The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 22: The Integration of Sannyasa and Yoga

The concluding verses of the Fifth Chapter were under our consideration. Sparśān kṛtvā bahir bāhyāṁś cakṣuś caivāntare bhruvoḥ, prāṇāpānau samau kṛtvā nāsābhyantaracāriṇau (BG 5.27); yatendriyamanobuddhir munir mokṣaparāyaṇaḥ, vigatecchābhayakrodho yaḥ sadā mukta eva saḥ (BG 5.28). All this has been observed yesterday. The act of self-restraint is summarised here in these two verses. Self-restraint is shutting out all sense contact by extricating the conscious element from externalised perception and enabling it to return to itself, which is the process of pratyahara, and regulating the process of breathing so that the alternate movement of the breathing process through the nostrils gets stabilised and concentrated into a single flow, looking as if the whole body is filled with energy, as if immense strength has been pumped into the system due to the striking of a balance between the alternate currents of prana and apana, which is what is called kumbhaka.

We feel filled up and feel a satisfaction that a large content has been poured into us. Together with this experience, there is the retention of the functions of the mind. Together with the restraint of the senses, there is a spontaneous settling of the waves of the psyche. Yatendriyamanobuddhi is the expression. Yata means restraint, control, subdual, withdrawn, sublimated. It is the past participle of the very same root that is also the background of the word yama. Indriya and manas and buddhi should stand together.

This is also told in a similar manner in the Kathopanishad. Yadā pañcāvatiṣṭhante jñānāni manasā saha, buddhiś ca na viceṣṭati, tām āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim (Katha 2.3.10). Yadā pañcāvatiṣṭhante: Pañca means the five senses; that is indriya. Manasā saha: together with the mind, indriya manas. Buddhiś ca na viceṣṭati: When the apertures of the senses, which conduct energy outwardly in the direction of objects, are blocked, there is an inward flow of that energy, like water flowing in a pipe. There is a descending tendency in water, which rushes outward in a conduit pipe. It flows in the direction of the open tap, or anywhere it may be directed. If the tap is closed or if the opening is blocked, the water retains itself and goes back to the source, as it were, raising its level and thus increasing the potency of the content of water in the reservoir. In a similar manner, the energies that usually flow through the conduit pipes of the sense organs are withdrawn back through these channels. The mind is the reservoir, the senses are the pipes and the objects are the opening taps, which must be closed. Then the energy flows backwards and the mind becomes very strong. As overconsumption of electric force depletes the capacity of production in a powerhouse and the energy content there rises to a high pitch if all consumption channels are closed, in a similar manner, the powerhouse of the mind raises its capacity to think and act. Its energy rises to a high pitch, the concentration increases, the memory becomes acute, the understanding becomes perspicacious, the body become strong. All the organs act with tremendous capacity merely because our strength is not wasted in sense contact.

Much of our energy flows to the objects outside in all acts of perception. We may remember here the caution exercised by Patanjali Maharishi in his Yoga Sutras. We have two kinds perception. This is not a matter concerning the Bhagavadgita, but it is relevant to it. There are two types of perception: emotional and philosophical, rather, purely cognitional. Generally, we do not look at things without some kind of an emotional content attached. We also have a feeling attached to the act of perception of an object. We do not merely see a thing and become aware that a thing is there; we attach a value of some type to the object that is noticed. The value that is associated with an object that is otherwise merely cognised or perceived is due to the association of our emotion and feeling. “Oh, wonderful, how beautiful!” “How bad, how wretched, how ugly!” “This is good; this is bad.” “This is necessary; this is not necessary.” “This is mine; this is not mine.” These ideas of a personal association with the objects of perception are called klishta vrittis in the sutras of Patanjali, operations of the psyche which cause unnecessary trouble and sorrow. It is so because we get involved in the perception. Let the object be there; what does it matter? But it is not like that. It is not merely that the object is there. I am also there in that object, wanting to have some opinion about it, and get stimulated, stirred up in thought and action in respect of that content which may lead to attachment, aversion, and many other things. In this manner, a lot of energy is poured on the object of affection or hatred, raga-dvesha, which causes intense anxiety engendered by the possession associated with the object. There is always anxiety associated with the objects that are possessed or objects that are said to cause fear. Either way, we are kept alert in our emotions, and the emotions pump energy out in the direction of that object which is our beloved possession or our object of dislike. We cannot even sleep properly with such thoughts. We are out in a dreamland, as it were, thinking of things outside. We have meandered out of our own body and personality into the world of perception.

Not merely that, which is bad enough, but even a philosophical cognition of the reality of an object outside, the acceptance of a so-called outsideness in things, is also considered as an obstacle in the intentions of yoga practice. So it is certainly necessary for us to be emotionally detached from all objects. I see a garden, I see a tree, I see a person, I see this, I see that, but I should be undisturbed by the perception of that, as if it matters not whether it is there or it is not there. But mostly we are perturbed by the presence of something, in some way or another. This is emotional content getting directed outwardly to that particular given object.

But yoga is still superior to even emotional detachment. Even if we are emotionally detached, we may not be in a state of yoga. Yoga is, as we have noticed earlier, a more advanced attunement of ourselves with fact. Yoga leads to samadhi. Finally that is the aim: communion, and becoming so united with the object that it is not there as an outside something. This is the aim to which we shall be taken finally. So the sutra of Patanjali in another context tells us that emotional determination and evaluation of an object is very bad because it shows that we are an attached person, an involved person, which is, of course, a matter of great concern; but even if we are free from such kinds of crude emotional involvements in things, we may still believe in the reality of the world outside. “This world is there. I may not be perturbed by it, but I believe it is there.” Even this belief that it is really there outside is an obstacle. Yoga is a transcendence of that.

So after the senses are inwardised and the flow of the current of energy through the sense organs is turned inward by reversion of this strength, and having made the mind intensely strong – which is a great achievement indeed, hard to achieve normally – yet, there is something more to be achieved. The mind has to contemplate on pure intelligence. It should not brood over the objects of sense. Even if the senses are not actually in contact with the objects, mental contact of the object is also a contact although physical contact may not be there. Actually, physical contact is not the source of bondage. It is mental contact that matters. Our connection with an object is not necessarily physical. There may be something sitting on my lap, yet I may have no mental contact with it. But I may have intense connection with it even if it is a thousand miles away, for another reason altogether.

Thus, contact referred to here in the field of yoga practice is not only physical contact. Actually, that is the least aspect of the matter. The more serious aspect of it is the association of the mind with the juxtaposition of the object in some way. We may be really attached to something even if the thing is far, far away or invisible to the physical eyes, and that is bondage. So the mind and the reason, the buddhi and the manas, should stand together, like the President and Prime Minister working in unison without any kind of difference of opinion among them. The apparatus of management, the Cabinet, is the sense organs, and when the Cabinet, the Prime Minister and the President are thinking one thought only, it will be a very powerful government. Such a thing is to be attained in yoga.

Again the Kathopanishad has a similar passage making out the same meaning in another context. Yacched vāṅ manasī prājñas tad yacchej jñāna-ātmani jñānam ātmani mahati niyacchet, tad yacchec chāntav-ātmani (Katha 1.3.13). Yoga is summed up in this one verse of the Kathopanishad. The senses have to be rooted in the mind. Yacched vāṅ manasī prājñas: An intelligent person should stabilise all the actions and activities of the senses in the mind itself so that the mind acts, but not the senses. But how will the mind act? Will it think of some object outside? No. Tad yacchej jñāna-ātmani: That restrained mind, enhanced in its potency by the withdrawal of the sense organs, should be rooted in understanding. What is understanding? This has been explained in the earlier chapters of the Bhagavadgita. Sankhya is the right understanding. “Arjuna, you lack sankhya. Therefore, you cannot be in a state of yoga,” said Bhagavan Sri Krishna. So here buddhi should be understood as buddhi yoga, to which reference was made earlier in the chapters of the Gita. Thus, in right understanding this controlled mind is to be rooted: tad yacchej jñāna-ātmani.

Now the Bhagavadgita will go further on the subject of right understanding. During the study of the Third and Fourth Chapters, we found that this right understanding is connected with cosmic operations. Our existence is not an individual existence. We are not individual performers of action. Agency is not to be attributed to us. All action is performed by prakriti, the three gunas – sattva, rajas, tamas – which universally operate uniformly everywhere so that if this is a requisite of sankhya buddhi, right understanding, it takes us to a cosmical level. This is also the point made out in this verse of the Kathopanishad. Even if the mind is rooted in the intellect and right understanding, it is to be once again noted cautiously that it is simultaneously cosmically oriented: jñānam ātmani mahati niyacchet. Mahat tattva is cosmic intelligence, mahat brahma.

If the reason, the understanding, the mind, is not to contemplate an external something, what will it contemplate? What will the mind think then? What will the reason argue about or the understanding understand? The understanding will understand itself only. This understanding reverts to itself. As I mentioned, some people call this a transcendental category of apperception, which is nothing but consciousness turning back upon itself. This is the state of the universalisation of the content of the otherwise empirical understanding, which is usually turned in the direction of objects. Mahat tattva means 'cosmic intelligence'. It is to be accepted that when it is made clear to us that our very existence is conditioned by the gunas of prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas, which are universal – our understanding also has to be universally oriented. So what are we going to think? There is nothing for us to think except the wide range of the very substance of our makeup, physical as well as psychological, material as well as rational. The so-called outwardness has now become a widely spread-out expanse of an expression of the universal. So the mahat tattva is not somewhere far off from our brain or our understanding. It is the larger self of the little selfhood of our reason.

In the beginning of the Sixth Chapter, which we are going to study now, it will be told that the self is the friend of the Self. This is another way of saying that the little understanding of ours, which is the little self of ours, should be the friend of the larger self, which is the cosmical Self, mahat tattva.

The verse of the Kathopanishad goes on further. Tad yacchec chāntav-ātmani: Mysteries these are. We people who are so much engrossed in material perceptions and social problems cannot actually understand what these Upanishads are saying. Yet, they have something to say. As a loving mother and a very affectionate father, a parent, the Upanishad speaks to us, whether we understand it or not. There is something more than even a cosmical understanding. That is the peaceful Self, the supreme state of Godhood or Creator, Chit, the Universal resting in itself, not being even conscious of the fact that it is a universal something. It rises above this universal Self-consciousness. As this is not the subject of our study at present, we shall leave it at that.

However, the verse of the Bhagavadgita continues. Yatendriyamanobuddhi (BG 5.28): Thus restraining the senses, the mind and the buddhi, the reason, the intellect, the understanding, one becomes silent. He becomes a muni. 'Silent' means 'completely self-controlled'. It is not merely a silence of the speech, it is the silence of the sense organs. It is the calmness of the Pacific Ocean, with no turbulent waves anywhere, and it is the silence of the mind. It has nothing to think because there is nothing outside it. Therefore, the mind is muni; it is silent. It is observing mauna. One who observes mauna is called muni, and mauna is silence. It is silence of every kind of extrovert activity whether it is sensory, psychological or rational. So the manas is muni. The buddhi also is muni. What happens there?

Mokṣaparāyaṇaḥ: Engaged only in the large magnificent expectation of liberation, there is nothing that is expected. Like a servant waiting for salary on the first of the month, this attuned understanding is waiting for the descent of the grace of salvation. There is nothing else that attracts. All the joys of the world have been seen through. They cannot any more pull me. The delights of sense have been probed into, threadbare. They cannot attract me anymore, and I have now known the structure of the whole atmosphere in which I am living. I am not living in Rishikesh; I am not living on this Earth. I am living in this universe. What a grand conclusion! Where am I living? I am living in the universe. You will feel this by a sincere acceptance of the meaning of this statement that you made. Sincerely you should accept the hidden meaning of this little statement: “I am living in this universe.” You will find that you become a different person in one second. You will not be this little puny person. Your hair may stand on end due to a comfort, due to a peculiar kind of strength that seems to seep into your body through all the elements outside. “I am living in this cosmos.” Why should you not feel that? That is expectation supernal, supreme. Vigatecchābhayakrodha: There is no desire, no longing of any kind, no other expectation except this supreme expectation of the melting down of this particular in the largest universal, the supreme creative principle, God the Almighty.

Yaḥ sadā mukta eva saḥ: If this thought can be entertained in our mind, we are already liberated. The passport is already in our hands. The plane is to take off any day, and we need not bother about it. When our plane is booked and the date is also decided, why are we worrying? This conviction which we have been considering in these few minutes is the satisfaction that our passport is ready, our visa is granted, and our plane is about to take off. Therefore, we are already free. We are already liberated from this world. Even if the physical body is lumbering here for a few days, let it be there. It is like a person whose date of departure is already fixed. The mind has already gone out. It is not here. “Yes, I know I am out.” Physically you are here for a few days, but really you are not here because you know that you are not to be here. Practically you are not here, even if for some days you are physically here. Therefore, such a person is already liberated, a jivanmukta purusha. Living, you are free.

Bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ sarvalokamaheśvaram, suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati (BG 5.29). God, like a loving parent, tells us, “I am with you, my dear children. Don't cry, don't weep! I am your friend, I am your caretaker, I am your protector, I am your father, I am your mother. I shall bring whatever you want. I shall secure everything. You shall be taken care of by Me. Why do you bother about yourself?”

“Why think of the morrow?” said Christ. “Why are you thinking of the morrow? Look at the lilies in the fields, and the sparrows so freely moving. Are they not taken care of by the Almighty Father? Do you think you are less important than the lilies in the fields and the sparrows and the birds which sing so beautifully? Why is this lack of faith?

“O ye of little faith, if you have as much faith as the size of a mustard seed, tell this mountain to move and it shall move; it is cast in the ocean.” This is the great master Christ speaking, a very heartening promise of a Godman. It is the promise of God Himself.

So here is the promise in the Bhagavadgita. Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as the great master yogin, speaks, representing the Almighty here. Bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ: I am the receiver of the fruits of every celebrated performance. Any offering comes to Me. Sarva deva namaskaram kesavam prati gacchati: All prostrations go to the Supreme Being. In any direction you prostrate yourself, and it goes to that Supreme Being only. You are offering prostration to that. All the rivers go to that ocean. Wherever they may move, they shall find themselves there. The river shall find itself in the one ocean.

The holy effect of your religious and spiritual exercises, tapas and yajna, all these go to that One Being. He consumes everything, as the master consumer. He is also the master producer. You are not the doer of actions. This has already been told. So you are not the producer. He is the master producer, and the master consumer: bhoktāraṁ yajñatapasāṁ sarvalokamaheśvaram. Here is the Lord of the universe speaking. The Supreme Master of all creation here speaks. What does that Master say? “Friend of all am I.” Touching is the statement, which will melt your hearts. The contrite heart, the hardest flint-like heart, shall melt at this glorious, motherly, touching, balming statement of the Almighty: “I am your friend.” Suhṛdaṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati: You shall attain to peace having known this.

It is a beautiful conclusion, a grand culmination, a magnificent promise, and we shall be purified even by listening to these great thoughts. Even by thinking these thoughts, our sins are destroyed. Thousands of yajnas or manifold dips in holy rivers cannot equal this purification that can be effected by the entering of such thoughts as this. Every cell shall be purified. Iron that is this body shall become gold, lustrous. With this wondrous message, the great Lord, the Friend of all, our Father and Mother, speaks in such a tender voice. With this, the Fifth Chapter concludes.

The Sixth Chapter is called The Yoga of Meditation, dhyana yoga, which is a concentrated presentation of whatever Patanjali tells in his sutras. Anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṁ kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥ, sa saṁnyāsī ca yogī ca na niragnir na cākriyaḥ (BG 6.1); yaṁ saṁnyāsam iti prāhur yogaṁ taṁ viddhi pāṇḍava, na hy asaṁnyastasaṁkalpo yogī bhavati kaścana (BG 6.2). This jivanmukta lakshana, this liberated stage even while living apparently, is the life of a sannyasin, the life of a yogin. But who is a sannyasin, and who is a yogin?

Anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṁ: not hanging on that so-called fruit of an action that is performed. There should not be that psychological hangover of slavish dependence on a product that may be reaped out of something that we do. It is improper for us to expect for our own personal benefit the fruit of any action. All this has been told in large detail already. We need not reiterate it. The actions are not your actions; they are not my actions. They are the actions of that Great Being who spoke just now. So no individual apparently living in this body can be justified in thinking of an object outside as a fruit coming from an action performed. Therefore, we should not hang on or depend upon a result, or a fruit of an action, because no one has complete control over the result that can be produced by any action.

All action is basically impelled by a cosmic purposiveness; therefore, individuals cannot decide what sort of result will follow from this particular channelled motivation called individual action. Not only that, the fruit, which is the so-called effect produced by a cause which is the action, is identical with the cause in the cosmos. So either way, there is no point in thinking that there is a fruit of action. Therefore, one does not unnecessarily and foolishly depend on a so-called external fruit of an action, anāśritaḥ karmaphalaṁ, yet one is doing action.

“If there is no fruit coming, why should I act?” This idea should be dropped in light of the knowledge that we have now acquired by traversing this large gospel in the earlier chapters. There is nothing expected from the performance of an action, yet action is performed. Action is to be performed because that is the duty of every part that belongs to the whole, which cannot expect anything except the satisfaction of the whole. Kāryaṁ karma karoti yaḥ: He who performs action diligently, without any motivation towards an externalised fruit of an action; sa saṁnyāsī: he is a sannyasin. He is a yogi: ca yogī ca. Sannyasa and yoga mean the same thing. Ekaṁ sāṁkhyaṁ ca yogaṁ ca (BG 5.5) it was said. Earlier it was said that sankhya and yoga are the same. Now we are told that sannyasa and yoga are the same. They mean practically one and the same thing. We may say that what is sannyasa is sankhya; what is yoga is, of course, known.

Na niragnir na cākriyaḥ. 'Sannyasi' does not mean a non-active person, an idler; a physically silent individual is not a sannyasin. A sannyasin is one who does duty, does work intelligently, perfectly, precisely, because it is a necessity under the scheme of things, and not because something comes from it. Nothing will come to the sannyasin. He is a pauper physically speaking, but he is the richest of people. A sannyasin has nothing, but yet the sannyasin has everything. He has nothing because he is not an individual person owning some property from outside. But he has everything because the whole world is with him. His thought is his action. He is the yogi also: sa saṁnyāsī ca yogī ca. He is united with the facts of creation. Therefore, he is a yogi. He has no attachment to anything; therefore, he is a sannyasin.

So one who is united to the reality of the cosmos is a yogi; one who is detached from any kind of craving for external results of action is a sannyasin. Merely not lighting a fire and not performing agnihotra like a householder – not touching this, not touching that physically, and sitting idle without doing anything – that is not sannyasa, that is not yoga. It is an internal unifiedness of spirit with the purpose of the whole of creation. That explains both sannyasa and yoga. This is the first verse of the Sixth Chapter of the Bhagavadgita.