Guest guest Posted November 17, 2008 Report Share Posted November 17, 2008 45.thraiguNyavishayaa vedhaaH nisthrigunyo bhava arjuna nirdhvandhvo nithyasatthvasTho nirtogakshema aathmavaan The Vedas belong to the realm of three gunas.Therefore Arjuna, you transcend the three gunas. The essential condition for practising karmayoga is an intellect directed towards one ideal with determination. Otherwise thoughts run in all directions dragged by desires towards innumerable goals. Such people even if they are well versed in Vedas look upon the scriptural texts only as the gateway to heaven or to a better life on this earth and exhaust their intellectual skills in flowery speeches to prove their ends. That is why Krishna calls the Vedas, meaning the karmakanda, as being traigunyavishayaaha and asks Arjuna to transcend the three gunas. ThriguNyavishayaaH- the Vedas have the three gunas as their objective because they prescribe desire oriented rituals for those who are influenced by three gunas. Veda is beneficial to mankind and are not misleading .That is not what is meant here. But the Vedas do good to humanity by teaching them the right actions suitable for the respective gunas that influence humans. They provide the directive for righteous action without which those undrthe influence of rajas and thamas will indulge in unrighteous action to satisfy their desires. Hence Krishna says that the Vedas are concerned with gunas. Nisthraigunyo bhava- transcend the gunas. Everyone has all the three gunas of which the body, mind and intellect is made of. Even the ego is the product of the three gunas and hence to transcend the gunas means not to identify one self with body, mind and intellect and transcend the ego. First step towards transcending the gunas would be to increase satthva so that rajas and thamas will be reduced to minimum and then the sattva should be purified so that the ego shrinks to nothing. This is what is advised by Krishna in the next line. nithyasatthvaH- Krishna advises Arjuna to acquire satthva in abundance so that the activities of the other two gunas are reduced to a minimum. Suddhasathva is described as white in colour , while rajas is red and thamas is black. Hence the word Arjuna is used here instead of Partha, kountheya etc.as the word means white. nirdhvndhvah- to be free from the pairs of opposites, viz. joy and sorrow, loss and gain, love and hatred etc. These arise from desire motivated actions. To be free from desire is to get free from the dhvandhvas. How this is achieved is by being, niryogakshema, not worrying about acquiring anything or to protect them. Yoga is acquisition and kshema is the protection of what was acquired. This could only be done by being, aathmavaan, by being established in the self. How this can be achieved is the subject matter of the rest of the chapter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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