Bhagwad Gita - Post 239

Verse 58

Fixing thy mind on Me, thou shalt by My Grace overcome all obstacles; but if from egoism thou wilt not hear Me, thou shalt perish.

Having advised Arjuna what to do in the previous verse, Sri Krishna now declares the benefits of following his advice and the repercussions of not following it. 

The soul should not think that it is in any way independent of God. If we take full shelter of the Lord, with the mind fixed upon him, then by His Grace all obstacles and difficulties will be resolved. 

But if, out of vanity, we disregard the instructions, thinking we know better than the eternal wisdom of God and the scriptures, we will fail to attain the goal of human life, for there is no one superior to God, nor is there any advice better than His.

  

Verse 59

If, filled with egoism, thou thinkest: “I will not fight”, vain is this, thy resolve; Nature will compel thee.

Right at the beginning of the Mahabharatha war, when Arjuna asked Sri Krishna whether to fight or not, Sri Krishna could have given the answer right away. But He decided to deliver the discourse of the Gita instead, not just for Arjuna’s benefit but for the benefit of all future seekers. 

Having done so, he now vehemently points out the flaw in Arjuna’s decision. He says, in crystal clear language, that the decision to not fight is wrong. It is purely ego-driven, and not in line with Arjuna’s duty as a warrior.
 
In our personal experience, we come across stories of children who were misfits in their families and communities simply because their prakriti, their nature, their samskaaraas, were completely different. 
 
Parents have a strong sense of mine-ness with regard to their children. They prefer not to think of their children as independent entities. 

Similarly, Arjuna also assumed that he could override his nature as a warrior, and become a monk. Sri Krishna reminded him that his inherent nature as a warrior would compel him to fight, and that he should reconsider his decision.

At the highest level, this verse should be understood in this way,

“Our inherent nature being divinity, even if we undertake actions out of ego and ignore the inner divinity, ultimately, a stage comes in each and every one’s life when he/she turns towards God/ SELF and undertakes sadhana so as to act/think/ exist as per one’s real nature - DIVINE SELF”

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 238

 Verse 56

Doing all actions always, taking refuge in Me, by My Grace he obtains the eternal, indestructible state or abode.

Doing all actions, taking refuge in me

If you do work as a worship of God, whatever be the work that you do—let it be anything, even the littlest of activities of yours—may these activities be dedicated to God as a humble offering. 

Here, Lord Krishna again reiterates the performance of sadhana or internal propitiation. In the phrase sarva-karmany api meaning all types of activities, the conjunction api meaning although denotes that without surrender and devotion to the Supreme Lord no actions should be offered to Him.

In the gayatri mantra talk to a group, in a talk of Prasad, in the affirmation talk on the Karma, the author emphasized and again and again re-emphasized that the intellect, mind, senses that take up the action, the actions themselves, the doer - all must be surrendered to God.

So, it is not about doing the act and leaving the fruits of action to the Lord, when it comes to the path of devotion.

A true devotee is ever in surrender to his Lord. So, all actions, the intellect (efficient cause) which show the approach to the action, the body, mind and senses (the material and instrument cause) – all of them are not surrendered afresh at the time of action but on the contrary, with all of them ever surrendered to the God, actions take place as per requirement of purushartha, depending upon the ashrama in which the devotee exists - Brahmacharya, grahastha, vanaprastha or Sanyasa. 

Such action is often explained with the example of a zoom camera where, the zooming takes place only when a picture is to be captured and immediately after the pic is captured, the zooming is withdrawn!!!!!

By my grace, he obtains the eternal

Given the level of surrender, the devotee does not even demand / aspire for obtaining the eternal, indestructible state (Realization).

The one in him who would cry to the Lord for granting, gracing liberation, has already been surrendered to the Lord.

Since, Lord ever waits for such a devotee with such state of surrender (Atma nivedanam), such an aspirant will  (rather must) receive the grace of the Supreme Lord and by their exclusive devotion to Him and attain His eternal association in the transcendental spiritual worlds.

Verse 57

Mentally renouncing all actions in Me, having Me as the highest goal, resorting to the Yoga of discrimination do thou ever fix thy mind on Me.

Resigning mentally all deeds to me 

Both the ego and the egocentric anxieties for enjoying are to be renounced at the altar of the Lord, and thus to act in the world is the 'path,' through which a man of action reaches the greater cultural climes. This idea of surrender has been discussed in the previous verse, very clearly. This spirit of surrender can come only when the student has infinite courage to maintain a steady aspiration for "having me as the highest goal." 

Resorting to buddhi yoga

The intellect's main function is discrimination. To discriminate the false from the true, and to fix ourselves on the path of seeking the true, is called Buddhi yoga. Controlling life and regulating its movements through discrimination is Karma Yoga. And thus the term 'Buddhi yoga' is an original coined-word, met with only in the Gita, to indicate in essence the "Path – of – Selfless - Action." It has been used in the very early portions of the Gita and there it has been very exhaustively explained.

It is interesting to know from the learning from previous verse that the only duty of a pure devotee is to surrender. Once surrendered, God takes over in such a way that even without any specific focus on undertaking purshartha only with discrimination (as learnt in Karma and in Manas Buddhi Chitta Ahankara sessions / blog posts), MBCA Post Summary (March 4, 2017), all actions get themselves routed through discrimination on their own.

In a recent talk to a group of devotees, talking on devotion with reference to Meera, the author ( from the source within) specifically said , “In Bhakti, in the penultimate state prior to realization / Atma nivedanam, even intellect faculty stands surrendered to the Lord, unlike the path of wisdom where, each and every purushartha is screened through pure intellect ”.

A devotee who has thus come to live all his activities in dedication to his goal, the Krishna- Consciousness, must necessarily come to live as Krishna, and experience the Eternal, Immutable State, of the Self.

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 237

Verse 55

By devotion he knows Me in truth, what and who I am; and knowing Me in truth, he forthwith enters into the Supreme.

The Lord says, “A true devotee knows what kind of person I am, what kind of Reality I am”. This means knowing what God is, what is the characteristic of God, and what one actually attains after reaching God. All these things will become clear when the devotion intensifies. Then, one enters into the Absolute. 

In the path of Jnana, the student is taught about God (Brahman) and the teacher takes the student through Upanishads and teaches that the God is:-

* All pervading pure consciousness, non-dual, unborn, decay-less, causeless, self-luminous, indivisible, unchanging, destitute of all the differences caused by the limiting adjuncts,

*       support, source, womb, basis, and substratum of everything,

*    The ruler of all beings; he knows that I am the Supreme Purusha, the controller of Maya, and that this world is a mere appearance.

A conceptual appreciation of God’s existence is different from an appreciation of His Existence as He is in Himself. 

This is possible only if one totally annihilates one’s  egoistic individuality, does  not conceive God as if He is something outside him, and does not go on insisting on his  own individual existence. 

And, in pure devotion, para bhakti, the bhakta may not be aware of all the above but the devotion ultimately culminates into that state where, all the above is actually experienced by the devotee turned seer and the experience is not of God outside him but it is all within.

How this happens?

When God takes possession of all things, Bhakta’s existence ceases to be and he is no more there, and then it is that he has entered into the Absolute. 

The entering into the very substance of God is the final aim of life, which is possible only when one ceases to be, by a total abolition of one’s encrustations (hard coating) of physical and psychical personality. Then one’s soul merges in God.

The act of knowing and the act of entering are not two distinct acts. Knowing is becoming. Knowing is attaining Self-Knowledge. To know That is to become That. Entering is knowing or becoming That. Entering is the attainment of Self-Knowledge or Self Realization. Knowing and entering are synonymous terms. 

It is very difficult to understand or comprehend transcendental spiritual matters. The teachers use various terms or expressions, analogies, similes, parables, stories, etc. to make the aspirant grasp the matter clearly and lucidly. Words are imperfect and languages are defective. They cannot fully express the inner spiritual experiences. The teacher somehow or other expresses to the students or aspirants, these spiritual ideas. 

The aspirant himself will have to realize the Self. That is beyond the reach of words of expressions or analogies of similes. How can there be similes for that non-dual Brahman. These words are a sort of help or prop for the aspirants to lean upon in the beginning to understand spiritual matters. When he realizes the Self, these words are of no value to him. He himself becomes an embodiment of knowledge.

Mundaka Upanishad says,

Whoever knows this Brahman in which the universe in all its vastness is fixed, and which shines more radiantly than the Sun, and those people who are devoted to such a person without any kind of earthly desire, go beyond the chances of coming back to this world by rebirth.

Taittriya Upanishad says,

Love.