Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

The same subject was taken up in more detail in the Fifth Chapter, especially touching upon the qualities of a great siddha – siddha purusha: how he behaves, how he conducts himself in this world, how undetectable is his behaviour. Knowing everything, he behaves as if he knows nothing; and knowing that people are ignorant, he does not find fault with them. Like a good psychologist or a good teacher, he educates people at the very level that they are in, whatever be the level. Whether it is a kindergarten level or the first standard or whatever it is, from that level the teacher who is a siddha purusha, who knows all the secrets of the cosmos, educates people. He does not criticise anybody, and he never says they are on the wrong path. He says they are on the right path, but it is an initial step that they have taken and, therefore, it is not adequate. We cannot say that the blundering difficulties that a first-standard child is facing in school are to be condemned. It is a phase that everyone has to pass through, and it has to be a base for us to construct the subsequent structure of the mind. This is how the great sages behave in this world. Friendly, loving, compassionate, and very, very attractive – these are the qualities of a great saint. When we see him, we are attracted – as if we are seeing a full moon – and we feel a solace, a kind of comfort even if he does not speak a word. That is the power his personality emanates in the form of an aura around him, and sometimes he teaches even without uttering a word. His very presence is an ashram, and his very presence is a solution to all our difficulties. Such things were described in the Fifth Chapter, towards the end of which three seed-like verses were mentioned as a preparation for what we have to study in the Sixth Chapter:

Sparsan kritva bahir bahyams chakshus chaivantare bhruvoh, pranapanau samau kritva nasabhyantara-charinau (5.27).
Yatendriya-mano-buddhir munir moksha-parayanah, vigateccha-bhaya-krodho yah sada mukta eva sah (5.28).
Bhoktaram yajna-tapasam sarva-loka-mahesvaram, suhridam sarva-bhutanam jnatva mam santim ricchati (5.29).

By restraining the sense organs and settling the energy of the senses in the mind, settling the mind in the intellect, and settling the intellect in the buddhi or the self inside, one restrains the total personality of oneself and attains the goal of self-discipline. And the greatest solace for us is not merely the confidence that we have attained some perfection in the process of self-discipline, but that God is our friend: suhridam sarvabhutanam jnatva mam santimricchati. Our heart will well up with joy in one second if we know that God is our best friend. He is at our beck and call, and He is just now ready to come to us. If we are sure that this is a fact, our disciplines are surpassed by this great joy that arises in our hearts that God is with us, in us, and is ready to come to us just at this moment.

In the Sixth Chapter we were introduced to the necessity for self control by way of the subjugation of the lower self by the higher Self, whereby the higher Self becomes a friend of the lower self. But if the lower self insists or persists in its own egoistic behaviour in terms of objects of sense, etc., the higher Self will act as an enemy, the world will look like an enemy, and God Himself might look like an enemy; and He will not help us because we are disobedient to the laws of nature and the requirements of God’s ordinance.

The practical instructions went on as follows: We have to be seated in a particular place, on a seat that is comfortable, in a posture that is helpful, concentrating the mind on our Ishta Devata – a god whom we have chosen as the object of our concentration. I mentioned that the god, or the Ishta Devata, is not necessarily an object outside us; it is a transcendent principle that envelopes us and is above us. Even in the initial stage of the concept of the Ishta Devata, the power that is God is a transcendent element that includes us, and is not just some image that is outside us. God is not outside even in the lowest of his manifestations. He is above us always.

Whether it is a Guru or a god, we must not consider a Guru or a god as some outside person. The Guru is above us and not outside us, in the same way as the teacher is above the student, though he looks as if he is sitting outside on a chair. The outsideness of the teacher does not make him an external object to the student. He transcends the student in the comprehension of the teaching capacity and the knowledge that he has got. We have to be able to understand what transcendence means. The teacher’s knowledge includes whatever the student has and, therefore, he is above the student even though he looks like an outside object sitting in front of the student. This also applies to the Guru. The Guru is not an object whom we can photograph and keep a picture of. The Guru is a force; and in that sense, we may say the Guru never dies. As God cannot die, the Guru also cannot die. It is a generated power which includes us, is above us and, therefore, it is not a physical individual. The Guru is a force.

We know that the physical body of the Guru will perish one day, since it is as much a component of physiology and anatomy as anybody else’s and, therefore, there is nothing especially valuable or divine in the physical body of the Guru. The divinity that is the Guru is in the essence that is inside, which is emanating a graceful energy around us as an aura; and that does not die. The Guru that we worship, in spite of our imagining that it is a physical body in front of us, is actually a force.

We hang a photo of our father on the wall, even though our father is dead. We have been worshipping our father even though he has gone. Who has gone? We cannot know who actually our father is. Our father is there in the form of a dead body, and we say that our father is still there. The father whom we were worshipping and photographing and considering as our superior in our daily life is still there in the form of the dead body, and we are actually hanging the photograph of the body only. But we say that our father has gone. What has gone? Our father is actually not the body that we are worshipping, and it is also not the photograph that is hanging on the wall. It is a force which we could not detect with our physical eyes but which evoked a respect from us. So is the case with a Guru, and with God Himself.

Neither our father, nor our Guru, nor God Himself can be considered to be external objects. They are transcendent principles. This is an insight that we have to draw from the teachings of the Bhagavadgita, where Sri Krishna stood as the paramount Guru, or teacher, to Arjuna. Meditating on the Ishta Devata can mean meditating on any concept of God that we have in our minds. Some people ask to be initiated into meditation or to be given a mantra for japa. Generally we ask them what concept they have of God. Some people say they worship Jesus. Some say they are devotees of Lord Krishna or Devi or Durga, etc. Some say they meditate on light as an all-pervading illumination. Some meditate on the bhrumadhya, or the point between the eyebrows, or the heart, etc. These are indications of the way in which the mind of the student works, and the student has to be taken from that level and initiated into a mantra or a method of meditation.

In the beginning, meditation is externally construed because the mind is not capable of universally perceiving all things at the same time. Even when we think of God, notwithstanding the fact that we feel that He is everywhere, we picture him as an external something which we can behold. Even when we are told that Arjuna saw the Visvarupa, we feel that the Visvarupa was spreading itself everywhere and Arjuna was standing somewhere outside and looking at it, as one would look at a movie on a cinema screen. Our involvement in space and time and objects creates a peculiar defect in our minds that, somehow or the other, even a universal principle gets externalised.

The mind can think only in four ways: in terms of quantity, in terms of quality, in terms of relation, and in terms of a condition or mode. Quantity, quality, relation and modality – these are the four types of crucible into which our mind is cast, and no one can think of anything except in terms of quantity, quality, relation or mode. Because of this helplessness that the mind feels on account of being cast into this crucible, it cannot conceive Universality. The Universal is not a quantity, it is not a quality, it is not a relation, and it is not a condition, so how can we think of God as Universal Being? Hence, the Guru initiates us into a god whom we can conceive as something outside, and our dear god is standing in front of us as Lord Krishna, as Sri Rama, or Devi, or Jesus, as the case may be. Then we have to slowly educate our minds into higher concepts of this very god by feeling that the Ishta Devata that we are imagining to be present or standing in front of us is pervading all places. Krishna is not only in one place; Jesus is not in one place, etc. We universalise the concept of the otherwise-localised Ishta Devata so that we may feel at home with all things in the world. Whoever beholds God everywhere and sees God in all things, and also sees all things in God, is never bereaved of God’s presence. These are the last instructions which are given towards the conclusion of the Sixth Chapter. Arjuna raises a question regarding what happens to a person who dies even before he achieves perfection in yoga.

It is frightening to conclude that one dies and achieves nothing in spite of all the effort in meditation. Sri Krishna’s answer is that nothing dies in spiritual effort. Only the physical body dies; and the spiritual practice that we did or the yoga that we practised was not conducted by the physical body. It is the mind that did the sadhana, and the mind does not die. The deathless individual principle in us will carry itself forward, like a rocket, rising up into a new body where we will find favourable circumstances for the completion of our sadhana and our onward march. Because of the sadhana that we have performed in this life, we will be reborn into a well-to-do family that will not disturb us or place obstacles in front of us. All favourable conditions will be provided to us in the family into which we are born. Due to a premonition of the previous practice, we will suddenly take up the thread from the very point which we left in the previous life. We will be able to grasp things quickly. There are precocious people who immediately understand things, who catch things better than other students. This precocity is due to the experience, learning, practice and goodness that they had in the previous life, which carries them forward. Sri Krishna says that we may even be born as sons or daughters of great yogis, which is still greater, a greater blessing than to be born under favourable circumstances in a well-to-do family; but this is very difficult to attain. To become the son of Vasishtha or Vyasa is not an easy thing, but it is worthwhile attempting. Therefore, the total activity of the cosmos is an onward march, and we are included in this total activity of the cosmos in the process of evolution. Hence, all the participation that we extend by way of our harmonious relations with the world and by the practice of yoga will carry us forward, onward, and we will be more blissful and more juxtaposed in our relationship with the Ultimate Reality.

This is a kind of summing up of the essentials that the Bhagavadgita places before us in the first six chapters. We would have noticed there is not much mention of God here. Very little, or no mention at all is made. The first six chapters just tell what we have to do and in what manner. But the individual is not a complete reality in itself; and even a highly disciplined individual is, after all, an individual. It is a finite entity. How will the finite contact the Infinite? From the Seventh Chapter onwards we will be brought in contact with the cosmos, in whose relation we are placed as individuals organically connected with realities that go beyond our finitude. This subject we shall take up from tomorrow onwards.