MantraOnNet.com: Ram Gita
Sanskrit Wording:
English Wording:
tasmattyajektaryamasesatah sudhir ? vidyavirodhanna samuccayou bhavet atmanusandhanaparayanah sada nivttasarvendriyavrttigocarah.
English Meaning:
Therefore, let the pure-hearted learn to drop all activities; as activities are contrary to knowledge, their combination with knowledge is not possible. Quieting all activities of the senses and mind perceptions, one should always be engaged in contemplation upon the Self.
Since Samuccaya is not possible, let the one who has purified his heart through selfless, noble work, learn to drop all activities of the sense organs and the mind. The body-mind-intellect equipment gushing out into objects-emotions-thoughts to possess, embrace, and enjoy them constitutes all our physical and mental activities. We must withdraw all our attention from this childish preoccupation with the world of plurality; we must cease from all activities. This is a precondition before we can hope to be successful in contemplation. Since karma and jnana cannot be practiced together as they are contradictory to each other, having purified our inner equipment, let us stop work and dive into contemplation ? a state where we are exclusively alert to the knowledge of what lies behind the mind, at the very foundation of our personality.
Nobody can give up work totally. Work is the signature of life in the individual. But the Gita explains that when we work ?without anxiety for enjoying the result of work? (that is, without desire or an ego-sense), our work is ?not-work.? When the desire to enjoy the rewards of work is eliminated, our minds gather a unique poise, and in this inner peace, steady contemplation becomes easy and extremely enjoyable.
This is not a free sanction to give up work altogether. Having awakened to the Self, then give up work, says the Gita. As long as body-consciousness is with us, we must keep on doing the prescribed noble work ? but without the desire to enjoy its rewards.
Train yourself to turn your entire attention to contemplation upon the nature of the Self, until you realize the absolute identity of the ego-sense in you with the supreme Self. First, do selfless service of the society (karma), then worship the Lord (upasana). Through these, when the mind gets purified, it detaches itself from all pursuits of sense objects and from all sensuous thoughts (visaya cintana). Such a mind alone can steadily contemplate upon the Self (brahma cintana). Once you experience the joy arising out of a quiet, alert, and vigilant mind, you will never stop your contemplation sessions. They are always so rewarding, so full, so very fulfilling.
Sanskrit Wording:
English Wording:
vavacchariradisu mayayatmadhi – stavadvidheyo vidhivadakarmanam netiti vakyairakhilam nisidhya ta – jjnatva paratmanamatha tyajetkriyah.
English Meaning:
As long as one identifies with one?s body as a result of the play of Maya, so long one must perform the scared work prescribed by the Vedas. Thereafter, with the help of the sruti declaration of negation -?not this, not this?-one must learn to rise above one?s body identity and realize the Self-and then give up all work.
The earlier verse that daringly asserted that ?all work should be renounced, ?though very logically arrived at, can shock the seeker and undermine his faith. This is suicidal for the seeker?s spiritual life. Hence, in this verse, Sri Rama, with endless patience, explains what he meant by his apparently cruel rejection of all that the culture had been insisting on and the seeker had been practicing perhaps for many years now.
As long as you have the ?I am the body? Feeling, as long as the delusory misapprehension that ?I am the body ?persist, so long perform selfless, devoted works as prescribed in the scriptures. The ?I do ?Mentality is the ego (ahamkara). When as a result of following spiritual disciplines the ego and its desire promptings have thinned out, then start contemplation. Learn to rise above that which you are not, indicated so vividly in the Upanisads by the words of negation: ?Not this, not this ?(neti neti). When you have arrived at pure Consciousness, when the Self is realized, then all work becomes meaningless, empty, and purposeless.
Having woken up from a dream, what duty have you toward your dream family? Once you reach sleep, how can the sleeper continue the effort of the waker, who was then but trying to compose himself to sleep.
All work ceases when the ego -I wakes up to the ?I am the Self awareness. When a river reaches the ocean, its flow ends as it merges to become the ocean.
Non apprehension of the true nature of the Self created in you the misapprehension that you are a limited helpless, and tearful individual. Your non-apprehension of Reality (avarana) and the consequent misapprehensions (viksepa) are together called delusion (Maya). On apprehending the Self (jnana), all your misapprehensions (ajana) end. On realizing this grand goal, in that state of Self, no work is possible, no work is possible, no work is required. It is not really a question of your renouncing all activities -all activities simply slip off from you!
Sanskrit Wording:
English Wording:
yada paratmatmavibhedabhedakam vijnanamatmanyavabhati bhasvaram tadaiva maya praviliyate ?njasa sakaraka karanamatmasamsrteh
English Meaning:
The Lord (Paramatma), the individual ego- sense, and the world of plurality created by God and perceived by the ego, all these three are destroyed by the direct experience of the higher Self (vijnana). Then , in the inner equipments of mind and intellect, arises (avabhati) the resplendent (bhasvaram) Self.
Just as on waking up from the dream the entire dream rolls away instantaneously, so also the delusory world of plurality rolls away when the contemplative student arrives at the direct knowledge of the self. All non apprehension and misapprehensions are instantaneously wiped out. The individual, the, universe perceived, and the Creator (God) all merge into the one experience divine.
It is profitable to remember that Laksmana?s demand was how he could cross over the ocean of nonapprehension instantaneously (verse 5). Here Sri Ramacandraji uses almost the same word (anjasa) and takes pains to explain how the seeker can instantaneously go beyond his delusions and come to apprehend Reality.
Sanskrit Wording:
English Wording:
srutipramanabhivinasita ca sa katham bhavisyatyapi karyakarini vijnanamatradamaladvitiyata – stasmadavidya na punarbhavisyati.
English Meaning:
There can still be a lingering doubt in the student?s mind that Maya, even if destroyed once, might again do her trick of projecting delusory misapprehensions. The teacher is denying this possibility because the misapprehensions were caused by the nonapprehension of Reality. When nonapprehension is destroyed in the direct apprehension of Reality. Maya folds her magic kit and disappear, never to come back.
In direct apprehension, all misapprehensions end; thereafter, in the state of the direct vision of the Self, nonapprehension cannot rise. Therefore, the individual in never more caught up with enchanting misapprehensions. Sri Ramacandra thus concludes. ?Therefore, this Maya (avidya, ignorance) can never again arrive to delude the bosom of such an accomplished spiritual seeker.?
Sanskrit Wording:
English Wording:
yadi sma nasta na punah prasuyate kartahamasyeti matih katham bhavet tasmatsvatantra na kimapyapeksate vidya vimoksaya vibhati kevala.
English Meaning:
Sri Ramacandra is still trying to make the Samuccaya Vadin feel ridiculous at his own false assertions and arguments.
If Maya, once destroyed through the apprehension of Reality, can no more bring any misapprehensions, how can the delusory sense of ?I?, the sense of doership, arise ? Therefore, karma and jnana can never be performed at one and the same time by the same individual. Integral yoga is a palpable contradiction in terms.
Knowledge alone removes ignorance. Apprehension alone ends nonapprehension. Thus, the path of knowledge is totally independent of all other help, and indeed self-sufficient in itself.