Bhagwad Gita - Post 67

Verse 22

Ye hi samsparshajaa bhogaa

Duhkhayonaya eva te;

Aadyantavantah kaunteya

Na teshu ramate budhah.

The enjoyments that are born of contacts are generators of pain only, for they have a beginning and an end, O Arjuna! The wise do not rejoice in them.

Any joy that comes through the contact of one thing with another thing cannot be regarded as real joy. There are five types of contact with external things: contact through the eye, contact through the ear, contact through the nose, contact through the skin, and contact through the tongue. The joy that we get by this kind of contact is an unreliable joy. It is a deceptive experience that we are passing through, and we wrongly come  to the conclusion that we are experiencing happiness because this kind of contact appears to be pleasant in the beginning but breeds sorrow later on.

Even at the time of the enjoyment of a sense object we are under an illusion, and it is not a real joy that we are experiencing. Why do we feel happy when we come in contact with a mango or a cup of delicious kheer or any pleasant object? 

The reason is that when the mind is not in contact with any sense object, it is restless in itself, and it goes out in search of its own food in the form of objects. The mind that is not in contact with objects moves out in search of those objects which it finds pleasant to contact.

When the mind moves in that way, the consciousness of the Atman, or the Self, also moves together with the mind — just as electricity flows through a wire. Wherever the wire is, there is also electricity. 

Swami says,

“Although Joy naturally emanates from the core of your heart, you think you are deriving joy from the sense objects and the sensory organs. But this is not so. All joy comes from within you, and you have deluded yourself into thinking  that it comes from outside”.

Wherever the mind is, the Atman also goes, as it were, due to the attachment between the mind and consciousness that is caused by karma; and when the contact takes place with the consciousness, the mind feels that there is no further necessity to move outside in search of an object, because the object has already come into possession. 

In deep meditation, the mind ceases to move outside, and comes in contact with the Self inside. Immediately there is a joy. The joy, therefore, has come from within us. It has not come from the object, yet foolishly we think that the object is painted with bliss and we are the abodes of sorrow, which is not true. 

The reverse is the case. All those who run after the pleasures of sense will reap sorrow one day or the other, for anything that has a beginning will also have an end — ādyantavantaḥ. That which has a beginning will also have an end because our pleasures, which are contact born, begin with the contact itself. Therefore, they shall end when the contact ceases. 

There is bereavement on account of sensory contact. Our relationship with this world is fragile. 

The coming in contact of beings, the friendship that we have, the community that we establish humanly, are all false in the sense that they are conditioned by the winds of cosmic powers which breed contact; and when these winds blow in a different direction, we are separated, and then we say that somebody died.

When the mind is not attached to external objects of the senses, when one is deeply engaged  in the contemplation of Brahman, he finds undiluted  bliss in the SELF within!!

Love.

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.