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2024-04-26, 3:09 PM |
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Chapter 28: Jñâna Yoga or the
Denomination and the Real
(1)
The Supreme Lord said: 'When one understands
that the world, this combination of matter and person, is based upon
one and the same reality, one should refrain from praising and
criticizing someone else's nature and activities. (2) He who praises or criticizes someone else's
nature and actions quickly looses grip on that what is his own interest
because he gets entangled in a self-created reality. (3) A person aware of the objective diversity is
just [as unaware of the one reality] as an embodied soul whose senses
overcome by sleep within the physical encasement experience the
illusory [of a dream] or the deathlike of having lost consciousness. (4) How can one distinguish between good and bad
with this material duality that belongs to the realm of our
imagination? Musing over it with our mind and expressing it in words we
do not cover the truth [*]. (5) Shadows, echoes and mirages, though mere
projections, create motives [in people]; the same way the body and all
of its material conceptions create fear until the day one dies. (6-7) The Supreme Soul who alone creates the
universe and is created as its Lord, protects and is protected as the
Self of all Creation and withdraws and is withdrawn as the Controller.
Accordingly no other entity can be ascertained as existing apart from
Him, and thus has this threefold appearance established within the
Supreme Self and consisting of the modes no [other or independent]
basis; know that the threefold [of the seen, the seeing and the seer
according to resp. the tamas, the rajas and the sattva
quality] is a construct of the illusory energy [under the influence of
Him in the form of Time, see also B.G. 14:
19]. (8) Someone who fixed in the knowledge as laid
down and realized by Me knows about this, does not blame or praise [in
looking for another cause], he freely wanders the earth just like the
sun does [see B.G. 2: 57,
13: 13, 13: 32, 14: 22-25]. (9) When one from direct perception, logical
deduction, scriptural truth and one's self-realization knows that the
inessential has a beginning and an end, one should move around in this
world free from attachment [see also B.G. 2:
16].'
(10) S'rî Uddhava said: 'O my Lord, who is it
actually who carries the experience of this [changing] material
existence? It is not precisely the [unchanging] soul, the seer who is
self-aware, nor does it belong to the body, the seen that [changing
itself] has no experiencing self of its own. (11) The inexhaustible soul, free from the modes,
is pure, self-luminous and uncovered just like a fire, while the
material body is like firewood that is without understanding. To which
of the two belongs the experience of a material life in this world?'
(12) The Supreme Lord said: 'As long as the soul is
attracted to the body, the senses and the vital force, his material
existence, which carries its fruit in due course, will nevertheless be
meaningless because of a lack of discrimination. (13) Even though material substance has no real
existence [because of its impermanence], the material condition [as for
its constituent elements] does not cease to be and one has, like in a
dream contemplating the objects of the senses, to face the consequent
disadvantages [compare 3.27:
4, 4.29: 35 & 73, 11.22:
56, B.G. 2:
14]. (14) That [dream] what brings the one who is not
awake in his sleep many undesirable experiences, will certainly not
confound the one who awakened though. (15)
Lamentation, elation, fear, anger, greed, confusion, hankering and such
is seen upon the birth and death of one's identification with the body [ahankâra] and does not depend on the soul [that
doesn't take birth or die, see 11.22:
12, 11.23:
50-56, 11.25:
30]. (16) Falsely motivated dwelling within the self
of the material body, the senses, life-air and the mind, the living
being assumes his form according to the gunas and the karma. He
is then, depending the way he relates to the thread constituted by the
greater of nature, described with different names when he under the
strict control of Time wanders about in the ocean of matter. (17) This without a firm basis being represented
in the many forms of the mind, the speech, the life force, the gross
body and fruitive actions, will, with the sword of transcendental
knowledge that was sharpened in worship, be cut down by a sober sage
who walks the earth free from desires. (18)
Spiritual knowledge [entails] the discrimination [of spirit and matter
and is nourished by], scripture and penance, personal experience,
historical accounts and logical inference. [It is based upon] that
which is there equally in the beginning and in the end of this
[creation] and which is the same in between, knowing the Time and
Ultimate Cause [of brahman, the Absolute Truth, see also B.G. 10:
30, 33, 11:
32 and kâla]. (19)
Like gold alone being present before it is processed, when it is
processed and in the final product of the processing, I am present in
the disguise of the different modes [of processing] of this creation. (20) My dearest, this spirit of condensed
knowledge in its three conditions [of wakefulness, sleep and
unconscious sleep], constitutes, manifesting itself in the form of the
modes as the causing [of rajas], the caused [of tamas]
and the causer [of sattva, compare 11.22:
30], the fourth factor [the
'gold'] which as an independent variable stands for the single truth of
each of them. (21) That what was
absent before, is absent afterwards, and isn't there [independently] in
between, is but a designation; whatever that was created and is known
by something else, is actually only that something else; that is how I
see it. (22) The spiritual reality of God as established
in its own light manifests the Absolute Truth as the variety of the
senses, their objects, the mind and the transformations. For that
reason is this creation, that because of the mode of rajas is
subject to modification, self-luminous, even though it is not really
there [see also siddhânta]. (23)
When one this way by discriminating logic has achieved clarity about
the Absolute of the Spiritual Truth, one must expertly speak against
and cut with the doubt regarding the Self and satisfied in one's own
spiritual happiness desist from all lusty [unregulated] matters [see
B.G. 3: 34].
(24) The body made of earth is not the true self,
nor are the senses, their gods or the life air, the external air,
water, fire or a mind only interested in food; nor are the
intelligence, material consciousness, the I that thinks itself the
doer, the ether, the earth, material things or the restraint. (25) What's the merit of him who properly
ascertained my identity and in his concentration managed to direct his
- by the modes controlled - senses perfectly? And what on the other
hand would be the blame for him who is diverted by his senses? Would
the sun care about being covered by clouds or a sky clearing up? (26) Just as the sky is not affected by the
coming and going qualities of the air, fire, water and earth or by the
qualities of the seasons [of heat and cold], is likewise the
Imperishable Supreme elevated above the influence of the natural modes
of sattva, rajas and tamas that are responsible for the
fact that he who takes his body for the true self is caught in the
material world [see also 1.3:
36, 3.27:
1, B.G. 7:
13]. (27) Nevertheless, until by firmly being rooted
in My bhakti-yoga one has banned the impurity of the mind of passion,
one must eliminate the attachment associated with the qualities that
belong to the deluding material energy [see B.G. 7:
1, 14 and **].
(28) The same way as a disease that was
imperfectly treated turns back time and again and brings a man trouble,
the mind that was not purified of its contamination of karma will torment the inexperienced yogi
who still is of all kinds of attachments. (29)
Imperfect yogis who are commanded by impediments in the form of the
human beings [family members, disciples etc., see e.g. S'rî S'rî S'ikshâshthaka-4] sent by the thirty gods [see tridas'a] will, on the strength of their perseverance
in their previous life once more [in a new life] engage in the practice
of yoga, but never again be entangled in fruitive labor [see also 11.18:
14, B.G. 6: 41-42]. (30) A normal living being who has to experience
the consequences of his fruitive labor, remains, impelled by this or
that impulse, in that position until the moment he dies. But someone
intelligent is, despite of being situated in the material position, not
that [fickle], because he with the experience of the happiness he found
gave up his material desire. (31)
He whose consciousness is fixed in the true self doesn't give it a
moment's thought whether he is standing, sitting, walking or lying
down, urinating, eating food or doing whatever else that manifests from
his conditioned nature. (32)
Someone intelligent doesn't take anything else for essential. Whenever
he sees the not really [independently] existing things of the senses,
he from his logic denies them their separateness, so that they are like
the things of a dream that lose their value when one wakes up. (33) Material ignorance which under the influence
of the modes of nature assumes many forms is by the conditioned soul
taken for an inextricable part of himself, but the ignorance ends by
simply developing His vision, My best one. The soul on the other hand
is not something one accepts or leaves behind. (34) When the sun rises is the darkness in the
human eye expelled, but that rising is not creating the things that are
seen then. Similarly a thorough and adroit search for the true of Me
puts an end to the darkness of someone's intelligence [while that
search itself is not the reason why his soul exists]. (35) This selfluminous, unborn, immeasurable
Greatness of Understanding who is aware of everything is the One
Without a Second in whom words find their closure, and by whom impelled
the speech and the life airs move. (36)
Whatever the notion of duality the self might have is but a delusion to
the unique soul, as it indeed has no basis outside of that very self
[compare 7.13: 7]. (37) The
dualistic, imaginative interpretation [in terms of good and bad, see
also 11.21: 16] by
so-called scholars of this in names and forms perceivable duality which
unmistakably consists of the five elements, is in vain [see also 5.6:
11].
(38) The body of the yogi who with a lack of
experience tries to engage in the practice of yoga, may be overcome by
rising disturbances. In that case is the following the prescribed rule
of conduct: (39) Some disturbances may be overcome by
postures [âsanas] combined with concentration [dhârana], penance [tapas, see ***], mantras and
medicinal herbs. (40) Some of the
inauspicious matters can be overcome step by step by constantly
thinking of Me [Vishnu-smarana], by the celebration of My names and such [japa, sankîrtana] and by following in the footsteps of the
masters of yoga [see also B.G. 6:
25]. (41) Some [yogis] make their self-controlled
bodies suitable by fixing themselves on the youthful with the help of
various methods and try that way to be perfect in their material
control [siddhis]. (42) By the ones
who enjoy a good condition that is not honored though, convinced as
they are that such an endeavor is quite useless, because the body, like
the fruit of a tree, will perish anyway [see also 11.15:
33]. (43) Someone with a devoted mind does not value
it highly to practice yoga regularly with the purpose of realizing a
healthy body, he who is devoted to Me gives up on the yoga [for that
purpose, *4]. (44)
The yogi following this process of yoga will, freed from desires having
taken to the shelter of Me, not be disheartened by obstacles and [thus]
experience the happiness of his soul.'
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