Bhagawad Gita Ch 2. Verses 68 - End of 2nd Chpter [Adi Shankara's commentary]

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68.0 Having discoursed in manifold ways on the rightness of the view

advanced

in verse II.60 and supported it with reasoning, the Lrod winds it up:

 

68. Therefore, O hero! his wisdom is stable whose senses have been

withdrawn

on all sides from their (respective) objects.

 

68.1 The evil caused by the activities of the senses has been set forth.

 

Therefore, O hero! that ascetic's wisdom becomes stable, whose senses have

been

withdrawn totally from their objects such as sounds etc., on all planes of

activity.

 

69.0 For the sage of stable wisdom who has won the knowledge of

discrimination, all works, secular and Vedic, cease, since nescience, their

cause, has been sublated. Nescience, too, is sublated as it is opposed to

knowledge. Clarifying the idea, the Lord says:

 

69. The restrained ascetic (the sage) is awake in what is night for all

living biengs, while, when these latter are awake, it is night for the

silent

sage who perceives.

 

69.1 The supreme truth, the sphere of the sage of stable wisdom, is night

for

the rest of the world. At night things cannot be distinguished because of

darkness. Just as what is day to nocturnal creatures is night for others,

so

the supreme Truth is, as it were, 'night' for all ignorant beings who

correspond

to these nocturnal creatures. The supreme Truth, of ocurse, does not fall

within the range of their understanding. Into that (day of) ultimate Truth,

the

ascetic sage, the Yogin who has mastered his senses, wakes up from the sleep

of

nescience. Sunk in the sleep of nescience, marked by plurality of subjects

and

objects, the rest of the world is said to be awake like dreamers in their

sleep.

But this is night for the sage who has grasped the ultimate Truth.

 

69.2 Therefore, works are enjoined (on man) only in his state of

nescience

and not in that of knoweldge. When knowledge dawns, nescience perishes like

the

darkness of the night when the sun rises. Before the dawn of knowledge, the

 

deliverance of nescience in its varied forms of action, accessories and

fruits

are entertained as valid. When known to be invalid, nescience stops its

operations. An agent acts under the impression that valid Vedic injunctions

 

have enjoined actions on him; he cannot do so when he judges the world to be

(a

sort of night)-a mere structure of nescience. On the other hand, he who

knows

the whole sphere of objects to be nothing but nescience is the knower of the

 

Self. What is incumbent on him is to renounce all actions and not to

perform

them. This the Lord will elucidate in the verse 5.17: 'Their intellect

anchored

in It, having That as their Self' etc. The exclusive obligation of the sage

is

the pursuit of knowledge.

 

 

69.3 Objection: He cannot address himself even to the discipline of

knowledge in the absence of a valid source of knowledge that prescribes it.

 

Reply: No, for Self-knowledge is directed to one's own Self. The Self

does

not need an (alien) source of knowledge to initiate activity in regard to

Itself, the goal being the realization of the Self. Once Self-realization

is

won, it is no longer possible to discuss the distinctions between the means

of

knowledge and their objects. The last means of knowledge indeed liberates

the

Self from Its status as a knower. Doing this, it ceases to be a valid

means,

resembling in this respect the means of knowledge in a dream. In the state

of

supreme enlightenment and in the empirical world, once the reality is known,

the

means of knoweldge is not experienced as leading to further activity of any

kind. In this world, too, means, of right cognition yielding right

knowledge

ceases to cause any further activity. Therefore, it follows that the Self-

knower is under no further obligation to perform work.

 

70.0 In order to elucidate with the help of simile the idea that

emancipation

can be won only by the ascetic sage of stable wisdom who has renounced all

desires, and not by a non-renouncer pursuing objects of desires, the Lord

affirms:

 

70. He wins peace into whose mind objects of desires enter as waters flow

 

into a full and stable sea that is being filled; and not he yearns after

objects

of desire.

 

70.1 Though being filled on all sides by waters, the sea remains

unchanged;

for it is stable. These waters flow into it from all sides, while the sea

abides in itself, unaltered. Thus all forms of desire, all around, like the

 

waters into the sea enter the sage's mind. He contains them all, and is not

 

enslaved by them. Only he wins peace or liberation, and not any other who

habitually yearns after objects of desire.

 

Such being the case,

 

71. The man who, giving up all objects of desires, moves aobut seeking

nothing, and rid of all sense of 'mine' and 'I', wins peace.

 

71.1 Giving up, i.e. having renounced objects of desires in their

totality,

the renouncer moves about. His efforts have been reduced to securing just

what

sustains life-this is the sense. 'Seeking nothing'-he does not desire even

to

keep the body alive. So he is free from all sense of 'mine'-has no sense of

 

possessions even in regard to these few things needed to maintain his body

alive. Neither has he egoism, being free from all feelings of self-esteem

based

on his scholarship etc., So circumstanced, the sage of stable wisdom, the

knower

of Brahman, attains peace-the cessation of all forms of transmigratory

sufferings. This is Nirvana. He becomes assimilated to Brahman.

 

This discipline of knowledge is eulogised.

 

72. This is the status of Brahman, Arjuna!; attaining it, none gets

deluded

(any more). Abiding in it, at least at the hour of death, one gains super-

consciousness in Brahman.

 

72.1 The status engendered in Brahman is brahmi. It is the status as

Brahman, won after renouncing all works, O Arjuna! Having won it, one is no

longer deluded. Stationing oneself in it, as described above, at least in

the

final stage of one's life, one achieves super-consciousness in Brahman-the

bliss

of Brahman. It goes without saying that he who renounces works right from

the

station of celibacy (a Brahmachari) and remains anchored in Brahman

throughout

his life, attains Brahmic super-consciousness.

 

Thus ends the Aadhi Aachaaryaa's commentary on the Samkhya Yoga.

 

The significance of Samkhya Yoga was once explained by Bhagawan Sri Ramana

Maharshi saying that Lord Krishna conveyed everything that was needed

through

Samkhya Yoga to Arjuna, but since Arjuna could not comprehend it, He went on

to

elucidate other yogas.