Bg 4.36
api ced asi pāpebhyaḥ sarvebhyaḥ pāpa-kṛt-tamaḥ
sarvaṁ jñāna-plavenaiva vṛjinaṁ santariṣyasi
Bg 4.37
yathaidhāṁsi samiddho ’gnir bhasma-sāt kurute ’rjuna
jñānāgniḥ sarva-karmāṇi bhasma-sāt kurute tathā
Translation:
36. Even if you are the most sinful of all sinners, yet you shall verily cross all sins by the raft of 'Knowledge.'
37. As the blazing fire reduces fuel to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the Fire-of-Knowledge reduce all actions to ashes.
Commentary Excerpts:
While Arjuna was promised such a glorious transcendental experience, too divine for him to believe, he felt a certain amount of lack of confidence in himself, which was, perhaps, reflected, on his face. He had a feeling that he was not fit for such a great inner experience. Such a feeling can come to anyone of us, because there is none among the intelligent who is not painfully conscious of his own shortcomings.
Vedanta is not a philosophy that heartlessly keeps the sinners out of its halls of wisdom. It does not believe that there is any lost soul who will ever wander among the heathens, and who can ONLY be redeemed IF he enters the portals of the Church of Vedanta!! Tolerant to a fault, Vedanta declares the Truth and nothing but the Truth. The All-pervading Divine manifests everywhere and therefore, there is no sinner who cannot, through his endeavour, come to claim his own heritage of Absolute Perfection.
The Geeta is a scripture of life written for man, and its universality is unmistakably seen in the statement here. It assures man that "EVEN IF HE BE THE MOST SINFUL AMONG THE SINFUL," he too can cross over his painful destinies of the present and reach the shores that lie beyond finitude and imperfections. Such a clear charter of man's right to the Divine has never so far been written in any other existing scripture of the world!!
To rediscover that, in reality, the ego is nothing other than the Self in us, and to live thereafter as the Self of all, is called true 'Wisdom' (Jnana). Having thus awakened to our Real Nature, the dreamy cravings of the flesh can no more enchant us away from our pristine glory and make us run down the channels of sensuousness, to wreck ourselves on the stony bed of sin and sorrow. This is indicated by a beautiful metaphor: "BY THE RAFT OF 'KNOWLEDGE' ALONE SHALL YOU GO ACROSS ALL SINS."
IN WHAT MANNER DOES THIS WISDOM DESTROY SIN?... HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:
JUST AS FIRE REDUCES FUEL TO ASHES --- This example has been given by the Lord in His sheer fatherly love for Arjuna. These words, familiar in all Yajnashalas, when used apart from their word meaning, are capable of creating, in their association, brilliant suggestions of a serene atmosphere and a thrilled sense of divinity.
Besides, the example is very striking. Whatever be the quality, shape, condition, colour, etc., of the fuel pieces, when all of them are taken to the fire-place and digested by the fire, they become one homogeneous mass of ash! In the samples of ash left in the hearth we cannot recognise the ash of a particular twig as different from that of another. Similarly, all Karmas, it is said, good, bad, or indifferent, get burnt up in the 'Fire of Knowledge' and will become something altogether different from what they were in their cause-and-effect condition. Solid fuel having girth, weight, smell, etc., becomes almost weightless, with no specific colour except a light-greyness, when it comes to the final state of ash.
Actions leave reactions. The reactions mature at different periods of time depending upon the quality and intensity of the actions. From beginningless time, in our different manifestations, we have been, at every moment, acting in our ego-centric vanity and individuality. All those actions must have left their residual impressions and they have to be lived through.
This entire Karma has been scientifically considered as falling under three classifications. They are called "not yet operative" (Sanchita), "operative" (Prarabdha), and "to be operative in future" (Agami). When, in the Geeta, it is said that all Karmas are burnt down, the Lord means the entire Sanchita and Agami.
Sources: Vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
api ced asi pāpebhyaḥ sarvebhyaḥ pāpa-kṛt-tamaḥ
sarvaṁ jñāna-plavenaiva vṛjinaṁ santariṣyasi
Bg 4.37
yathaidhāṁsi samiddho ’gnir bhasma-sāt kurute ’rjuna
jñānāgniḥ sarva-karmāṇi bhasma-sāt kurute tathā
Translation:
36. Even if you are the most sinful of all sinners, yet you shall verily cross all sins by the raft of 'Knowledge.'
37. As the blazing fire reduces fuel to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the Fire-of-Knowledge reduce all actions to ashes.
Commentary Excerpts:
While Arjuna was promised such a glorious transcendental experience, too divine for him to believe, he felt a certain amount of lack of confidence in himself, which was, perhaps, reflected, on his face. He had a feeling that he was not fit for such a great inner experience. Such a feeling can come to anyone of us, because there is none among the intelligent who is not painfully conscious of his own shortcomings.
Vedanta is not a philosophy that heartlessly keeps the sinners out of its halls of wisdom. It does not believe that there is any lost soul who will ever wander among the heathens, and who can ONLY be redeemed IF he enters the portals of the Church of Vedanta!! Tolerant to a fault, Vedanta declares the Truth and nothing but the Truth. The All-pervading Divine manifests everywhere and therefore, there is no sinner who cannot, through his endeavour, come to claim his own heritage of Absolute Perfection.
The Geeta is a scripture of life written for man, and its universality is unmistakably seen in the statement here. It assures man that "EVEN IF HE BE THE MOST SINFUL AMONG THE SINFUL," he too can cross over his painful destinies of the present and reach the shores that lie beyond finitude and imperfections. Such a clear charter of man's right to the Divine has never so far been written in any other existing scripture of the world!!
To rediscover that, in reality, the ego is nothing other than the Self in us, and to live thereafter as the Self of all, is called true 'Wisdom' (Jnana). Having thus awakened to our Real Nature, the dreamy cravings of the flesh can no more enchant us away from our pristine glory and make us run down the channels of sensuousness, to wreck ourselves on the stony bed of sin and sorrow. This is indicated by a beautiful metaphor: "BY THE RAFT OF 'KNOWLEDGE' ALONE SHALL YOU GO ACROSS ALL SINS."
IN WHAT MANNER DOES THIS WISDOM DESTROY SIN?... HERE IS AN EXAMPLE:
JUST AS FIRE REDUCES FUEL TO ASHES --- This example has been given by the Lord in His sheer fatherly love for Arjuna. These words, familiar in all Yajnashalas, when used apart from their word meaning, are capable of creating, in their association, brilliant suggestions of a serene atmosphere and a thrilled sense of divinity.
Besides, the example is very striking. Whatever be the quality, shape, condition, colour, etc., of the fuel pieces, when all of them are taken to the fire-place and digested by the fire, they become one homogeneous mass of ash! In the samples of ash left in the hearth we cannot recognise the ash of a particular twig as different from that of another. Similarly, all Karmas, it is said, good, bad, or indifferent, get burnt up in the 'Fire of Knowledge' and will become something altogether different from what they were in their cause-and-effect condition. Solid fuel having girth, weight, smell, etc., becomes almost weightless, with no specific colour except a light-greyness, when it comes to the final state of ash.
Actions leave reactions. The reactions mature at different periods of time depending upon the quality and intensity of the actions. From beginningless time, in our different manifestations, we have been, at every moment, acting in our ego-centric vanity and individuality. All those actions must have left their residual impressions and they have to be lived through.
This entire Karma has been scientifically considered as falling under three classifications. They are called "not yet operative" (Sanchita), "operative" (Prarabdha), and "to be operative in future" (Agami). When, in the Geeta, it is said that all Karmas are burnt down, the Lord means the entire Sanchita and Agami.
Sources: Vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
No comments:
Post a Comment