Bhagavatgita a detailed study-chapter2

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Respected Sarojaji,

Your detailed version of each and every sloka of Gita is really an eye opener. Thanks a lot.

Jai Sree Krishna

 

seema--- On Mon, 11/10/08, sarojram18 <sarojram18 wrote:

sarojram18 <sarojram18[Guruvayur] Bhagavatgita a detailed study-chapter2guruvayur Date: Monday, November 10, 2008, 4:17 PM

 

 

 

 

26. atha cha enam nithya jaatham nithyam vaa manyase mrtham

thaThaaa api thvam mahaabaaho na evam Sochithum arhasi.

 

Even if you identify yourself with the body , even then you should not grieve.

This view is according to those who do not understand the existence of a permanent entity as athman. This is rather a materialistic philosophy told by Krishna perhaps seeing the blank expression on the face of Arjuna who did not quite get at the idea of the eternal self. Krishna says that even if Arjuna thinks that the self is identical with the body and is born, nithyajaatham, and dies, nithyam mrtham, with the body, he should not grieve because,

 

 

27. jaathasay hi Dhruvo mrthyuH dhruvam janma mrthasya cha

thasmaath aparihaarye arThe na thvam sochithum arhasi

 

Death is certain for those who are born and birth is certain for those who die. Hence you should not grieve over the inevitable.

 

Death is inevitable when one is born. And those who die are certain to be born. This is absolutely from the point of view of materialism. It is normally said ,when some one dies, that, when people are born they have to die one day. The death comes only when the life ends. So unless the people have come to the end of their lives and are destined to die they cannot be killed by man or by accident. This we see in everyday life. Whenever there is a disaster, due to natural calamities or accident like plane crash etc., or even killings by men, terrorists or otherwise, there are always some who escape however great the magnitude of the disaster. This means that for them the time of death had not come then. So Krishna says that who dies when and how is not in our hands. So it is no use grieving over death. Those die are not lost forever

because they do take b irth again whether you believe in an eternal soul or not.

 

An entity which is created is sure to be annihilated but origination and annihilation are only different states of an entity. Clay exists before the pot and pot exists before the potsherds and potsherds again become clay and later originate as another pot. Similarly all beings get annihilated and originate which is a continuous process. Krishna mentions this process as apariharya, inevitable and hence need not be grieved for.

28. avyakthaadheeni bhoothaani vyakthamaDhyaani bhaaratha

avyakthaniDhanaani eva thasya kaa paridhevanaa

 

Nothing is known about the beginning of existence of all beings and only the intermediate existence is known and the end is not also not seen hence why lament about all this?

 

What we perceive as life and the world existed even before we took this particular manifestation. We do not know the beginning nor the end.. When a baby is born, for instance, we do not know what it was before its birth and how many births it has gone through and similarly when a man dies we do not know where he goes and how many more births he had to undergo. So what is visible to us of the whole universe and all beings in the universe is only a small portion compared to the whole existence as such. So Krishna says, why should there be any grief over the loss of lives or entities in this world. No one knows when the creation started and when it is going to end. It is like a flowing stream in the dark out of which we see only a small portion that comes to light which again goes back to darkness.

avaykthaaadheeni bhoothaani- all beings have unmanifest beginning and

 

avyakthaniDhanaani- unknown end or their end is not manifest.

 

vyakthamaDhyaani- they become manifest only for the time they are in this particular embodiment.

 

Pardevanaa- lamenting

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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29.Aascharyavat pasyati kaschidenam aascharyavat vadati thathaiva chaanyaha

aascharyavatchainam anyahsrunoti srutvaapyenam veda nachaiva kaschit

 

In accordance with the trend of the Gita , Krishna again ascends the pinnacle of wisdom and says-

 

someone , kaSchith, sees, paSyathi, this, enam, (Atman) as something wonderful, aascharyavath; another, kaSchith, speaks of it , vadhathi, as something wonderful and yet another kaSchith, hears of it, SrNothi, as something wonderful. Burt even after hearing about it, Sruthvaa api, no one know is as such, na vedha kasChith.

 

Krishna explains that the self in incomprehensible. Some see it as something of a wonder, some speak of it as a wonder, others hear about it as something wonderful, but even after hearing about it no one understands. The rare ones who have experienced Atman or Brahman view it as a great wonder in the sense that it is something beyond perception, being beyond the comprehension of the sense organs. Among those, only few are able to tell others about it , and when they do, they refer to it as something wonderful because it exceeds verbal description. Those who listen about it are also wonder-struck on hearing about it and it is still more difficult to find one who understands this as it really is.

 

`Some on perceives this,' means the yogic perception as the self cannot be perceived by the senses. Only those who have realized the self can have the experience of the self and to them it appears as something wonderful being outside the realm of sensory perception. Even among those who have had the experience of the self, it is rare to find someone who tries to communicate the experience. Anything that is seen, heard and felt or cognized is of limited content. The self is beyond all limits of perception, feelings and thoughts. But the sages of lore have tried to explain that which cannot be explained , out of mercy to the humanity. Hence to those who hear about the self it is something of a wonder because they could not conceive of anything beyond the body, mind and intellect. Hence no one understands it through hearing because the truth of the supreme reality could be understood only through experience. Srutho api refers not only the hearing but also the knowledge of the sruthis, that is, Vedas. Even one who has learnt the Vedas could not know the self because mere learning is not enough which Krishna is going to elaborate later in the chapter.