gita 14.26)

Swami Sivananda writes on a Jivan mukta, thus:

"The sage lives forever. He has attained life everlasting. Cravings torture him not. Sins stain him not. Birth and death touch him not. Pains and tribulations torment him not. 

The Jivanmukta is freed from the trammels of mind and matter. He is absolutely free, perfect, independent. He is absolutely free from hatred, lust, cares, worries, and anxieties. 

There, at the summit of the Hill of Eternal Bliss, you can see now the Jivanmukta or a full-blown Yogi. He has climbed the stupendous heights through intense and constant struggle. 

He did profound Nididhyasana or meditation. He spent sleepless nights. He kept long vigils on several halting stages. He persevered with patience and diligence. He has surmounted many obstacles. He conquered despair, gloom, and depression. "

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 32

Verse 63

Krodhaad bhavati sammohah

Sammohaat smriti vibhramah;

Smritibhramshaad buddhinaasho

Buddhinaashaat pranashyati.

From anger comes delusion;

from delusion the loss of memory;

from loss of memory the destruction of discrimination;

from the destruction of discrimination, he perishes.

Swami Chinmayananda has described this verse beautifully. No other commentary can match his style of explaining, when it comes to this verse.

He writes,

“Like a tree emerges from a seed, the source of all evil starts from our own wrong thinking, or false imaginations.

….When we constantly think upon a sense-object, the CONSISTENCY OF THOUGHT creates in us an ATTACHMENT for the object of our thought; and, when more and more thoughts flow towards an object of attachment, they crystallize to form a BURNING DESIRE for the possession and enjoyment of the object-of-attachment. 

The same force of the motion, when directed towards obstacles that threaten the non-fulfillment of our desires, is called ANGER (Krodha). An intellect fumed with anger (Krodha) comes to experience DELUSION and, the deluded intellect has no power of discrimination, because it loses all MEMORIES OF THE PAST. 

Any one filled with anger is capable of doing acts totally forgetting himself and his relationship with all others. Sri Sankaracharya says in this connection that a deluded fool, in this mental condition, might even fight with his own teachers or parents, forgetting his indebtedness to these revered persons.

Thus, when an individual, through wrong channels of thinking, becomes ATTACHED to an object, the attachment matures into a burning DESIRE to own that object. 

Then, when an obstruction to possess that object of desire shoots him up into a fit of ANGER, the mental disturbance caused by the emotion DELUDES the intellect and makes the individual FORGET his sense of proportion and his sense of relationship with things and beings around him. 

When thus, a deluded intellect forgets its dignity of culture, it loses its discriminative capacity, which is called, in common parlance, as 'conscience' (Buddhi). 

Conscience is that knowledge enjoyed for differentiating the good from the evil, which often forms a standard in ourselves, and, whenever it can, warns the mind against its lustful sensuousness and animalism."

Let’s take an example to get more clearer on what this verse says and how the Acharya has explained the same.

A person has thoughts about sale of a most advanced laptop, and he gets attached to that laptop sale deal. He develops the desire to buy that laptop by all means. 

Now, at this point, he has purchased the laptop and is extremely attached to it.

His equanimity has already been disturbed. He is dragged back into the material world and has taken one step backwards from moksha or freedom.

So, attachment (for that laptop) has given birth to desire to own it and his equanimity is disturbed.

Let’s move forward in the sequence:

The laptop either gets conked off or it is lost. What happens then??

He is angry that it has broken down, he completely loses his equanimity, takes anger out on his wife and family environment is agitated.

Here, not only has he completely lost his equanimity, but has also caused pain to other members of his family. So, the message here is that constant pondering and thinking about objects eventually leads to moving away from equanimity, hence it is to be avoided, or at least minimized to the extent possible.

An interesting point seen here is around anger. Per the shlokas, anger is caused when one’s desire gets obstructed. Also, attachment to a concept causes continual waves of thought, anger and delusion, in other words, stress. Therefore, these shlokas provide an ancient but relevant analysis of anger and stress.

So, attachment - desire - indulgence in para dharma - anger on losing the object desired, all these have been observed so far in the above example.

From krodha arises bewilderment and delusion which is the mental condition where one is no longer cognizant of what action should be performed and what action should not be performed. One will foolishly do anything in this condition.

Thereafter comes dementia causing loss in memory of the process one began in order to constrain the senses and control the mind. From dementia comes loss of will power, one no longer has the drive and incentive to cultivate themselves towards obtaining spiritual realization of the eternal soul. 

Memory loss mentioned in this verse is not physical loss of memory, but it denotes loss of wisdom learnt and practiced all these years, which is lost due to delusion of mind caused due to anger.

When this happens then one perishes, with his spiritual opportunity being drowned again and again in samsara the endless cycle of birth and death in the material existence.

So, here perishing is not to be taken in literal sense that one dies, but the perishing is the losing of one's opportunity to go beyond the cycle of birth/death, i.e. Samsara!!!

How then a Stitaprajna exists, in contrast to the existence of a normal jiva explained in this verse?

Let us see in the next verse...

Love.