Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Therefore, what happens to our punya karmas and sins, etc? Is nobody punished for their sins? People are punished by their sins. The sin itself punishes us; somebody else, like a judge sitting in the court, does not punish us for our sins. A sin is a peculiar dislocated, maladjusted situation that an individual occupies in this cosmos; this maladjustment itself is the sin. The sin itself punishes us, and there is nobody else from outside to strike a rod on our heads. That is, a self-complete organism occupies a self-complete situation in itself, and its health and disease depend entirely upon the manner in which the components of the organism work. There is no third reality, no extra-physical reality coming and interfering with the wrong actions or the right actions of a person.

This is why it is said that the actions performed in the highest state of yoga cannot be called either merit or demerit. Karma suklakrishnam: karmas are either black or white. But karmas are neither black nor white for the yogi. The blackness or the whiteness corresponds to the wrongness or the rightness of perception. What we call sin is nothing but the solidification, condensation of wrong actions continuing for a long time; and punya, or merit, is the condensation of good actions that we have performed. To repeat once again what I said, a good action is that tendency in our consciousness which moves in the direction of larger and larger dimensions of itself, and a sin is a contraction of consciousness which moves more and more in the direction of the physical body; and the worst sin is to have consciousness lodged in the body itself, and think that one is only the body.

Nadatte kasyacit papam na caiva sukritam vibhuh, ajnanenavritam jnanam tena muhyanti jantavah: Due to a cosmic ignorance, all individuals suffer. Their suffering or their pleasures are not products emanating from God. The transcendence of God precludes all connections with the mutations of prakriti, though without Him prakriti cannot move: ajnanenavritam jnanam tena muhyanti jantavah.

Tad-buddhayas tad-atmanas tan-nishthas tat-parayanah, gacchanty apunar-avrittim jnana-nirdhuta-kalmashah (5.17): 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. Tad-buddhayah: They are tad-buddhayah who are centred in their intellect, and through their intellect are centred in That – whose understanding is rooted in That. Tad-atmanah: 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 tad-atmata. Tad-atmiya is the uniting of the self with the Self. That is, the individual self unites itself with the Universal Self. That state is called tad-atmyata. Those who are established in their understanding have also their self rooted in that Supreme Being.

Tan-nishthah: whose main occupation is establishment in that Supreme Being only. Our daily activity, our professions, our occupations, whatever we do, is a preparation for the establishment of ourselves in That. It does not mean that our daily routine is contrary to God-realisation. The activities of people, the daily routine of anybody, should be so conducted and so refined and harmonised 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.

Therefore, those people whose Atman, the Self, is pre-eminently established in the Supreme Self find that all their daily routine also is so immensely affected by this union that the otherwise distracting and dividing form of human activity becomes a manifold emanation from the Self that is at the back of all activity, in the same way as rays emanate from the sun. The rays of the sun may be said to be the activities of the sun in some way; but this activity of the sun in the form of emanation of the rays is not independent of the existence of the sun. Therefore, the light and the radiance of the sun are also to be seen in the rays. The action of the sun is identical with the existence of the sun. Similarly, our activities should be spiritual in their nature; they should be completely conditioned by the nature of consciousness. Or, every work is nothing but a movement of the Self; consciousness is moving in the form of activity. Thus, activity is not anymore a bondage. It is our own Self that is moving in the direction of Itself, partially inwardly, partially externally, as waves are activities of the ocean; and yet they are not activities of the ocean – the activity itself becoming one with the ocean. Tan-nishthah: That is establishment of oneself in that Supreme Being. Nishtha is establishment, rootedness. Tat-parayanah 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 vairayga (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 – tivrasamveganamasannah (YS 1.21): God is near to you to the extent you are eager to attain Him. Tat-parayanah means one who is intensely eager to reach that, and his ardour is burning like a flame. Gacchanty apunar-avrittim: Such persons, having attained immortality, will not return to this world of mortality. Jnana-nirdhuta-kalmashah: 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.

Ihaiva tair jitah sargo yesam samye sthitam manah, nirdosham hi samam brahma tasmad brahmani te sthitah (5.19): One may be said to have attained God here itself, just now, provided one is free from kama and krodha, desire and anger. These are the obstacles that prevent us from a consciousness of our proximity to God and create a wrong notion that God is away from us. Rebirth is conquered by people just now, here itself. Ihaiva tairjitah sargah yesham samye sthitam manah: Those whose minds are perfectly harmonised inwardly as well as outwardly, and who live a state of perfect balance within themselves as well as in relation to the outside world, are free from loves and hatreds; and, therefore, there is nothing in them which will cause rebirth. In that sense, we may say, they are selected for immortality. They shall not be born again.

Ihaiva tairjitah sargo yesham samye sthitam manah, nirdosham hi samam brahma tasmat brahmani te sthitah: Spotless is the Supreme Absolute; the highest purity is God Almighty. That being the case, those who are perfect in their purity of consciousness, those who are free from the distractions characterising the mind, are automatically established in Brahman. The attainment of God is not a future possibility. It is an eternal acquirement just here and now. God is not in time and not in space. Therefore, there is no distance between us and God. Therefore, there is no tomorrow for God. God’s actions are instantaneous actions, and God-realisation is also an instantaneous event. Sudden is the occurrence of this so-called event we call God-realisation: nirdosham hi samam brahma tasmat brahmani te sthitah.

Vidya-vinaya-sampanne brahmane gavi hastini, suni caiva svapake ca panditah sama-darsinah (5.18): The high and low look equal to the harmonised vision of the sage. If he sees a learned person or sees a fool, it makes no difference to him. He sees the same underlying reality in both that are considered as superior and inferior by the eyes of the world. Whether it is a learned sage or an animal – a cow or an elephant or a dog – the vision of the sage sees only the underlying reality, just as a goldsmith sees only the quality and the weight of gold in an ornament. The goldsmith is not interested in the shape of the ornament; he sees only what the weight is and how much of gold is in it, in the same way that a tiger sees only flesh in its victim and it does not note what is it that it is pouncing upon. Whether the tiger pounces upon a great saint or a little child or an animal, it sees only its diet there. An ornament is no ornament for a goldsmith. Just as the ironsmith sees only iron and the goldsmith sees only gold, the great sage sees only consciousness everywhere. Sarvatah pani-padam tat sarvato’kshi-siro-mukham (13.13), etc., as we will be told in the future. Panditah sama-darsinah: Those who are learned in spiritual lore, who are endowed with the insight into the reality of things, see oneness everywhere.