Rajaji's Views on Advaita and Gita

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The Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan has published many books on Hindu Religion

and Culture. The book on "Bhagavad Gita" by Rajagopalachari (Rajaji)

summarizes Gita in 120 pages. Rajaji was a great patriot and a close

associate of Mahatma Gandhi. He had served India in various capacities,

the first Indian Governor-General of India, the Chief minister of Tamil

Nadu, Governor of West Bengal and the Home Minister of India. Both

Rajaji and Mahatma Gandhi has lived strictly according to the doctrine

of Gita. In Chapter 13 of his book, Rajaji describes Advaita and

Gita-Discipline and I have reproduced the chapter below:

 

"A Question may be raised at this stage by those who have only heard of

or have a superficial acquaintance with the doctrine of Advaita. If the

Soul's separate existence is the result of illusion and God alone

exists, why should there be this toilsome effort at so-called

liberation? Why should we not rest content with knowing the truth that

God alone exists? This might well be so, were the illusion a mere

optical illusion. The Maya has wrought its effect not only on the eyes

but on every one of our senses and on our minds and has produced

attachments, passions and turmoil of the soul. Rubbing the yes alone

will not do. We must wake up every atom of our being to the reality

because the illusion goes to the depth of our very being. Again, it is

not enough to know that we should wake up. It is necessary actually to

wake up. This real and thorough awakening of our being is called

liberation, and the process is just the same whether it proceeds on this

basis of waking up from an illusion, or is deemed a process of

self-purification and liberation of the soul as a real and separate

entity.

Sense-enjoyments and attachment thereto confirm and add to the

illusion. It is necessary to get rid of them in order to dispel the

Maya. The knowledge gained from the teacher, that God and Soul are one,

but ignorance born of Maya, may be an aid in the process of liberation

or waking up, but that by itself is not enough. The need for personal

effort to free oneself from passions and attachments diminishes as one

approaches the goal of true enlightenment, and diminishes in the measure

of our progress toward it.

Whether the individual soul be treated as a result of Maya, liberation

consisting, then, in the removal of the illusion that brought about the

idea of individual existence, or whether it be considered that the

individual soul is really a separate entity beginning-less, free and

clothed in matter, which must work out its salvation by fitting itself

for being received by God - in either case, the process to be gone

through is identical. If the Soul's separate existence is an illusion,

attachment to the objects of sense-enjoyment, and lust, greed and anger

add to the illusion and must be avoided. With real disillusionment,

sins, and attachments must automatically cease. Conversely, a pure life

and unselfish performance of duties and serenity of mind lead to

realization of the truth behind the veil. Whether attachments have not

ceased, we may take it that the knowledge is unreal, and that only lip

service is being rendered to theory, and the illusion within is

increasing, not diminishing. True Jnana can come, and great illusion be

dissolved only by the same process as has been prescribed for liberation

from Karma on the basis of the soul being a separate spiritual entity

according to the Dvaita Philosophy. Thus it is that the Gita is book of

Life for all, irrespective of differing creeds as to the ultimate nature

of the individual Soul."

 

Though I hesitate to add my own commentary but I want to repeat the

words that struck me: "It is not enough to know that we should wake up.

It is necessary that we should wake up."

Let us Wake Up!

 

--

Ram Chandran

Burke, VA