Bhagwad Gita - Post 66

Verse 17

Tadbuddhayas tadaatmaanas

Tannishthaas tatparaayanaah;

Gacchantyapunaraavrittim

Jnaana nirdhoota kalmashaah.

Their intellect absorbed in That, their self being That; established in That, with That as their supreme goal, they go whence there is no return, their sins dispelled by knowledge.

Lord Krishna is now stating the results of such worship. Those who are fixed and resolute in this spiritual knowledge, whose conviction is unwavering and steady, whose one aim is That, whose mind is centered in That, whose only refuge is That and That alone, whose sins have been dissolved by atma tattva and one achieves moksha or liberation and attains the Supreme Lord.

One can attain to this state of utter perfection free from the goodness or the badness of things, or the qualities of prakriti, by intense concentration on the transcendence which is God. 

God is untarnished because of there being no change, no mutation, no difference, no physicality and no externality in God. Meditation is to be conducted by the consciousness of the seeker on a universal transcendence of its own self, freed from the clutches of whatever the world may appear to be. 

Tadbuddhayaḥ: They are tadbuddhayaḥ who are centred in their intellect, and through their intellect are centred in That; their understanding is rooted in That. 

Tadātmānaḥ: Whose self is perfectly lodged in That. Our existence itself is Its existence, and Its existence is our existence; this state of affairs is called tadātmānaḥ. 

Tadātmānaḥ is the uniting of the self with the Self. That is, the individual self unites itself with the Universal Self. That state is called tadātmānaḥ. 

Those who are established in their understanding have also their self rooted in that Supreme Being. 

Tanniṣṭhāḥ: Whose main occupation is establishment in that Supreme Being. Our daily activity, our professions, our occupations, whatever we do, is a preparation for the establishment of ourselves in That.

The activities of people, the daily routine of anybody, should be so conducted and so refined and harmonized that it stands perfectly in order in respect of that Supreme Being, Who is perfect order. 

It does not mean that when we move to God, we move from wrong to right. It is a movement from the lesser right to the higher right.

It is also not moving from falsehood to truth. It is a movement from the lesser truth to the higher truth. 

Tanniṣṭhāḥ: That is establishment of oneself in that Supreme Being. Niṣṭhāḥ is establishment, rootedness. 

Tatparāyaṇāḥ is always eager to attain That. Day in and day out we brood over the possibility of this supreme attainment: “When shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it?” You can go on chanting this mantra: “When shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it, when shall I get it?” 

This little sentence is also a recipe for bringing the mind back to the point of concentration on That. Eagerness to receive that Being into ourselves, eagerness to unite ourselves with that Being is tivra vairagya, intense detachment towards the world of objects. It is tivra samvega, or intense ardour to unite oneself with God. 

This is a word used in Patanjali’s sutra—tīvrasaṁvegānām āsannaḥ (Y.S. 1.21): God is near to you to the extent you are eager to attain Him. 

Tatparāyaṇāḥ means one who is intensely eager to reach That, and his ardour is burning like a flame. 

Gacchantyapunarāvṛttiṁ: Such persons, having attained immortality, will not return to this world of mortality. 

Jñānanirdhūtakalmaṣāḥ: On account of their being purified through the highest knowledge, they do not get reborn into this world of bondage and limitations. Immortality is attained.

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 65

Verse 16

Jnaanena tu tad ajnaanam

Yeshaam naashitam aatmanah;

Teshaam aadityavaj jnaanam

Prakaashayati tatparam.

But, to those whose ignorance is destroyed by knowledge of the Self, like the sun, knowledge reveals the Supreme (Brahman).

Here Lord Krishna is emphasizing that persons whose spiritual knowledge has become awakened do not become deluded in the material existence. They are able to discriminate between the mundane material knowledge and the divine spiritual knowledge by knowledge of the atman or soul and knowledge of the Supreme. This spiritual knowledge destroys all ignorance and manifests illumination of the Supreme Lord within the etheric heart of a human being just as the sun destroying darkness and illuminates all things.

Let us resort to Sri Chinmaya’s commentary for this profound declaration by Sri Krishna in this verse.

Acharya writes, 

“In the case of finite mortals, sighing and sobbing in ignorance, the Self is screened off from them by lifeless walls of nescience (Avidya). The man of realization is one in whom Knowledge has lifted this veil of ignorance.

Darkness is removed by Light not by degrees but instantaneously --- however old the darkness may be and however thick its density. Similarly, in one who has Knowledge (Jnana) of the Self, the beginningless ignorance is lifted and within a lightning flash, his ignorance ends.

Ignorance creates the ego-centric concept and the ego thrives in the body, mind and intellect. With the end of ignorance, the ego too ends.”

In Ramayana, a verse states:

Rākāpati ṣhoṛasa uahiṅ

Tārāgana samudāi

Sakala girinha dava lāia

Binu rabi rāti na jāi

“Despite the combined light of the full moon and all the visible stars in a cloudless sky, the night does not go.  But the moment the sun rises, the night makes a hasty exit.”

The light of the sun is such that the darkness cannot remain before it.  The light of God’s knowledge has a similar effect in dispelling the darkness of ignorance. 

Chinmaya writes on this illumination in the context of today's verse thus:

“When we reconsider this statement, it is not very difficult for us to understand that the sun cannot be covered by a tiny bit of a cloud. 

Also, the region of the cloud is far removed from the centre of the Universe where the sun, in its infinite glory, revels as the one-without-a-second. The minute humans observing from the surface of the globe with their tiny eyes, experience that the glorious orb of the sun is being veiled because of a wisp of cloud. Even a mighty mountain can be veiled from our vision if we put our tiny little finger very near our eyes!

Similarly, the ego (Jiva) looking up to the Atman finds that ignorance is enveloping the Infinite. This ignorance is not in Truth, just as the clouds are never in the sun. The finite ignorance is certainly a limited factor compared with the infinitude of Reality. 

And yet, the mist of Self forgetfulness that hangs in the chambers of the heart gives the ego the false notion that the Spiritual Reality is enveloped by ignorance. When this ignorance is removed, the Self becomes manifest, just as when the cloud has moved away, the sun becomes manifest.

To see the sun, we need no other light; to experience the Self we need no other experience. The Self IS Awareness. It is Consciousness.”

Dear All,

The beauty is that having been created as pure divine being, within us is the Sun, the illumination or the Knowledge - CHIT.

We are the chit, the sat-chit-ananda Swarupas.

Yet, over several births, we ourselves have clouded the sun that we are, with the cloud of our ignorance. 

Incarnations come and teach us, our Acharya teach us, the entire shrutis (Upanishads) teach us that “we are the light”.

However, since the clouding of our real SELF is also due to our own karmas, we only have to take efforts, engage in serious spiritual sadhana to uncloud our clouded ego / ignorance (avidya) so that we shine brilliantly as the eternal light within us. 

Lord does help us when we sincerely pray to Him to help us in our sadhana and hence we invoke His guidance by singing, 

“Sathya Jyothi Jalao,

Prema Jyothi Jalao,

Ananda Jyothi Jalao”

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 64

Verse 8 

Naiva kinchit karomeeti

Yukto manyeta tattwavit;

Pashyan shrunvan sprishan jighran

Nashnan gacchan swapan shwasan.

“I do nothing at all”—thus will the harmonized  knower of Truth think—seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, eating, going, sleeping, breathing.

One engaged in this process of yoga or the science of the individual consciousness attaining communion with the absolute  consciousness perceives himself  as separate from the activities of the body and that the senses reside in the very sense objects desired. Seeing, hearing, touching, smelling and tasting are the functions of the organs of knowledge - the eyes, ears, hands, nose and tongue. 

The knowers of the Brahman or the spiritual substratum pervading all existence being free from all conceptions of doer-ship are not subject to reactions from their actions although performing so many activities. 

The Vedanta Sutra VI.I.XVI states that when knowledge of the Brahman is realized, the result is the permanent eradication of all previous reactions and the inability to receive reactions for any subsequent actions. 

How does the Sankhya Yogi react when he sees someone acting?

He simply says, “That person is not acting, because he is “ATMAN”. What is perceived as action is executed by his body, and this action is colored by his intrinsic nature of three gunas.”

A normal jiva, on the other hand, thinks that it is he or the lower self which acts, but as far as the yogi himself is concerned, it is always the body which acts, irrespective of whose body it is. He is totally above the “body consciousness”.

In Yoga Vasishta, Sage Vasishta  advised Lord Rama:

Karta bahirkartāntarloke vihara rāghava

“O Rama, externally engage in actions diligently, but internally practice to see yourself as the non-doer and God as the prime mover of all your activities.”

In this divine consciousness, the karma yogis  see themselves as mere instruments in the hands of God.  

In one of the talks, the author  went on to teach few sadhakas that neither Sai nor any incarnation, nor a jivanmukhta, actually do anything like normal human beings do.

In both cases, in case of an avatar or a Jivanmukhta, from time to time, on a moment to moment basis, whatever is required to be performed by them, such actions just happen, and they do not plan or deliberate such actions.

And once such actions manifest from / through them, even while acting and after the action is over, they attach least importance to  such actions. 

Living, speaking, eating, acting apparently like any other human being, they are eternally in the realization of the truth that while their body / mind acts as per the requirement of the hour, the pure atman that they really are, is unmoved!

While the whole world may not be aware of the above truth about them, they have no urge / reason to even think as to why or whether the world is aware about such secret about their action less actions or the world is not aware at all.

Love.