Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

The prayer is: I aspire to attain that glorious Purusha. Let there be this prayer in our hearts every day: tameva chadyam purusham prapadye yatah pravrttih prasrta purani. The prayer of the seeker is: I humbly seek to reach and attain that purusha from whom emanates the large tree of samsara. Go on repeating this mantra: tameva chadyam purusham prapadye yatah pravrttih prasrta purani. This is actually like a mantra, an inward prayer of a spiritual seeker, making out that one wants nothing but that which is above the three gunas of prakriti which causes the tree to manifest.

Nirmana-moha jita-sanga-dosha adhyatma-nitya vinivrtta-kamah, dvandvairvimuktah sukha-duhkahsamjnairgacchantyamudhah padamavyayam tat (15.5). There are certain conditions that we have to fulfil so that our aspiration for the attainment of this great goal be fulfilled. What are these qualities? No self-respect – nirmana: not respecting oneself as an independently existing and very important individual. Mana rahita: recognising in oneself nothing so valuable as to distinguish us from other people, because self-respect has many ramifications. It leads to pride, arrogance, conflict, domination, tyranny, despotism. All kinds of things arise from the seed of self-respect. Nirmana-moha: without this egoism called self-respect, and without any kind of attachment, which is moha. Jita-sanga-dosha: free from the evil of longing for contact with things. Adhyatma-nityah: continuously resorting to the knowledge of the Atman. Vinivrtta-kamah: free from all longing for attractive things in the world, from objects of sense. Dvandvairvimuktah: free from the pairs of opposites like raga and dvesha, like and dislike, and pleasure and pain. Dvandvairvimuktah sukha-duhkah samjnaih: pairs of opposites known as pleasure and pain, leading to raga-dvesha, or like and dislike. Amudhah: free from these pairs of opposites, great purified souls, undeluded in their nature; gacchanti padam avyayam tat: reach that Imperishable Abode.

Na tadbhasayate suryo (15.6): This glorious sun, with so much brilliance, does not shine there. Na tatra suryo bhati na chandra-tarakam (Katha Up. 2.2.15): There is no sun, no moon, no stars; what to talk of the fire of this world – kuto’yam agnih. Tam eva bhantam anubhati sarvam: The sun shines, the moon shines, stars shine, fire blazes forth due to borrowing the radiance of another thing altogether which is not of this world. Na tad bhasayte suryo: The sun does not shine there, because the light of the sun is like darkness before that radiance. Na sasankah: Not even the moon is there. Na pavakah: The radiance of the earth, which is born of the fire and heat – that too is there to illumine.

The same point is again emphasised; yad gatva na nivartante: having reached which, we will not come back. How many of us are prepared not to come back? Because it is a frightening thing, we have to think thrice before saying yes or no to it. Yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama. Because of the impurities in the mind, we cannot understand the meaning of ‘not coming back’. So the great Vedanta sastras – the Upanishads, Gita, etc. – are not supposed to be studied by impure minds who are attached to family, things, and the value of the earth – minds who consider this earth as very solid and who think that there are values here which are permanent in their nature.

Na tad bhasayte suryo na sasanko na pavakah, yad gatva na nivartante tad dhama paramam mama: “My abode is that, after having attained which, you will not return to this world of sorrow.” We may put a question: “After reaching that state, what will I do there?” Many people ask this question: “What shall I do there, after reaching that place? You don’t want me to come back, so I will sit there gazing at the face of god. But how long I will gaze? I will be tired.”

To remove this fear, Vaishnava theology tells us that we will have a glorious feast, with rice made of gold. I don’t know how we will eat that rice made of gold [laughing]. And the kshira-sagara, whose waves are dashing hither and thither throwing little sprinkles of milk on the body of Narayana, shining thereby tenfold, hundredfold, will attract our attention and we will be very happy even to behold him. There will be singing and dancing by the Parsadas, and we will be also one of the Parsadas. We will have no limitation of time or of space. There will be rejoicing, endless rejoicing. These kinds of illustrations are found in certain writings of acharyas like Ramanuja, who wrote one particular essay called Vaikuntha Gadyam – a prose essay on Vaikuntha, where gold paddy can be seen growing on all sides! But we are happy to hear that gold paddy and rice of emerald or diamond will be cooked and eaten.

There is no necessity to have fear of this kind, and it is impossible to describe in words why it is not good to come back, and why it is good to be there. By any kind of logic or scriptural quotation, one cannot be convinced as to why that attainment is necessary from where there is no return.

Some people try to give examples to convince us in some way, in a feeble manner. It is like going to waking condition from the dream world. Would we like to go back to the dream world once again? Yesterday we had a good dream or a bad dream, and then we woke up. Now we have a very clear waking consciousness. Do we grieve that we have woken up from that dream, that we have lost our dream kingdom? We were Akbar Badshah or Caesar in the dream world, and now we have woken up as ordinary mortals. Which is better – the Caesarhood of the dream world or this perspicacious consciousness of waking?

This waking consciousness includes everything that we saw in dream. Not only the dream perceiver, not only the seer or the observer of the dream, but the entire space, time and objects – the whole universe of dream – are contained in the waking mind. That is to say, this wondrous universe to which we are so attached, from which we are afraid of leaving, is contained in that thing which we are attaining and from which there is no point in returning – as there is no point in returning from waking to dream once again.

We may say, “There are so many people in this world. Am I to leave them here and go alone as a selfish man to the abode of that from where I will not come back? What about other people in the world? Millions of mortals are suffering. Do you want me to go alone to the Eternal Abode? Is it not an act of selfishness?” The same analogy applies here. Did we not see many, many people in dream? We were fathers, we were mothers, we had children and family, and there was a big society of people. Why did we wake up, leaving them all in the dream world? We could have waited until all of them had woken up. We suddenly woke up, leaving all the family, etc., in the dream world. What happened to those many individuals whom we saw in dream? And the whole dream world with which we were concerned so much – what happened to it now that we have left it and, like a selfish person, have woken up into waking consciousness? These are some illustrations that will clear the cobweb of our mind and make us feel inwardly convinced that it is good to reach God, and it is not good to come back from That. Yadgatva na nivartante: “After having reached That, you will not come back.” Tad dhama paramam mama: “That is My Abode.”

Mamaivamso jiva-loke jiva-bhutah sanatanah (15.7): “This jiva, this  ‘me’ or  ‘we’ etc., these individuals, these eighty-four lakhs of species of manifestation throughout the fourteen realms of creation – all these are My aspects, My parts, as it were, in a little fraction.” Vishtabhyaham idam krtsnam ekamsena sthito jagat (10.42); pado’sya visva bhutani (Purusha Sukta 2); tripadasyamrtamdivi (Taittiriya Aranyakam 3.2): “In this world of manifestations of individuals, I support these individuals by a little fraction of Myself. They are only part of Me. I support this world of creation by pervading this whole of creation as the vitality thereof, and I do not exhaust Myself entirely.”

There is a kind of theory called pantheism that is held by some people, which says that God is totally exhausted in this world – as milk is exhausted when it becomes curd and it cannot become milk once again. The point here is quite different. God does not convert Himself into the world by a modification of Himself as milk modifies itself into curd, and God is not exhausted entirely in this world as milk is exhausted in curd. There is no exhaustion at all. The transcendent Being remains unaffected, even as our waking mind is not at all affected by what we saw in the dream world; again the same analogy is very apt here.

“This jivaloka, this world of individuals, is sustained by Me by as a little fraction of Myself as the vitality of creation. What happens to the individuals that are so created with a part of Me? They are pulled by the sense organs, which are five in number.” Srotam chakshuh sparsanam cha rasanam ghranam eva cha (15.9): These are the sense organs, including the mind which is also considered as an organ of perception. The mind is the internal sense, and the other five – hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell – are external senses; so the five plus the mind totals six. Manah shashthani: The six senses, including the mind, are rooted in the powers of nature, the three gunas, due to which they are helplessly dragged hither and thither on account of the mutation of the gunas of prakriti-karshati prakrtisthani.

Sariram yad avapnoti yac capy utkramatisvarah, grhitvaitani samyati vayur gandhan ivasayat (15.8): If there is fragrance somewhere, when the wind blows the fragrance also is wafted up, and the fragrance is carried by the wind in whatever direction it blows. In a similar manner, when an individual – a jiva, or a soul leaves – this particular body and endeavours to enter another body, the mind and the senses are taken together with it: grhitvaitani samyati. The body is left here, but our main treasure trove – the mind with which we think, and the sense organs which are the causes of our attachment – they, in a subtle potential form, get attached to the subtle body which is actually reincarnating.  The jiva does not die while the body is apparently dead.

Srotram chakshuh sparsanam cha rasanam ghranameva cha (15.9): Basing themselves on the mind which cognises, these five senses of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling enjoy the objects outside – vishayan upasevate.