Sathya Sai Baba Geetha Vahini - Chapter 3

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Sathya Sai BabaGeetha Vahini

Chapter III

It is more useful for the student to search for his own faults, with a view to

removing them, than to seek excellences so that he might exult over them. A

student who does this can progress fast; he is not dragged behind by fear or

anxiety; he can move on, with faith in the Lord, on whom he has placed all his

burdens. He reaches a state of mental calm, which is the sign of the true

aspirant. Arjuna arrived at that stage and then Krishna gave him (and, through

him, to all mankind) the teaching that confers immortality.

For whom was the Geetha spoken? Just think of that for one moment. Milk is not

taken from the udder for the sake of the cows, for cows do no drink their own

milk; Arjuna, the calf, has had his fill; Krishna is ever-content and He needs

nothing, not to mention, milk! For whose sake was it that the Upanishads were

milked by Krishna to get this Geetha? Krishna says it is for the "Sudhee-jana,"

the persons who have "Su-dhee". Intelligence that is moderated by goodness;

intelligence that is controlled by virtue.

And what of the place where the teaching was given? Between two opposing armies!

Therein lies the great significance of the Geetha. On one side, the forces of

Dharma; on the other, the forces of Adharma; on one side, the good, on the

other, the bad; between these two pulls, the individual, unable to decide which

course to adopt, weeps in despair. And the Lord speaks the Geetha to all such

and grants them light and courage. Do not think that the distress of Arjuna was

just his affair, his problem and no more. It is a universal human problem.

For Arjuna sought from Krishna not Preyas - the pleasing, worldly glory of power

and status and wealth; but Sreyas, the lasting glory of full joy. He said,

"Preyas is available for human effort; it can be won by human activity or

Karma. Why should I crave from You what I can win by my own endeavour? I am not

so foolish as all that. Grant me that Sreyas that is beyond the reach of my

effort. Sreyas is not the fruit of Karma, it is the fruit of grace!" Thus

Arjuna rose to the height of Saranagathi, absolute self-surrender, the state

called Prapaththi.

Much can be said of Saranagathi. Man surrenders his dignity and status to other

men for various purposes in life - wealth, fame, possessions, pomp, power etc.

But rarely does he get the chance to surrender to the Lord for the sake of the

Lord! How can he get the urge so long as he craves for the Aadheya and not the

Aadhaara? He longs for the object, but does not long for the base on which the

object rests. How long can a baseless object satisfy? He wants the gift, not

the giver! - the created not the creator, things from the hand, but not the

hand! He is running after a nonexistent thing. Can there be an object without a

preexistent cause? No; if there is one, it can only be the uncaused God. It is,

therefore, sheer ignorance to surrender individuality for the sake of the

transitory products of action, the 'caused' rather than the cause. Surrender

rather to the basis, the cause and the origin of all, the Sarveswara. That is

genuine Saranagathi.

There are three types of Saranagathi: Thavaivaaham (I am thine), Mamaiva-thwam

(you are mine) and Thwame-vaaham (thou art I). The first affirms, I am yours;

the second asserts, you are mine, and the third declares you and I are one, the

same. Each is just a step in the rising series and the last is the highest step

of all.

In the first stage, Thav-eva-aham, the Lord is fully free and the devotee is

fully bound. It is like the cat and the kitten; the cat shifts the kitten about

as it wills; the kitten just mews and accepts whatever happens. This attitude is

very gentle and is within easy reach of all. In the second, Mama-eva-thwam, the

devotee binds the Lord, who is to that extent 'un-free!' Surdas is a good

example of this attitude. "Krishna! You may escape from my hold, from the clasp

of these arms; but you cannot escape from my heart, where I have bound you,"

challenged Surdas. The Lord just smiled and assented; for, "I am bound by my

devotees," He asserts so without any loss of self-respect. The devotee can tie

up the Lord with his Prema; by Bhakthi that overwhelms and overpowers his

egoism. When man is full of this type of Bhakthi, the Lord will Himself bless

him with everything he needs. His grace will fulfil all his wants. Remind

yourself here of the promise made by the Lord in the Geetha.

"Yogakshemam vahaamyaham", "I carry the burden of his welfare."

Next, about the third stage: "Thwamevaaham ithi thridhaa;" this is the

Avibhaktha-bhakthi, the inseparable devotion. The devotee offers all to the

Lord, including himself, for he feels that he cannot withhold himself. That

completes his surrender.

The Thwamevaaham feeling is the Adwaithic Saranagathi, based on the realisation

that all this ('Idam') is Vaasudeva and nothing less, nothing else. So long as

the consciousness of the Deha or body persists, the Bhaktha is the servant and

the Lord is master. So long as the individual feels that he is separate from

other individuals, the Bhaktha is a part and the Lord is the whole. When he

progresses to the state when he gets beyond the limits of the body as well as

of "I" and "mine", then there is no more distinction; Bhaktha and Bhagavan are

the same. In the Ramayana, Hanumantha achieved this third stage through

Bhakthi.

This same subject is mentioned in the seventh sloka of the second chapter of the

Geetha. The word Prapanna used there indicates that Arjuna has the

qualification, the discipline of Bhakthi. Moreover, Arjuna had analysed his own

faults and recognised them as such. Again, he had awakened from Thamas. Krishna

appreciated this the moment it happened. He said, "You are called Guda-kesa,

for you are Jitha-nidra - Nidra or sleep is the characteristic of Thamas; how

can this Thamas overwhelm you now? It is just a temporary phase; it can never

bind you fast."

If Arjuna has, by his efforts, won control over his senses and earned the name

Gudakesa, Krishna is Hrishikesa, the Presiding Deity of all the senses! On the

field of Kurukshethra both are in the same chariot, one as learner and the

other as teacher!

What exactly is the cause of all grief? It is the attachment to the body that

produces grief as well as its immediate precursors: affection and hate. These

two are the results of the intellect considering some things and conditions as

beneficial, and some other things and conditions as not. This is a delusion,

this idea of beneficence and maleficence. Still you get attached to objects

that are considered beneficial and you start hating the others. But from the

highest point of view, there is neither; the distinction is just meaningless.

There is no two at all; how can there be good and bad then? To see two where

there is only one, that is Maya, or Ignorance. The ignorance that plunged

Arjuna into grief was of this nature - seeing many, when there is only one.

Absence of the knowledge of the identity of Thath thwam (the word 'Thathwa,'

used to mean principle, enshrines this great philosophical doctrine) is the

cause of all ignorance. If this truth is not learnt, man has to flounder in the

ocean of grief. But, if it is learnt and if man lives in that consciousness,

then he can be free from grief. Many a prescription is recommended, used,

published and repeated parrot-like by all kinds of quacks. But they do not go

to the root of the matter; they are balms applied to the eye to cure an ache in

the stomach. The disease and the drug have no coordination! The ache must be

spotted and diagnosed and the drug must be such as will remove it. Then alone

can it be cured. Narayana is the only medical expert who can do so. And, He has

diagnosed Arjuna's illness correctly and decided on the treatment.

The wound that cannot be healed by external application of balms has to be cured

by internal remedies. So Krishna prodded Arjuna with queries. "Why do you weep

like a coward? Is it because, Bhishma, Drona and the rest are about to be

killed? No; you weep because you feel they are 'your men'. It is egoism that

makes you weep. People weep not for the dead, but because the dead are

'theirs'. Have you not killed until now many who were 'not yours?' You never

shed any tears for them. Today you weep, since you are under the delusion that

these whom you see before you are somehow 'yours' in a special way. When you

sleep, you are unaffected by this feeling of "I" and "mine", so you are unaware

what happens to your body or the bodies of these 'your men' or to your

possessions, items which you carefully remember while awake. 'Mine' is the

possessive case of 'I' and so it comes in its trail. The fundamental ignorance,

my dear fool, is the identification of yourself with something that is not

you; viz, the body. Deha is An-aatma; you believe that it is the Atma. What a

topsy-turvy bit of knowledge is this! To cure this A-jnana, I must administer

the medicine of Jnana itself."

Thus, Krishna started giving him, in the very first instance, the most effective

drug, Jnana. This is detailed from the eleventh sloka of the second chapter.

This is a key sloka for all students of the Geetha. Krishna condemns outright

two objections that were haunting Arjuna for long, saying that the destruction

of the body does not mean the destruction of the Atma and that he is grieving

for those he need not grieve for. "Prajnaa-vaadaam-scha bhaashase: You talk

like a wise man. You say this is Dharma and the other is Adharma, as if you

know how to distinguish them," said Krishna.

Here attention has to be paid to one fact. Arjuna is suffering from two types of

delusion: (1) Ordinary and (2) Out of the ordinary. To confuse the body with

oneself and pine for the body as if something has happened to one is the

ordinary delusion. To discard one's own Dharma - (in this case, the Dharma of a

Kshatriya) - as A-dharma is a delusion out of the ordinary. Krishna destroys the

first and removes the second. The first is dealt with from the 12th to the 30th

sloka of the second chapter; Krishna has to tackle the second as a special

problem and explain in eight slokas the idea of Swa-dharma or His own Dharma to

Arjuna. These are collectively called Dharmashtakas. Swa-dharma does not bind

and produce further birth; it can lead on to liberation; it has to be done as

Karmayoga, without attachment to the fruit. Towards the close of the second

chapter, there is also the description of the successful aspirant who has

steadied himself in a purified intellect, the

Sthithaprajna.

Krishna continued His discourse: "Arjuna! Think for a while who you are and what

you are proposing to do. You declare you know everything but yet you weep like a

helpless woman. Your words proclaim that you are a Pundit, but your acts reveal

you as a simpleton. Hearing you, one would infer you are a Jnani; but seeing

you, one would find that you are an Ajnani! Your condition is disgusting, to

say the least. Well, if I take you to be a Pundit, I cannot reconcile that view

with your tears; for Pundits do not grieve over life and death. If they grieve,

they are no Pundits. Pundits have the capacity to discover what is

fundamentally true. Those who know the secret of the physical, and the mystery

of the spiritual, such alone can be called Pundits. How then can they weep over

either the embodied or the disembodied? They will not forgo their inner calm,

whatever the stress or distress."

The fully ignorant and the fully wise - both will have no grief over the living

or the dead. Do you weep because the bodies of Bhishma and Drona will fall, or

is it because the Atma of those two will be destroyed? For the bodies, do you

say? Well. Are tears any good? If they are, certainly, people would have kept

the corpses of their dead and revived them by their weeping. No, it can never

be. Immerse the body in vessels of Amritha; it cannot come back to life. Why

then weep over the inevitable, the unavoidable?

"You might say that you are weeping for the Atma, the spiritual core. That

reveals greater foolishness. Death can never even approach the Atma. It is

eternal, self-evident, pure. It is evident that you have no Atma-jnana at all."

"Again, for the Kshatriya, fighting is Swadharma. Do your duty regardless of

other considerations. You ask, 'How can I cause the death of Bhishma in war?

But they have all come to get killed and to kill; you are not killing them in

their homes. Of course, it is A-dharma to kill them in their homes; but on the

battlefield, how can it be against Dharma? I am sorry you have not got this

much of Viveka."

"It is enough. Get up and get ready for the fray. Why slide to the ground under

the weight of all this useless ego? The Lord is the cause of all, not you.

There is a higher power that moves everything. Know this and bend your will to

it."

"Bhishma, Drona and the rest have come like true soldiers and Kshatriyas to

engage in battle. They do not weep like you. Consider that. They will never

grieve or withdraw. Arjuna! This is the testing time for you, remember! Let Me

tell you this also. There was never a time when I was not. Why? There was never

a time when even you and all these kings and princes were not. Thath is the

Paramatma, Thwam is the Jivatma; and both were the same, are the same, and will

be so forever. Prior to the pot, in the pot and after the pot, it was, is and

will be clay."

Arjuna was shocked into awareness and wakefulness by all this. He said, "May be

You are God; may be You are indestructible. I weep not for You, but for such as

us: come yesterday, present today, off tomorrow. What happens to us? Please

enlighten me."

One point has to be carefully noticed here. Thath, that is the Godhead, is

Nithyam, eternal; every one accepts it. But Thwam, the individual too is

godhead! (Asi). It too is eternal, though it cannot be grasped so easily or so

quickly. So Krishna elaborates this and says, "Arjuna! You too are eternal as

the absolute. Seen apart from the limitations, the individual is the universal.

Prior to the appearance of the jewel, there was just gold; during the existence

of the jewel, there is just gold; and after the name-form of the jewel has

gone, the gold persists. The Atma persists in the same way, body or no body.

"Though it is associated with the body, the Atma is unaffected by the Gunas and

the Dharmas, that is to say, it has no qualities and characteristics. You are

unaffected by the changes that the body undergoes when you grow from the infant

to the boy, from the boy into the youth, from the youth to the middle-aged man

and thence to the old man. You persist, in spite of all this. It is the same

when the body is destroyed; the Atma persists. So the hero will not pine over

the change called death." Krishna said this with such emphasis that the chariot

shook!

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