Bg 6.31
sarva-bhūta-sthitaṁ yo māṁ bhajaty ekatvam āsthitaḥ
sarvathā vartamāno ’pi sa yogī mayi vartate
Bg 6.32
ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṁ paśyati yo ’rjuna
sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ sa yogī paramo mataḥ
Translation
31. He who, being established in unity, worships Me, dwelling in all beings, that YOGI abides in Me, whatever be his mode of living.
32. He who, through the likeness (sameness) of the Self, O Arjuna, sees equality everywhere, be it pleasure or pain, he is regarded as the highest YOGI.
Commentary
The meditator who has integrated himself in a single-pointedness, steadily contemplates (Bhajati) upon Me, the Self, which is the essential Spark-of-Life in all forms in the world. Such an individual, whatever be his activities in the external world, ever lives in 'Me' through a conscious awareness of the Self. This stanza is given here mainly to indicate that the Man-of-realisation need not necessarily retire to some secret cave in some forgotten valley of the Himalayas, but can maintain his Divine Consciousness in all states of existence, in all conditions of life, and under all happy or unhappy circumstances. When a man is ill, he has to withdraw himself from the fields of activities, strains, and exhausting recreations, and go to a sanatorium to recuperate. Having regained his natural health, he need not thereafter live forever in the sanatorium. On the other hand, he should come back to his old fields of work and live, perhaps a more active life than ever before.
Similarly, a disintegrated man of unhealthy temperament is, in spiritual life, treated through meditation, and when he regains his Godly strength and vitality, he can certainly re-enter the fields of his earlier activity, and yet maintain in himself the cultural perfection and spiritual knowledge that he has gained during his spiritual treatment.
Work, in fact, can be performed and really enduring fruits be gained, only when the worker is established in the Self. The message of the Geeta is that dedicated work is a means of self-development.
There is a deeper significance in the fact that Krishna, the Perfect, is exposing Himself, perhaps, more to the dangers of the battle than Prince Arjuna himself. A charioteer meets the arrows earlier than the warrior who stands behind him! Entering the battlefield, armed with nothing but His irresistible smile, He, in effect, almost becomes the Lord of the battle-field, wherein the entire war, as it were, comes to revolve round Him, the central personality. This means that a Man-of-realisation will in all conditions be able to enter into any activity, and still maintain in himself the unbroken Awareness of the Divine that he is.
While reading this commentary, some students might feel that we are, in our over-enthusiasm, reading a bit too much into the stanza. We can only request them to ponder over the comprehensiveness of the words used in the daring statement: "whatever his mode of life be" (Sarvatha-vartamanopi) the meditator (Yogin)" abides in Me."
True meditators, well-established in their intellectual understanding and spiritual experience, intuitively recognise the Divine Presence immanent in everything. Such Men of Perfection see in all activities the glory of the Self and understand their own bodily functions as nothing but the Grace of the Self. For them, there is no experience but of the Divine. Everything experienced in the gross world outside, and in the subtle realm within, is nothing but an emanation from the Eternal Self.
The highest Yogi, according to the Geeta, is one who feels the pains and joys of others as intimately as if they were his own. The famous ethical rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a most unpleasant instruction to the average man, because, in his selfishness, he is easily tempted to ask why he should consider others as himself. The uninitiated, in his instinctive selfishness, would naturally be tempted to follow the unethical ways of life.
The previous few stanzas explained why one should love one's neighbours. The Yogi, after his experience of the Self, comes to recognise the whole world as nothing but himself. As all the limbs and parts of one's body are equally dear to an individual, one can easily experience one's intimate identity with all the different parts of the body. If your tongue were to be accidentally bitten by your own teeth, you would never think of punishing the teeth for the crime they had done, for, both IN the tongue and IN the teeth you pervade equally. Having realised the Self, when I come to feel everywhere the presence of Me as the Self, the whole Universe of names and forms becomes for Me the one integrated form, in which at all places and at all times, "I alone AM."
Such an individual, who has in his realisation come to feel the entire universe as his own form, is called a true Yogi by the Singer of this Celestial Song. In short, a Seer of Self-realisation instinctively becomes a divinely compassionate man, producing in society more than what he consumes, and creating in the community much more than what he destroys during his lifetime. Love is his very breath, kindness his very sustenance.
In thus concluding the description of a perfect Yogi, with a word-picture of the perfect man's attitude to life, and his relationship with the world outside, Krishna would fascinate any eagerly listening student; but Arjuna, a practical man-of-the-world, immediately discovers his incapacity to attain the goal pointed out here, and raises his own doubts, in the form of a question.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
sarva-bhūta-sthitaṁ yo māṁ bhajaty ekatvam āsthitaḥ
sarvathā vartamāno ’pi sa yogī mayi vartate
Bg 6.32
ātmaupamyena sarvatra samaṁ paśyati yo ’rjuna
sukhaṁ vā yadi vā duḥkhaṁ sa yogī paramo mataḥ
Translation
31. He who, being established in unity, worships Me, dwelling in all beings, that YOGI abides in Me, whatever be his mode of living.
32. He who, through the likeness (sameness) of the Self, O Arjuna, sees equality everywhere, be it pleasure or pain, he is regarded as the highest YOGI.
Commentary
The meditator who has integrated himself in a single-pointedness, steadily contemplates (Bhajati) upon Me, the Self, which is the essential Spark-of-Life in all forms in the world. Such an individual, whatever be his activities in the external world, ever lives in 'Me' through a conscious awareness of the Self. This stanza is given here mainly to indicate that the Man-of-realisation need not necessarily retire to some secret cave in some forgotten valley of the Himalayas, but can maintain his Divine Consciousness in all states of existence, in all conditions of life, and under all happy or unhappy circumstances. When a man is ill, he has to withdraw himself from the fields of activities, strains, and exhausting recreations, and go to a sanatorium to recuperate. Having regained his natural health, he need not thereafter live forever in the sanatorium. On the other hand, he should come back to his old fields of work and live, perhaps a more active life than ever before.
Similarly, a disintegrated man of unhealthy temperament is, in spiritual life, treated through meditation, and when he regains his Godly strength and vitality, he can certainly re-enter the fields of his earlier activity, and yet maintain in himself the cultural perfection and spiritual knowledge that he has gained during his spiritual treatment.
Work, in fact, can be performed and really enduring fruits be gained, only when the worker is established in the Self. The message of the Geeta is that dedicated work is a means of self-development.
There is a deeper significance in the fact that Krishna, the Perfect, is exposing Himself, perhaps, more to the dangers of the battle than Prince Arjuna himself. A charioteer meets the arrows earlier than the warrior who stands behind him! Entering the battlefield, armed with nothing but His irresistible smile, He, in effect, almost becomes the Lord of the battle-field, wherein the entire war, as it were, comes to revolve round Him, the central personality. This means that a Man-of-realisation will in all conditions be able to enter into any activity, and still maintain in himself the unbroken Awareness of the Divine that he is.
While reading this commentary, some students might feel that we are, in our over-enthusiasm, reading a bit too much into the stanza. We can only request them to ponder over the comprehensiveness of the words used in the daring statement: "whatever his mode of life be" (Sarvatha-vartamanopi) the meditator (Yogin)" abides in Me."
True meditators, well-established in their intellectual understanding and spiritual experience, intuitively recognise the Divine Presence immanent in everything. Such Men of Perfection see in all activities the glory of the Self and understand their own bodily functions as nothing but the Grace of the Self. For them, there is no experience but of the Divine. Everything experienced in the gross world outside, and in the subtle realm within, is nothing but an emanation from the Eternal Self.
The highest Yogi, according to the Geeta, is one who feels the pains and joys of others as intimately as if they were his own. The famous ethical rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a most unpleasant instruction to the average man, because, in his selfishness, he is easily tempted to ask why he should consider others as himself. The uninitiated, in his instinctive selfishness, would naturally be tempted to follow the unethical ways of life.
The previous few stanzas explained why one should love one's neighbours. The Yogi, after his experience of the Self, comes to recognise the whole world as nothing but himself. As all the limbs and parts of one's body are equally dear to an individual, one can easily experience one's intimate identity with all the different parts of the body. If your tongue were to be accidentally bitten by your own teeth, you would never think of punishing the teeth for the crime they had done, for, both IN the tongue and IN the teeth you pervade equally. Having realised the Self, when I come to feel everywhere the presence of Me as the Self, the whole Universe of names and forms becomes for Me the one integrated form, in which at all places and at all times, "I alone AM."
Such an individual, who has in his realisation come to feel the entire universe as his own form, is called a true Yogi by the Singer of this Celestial Song. In short, a Seer of Self-realisation instinctively becomes a divinely compassionate man, producing in society more than what he consumes, and creating in the community much more than what he destroys during his lifetime. Love is his very breath, kindness his very sustenance.
In thus concluding the description of a perfect Yogi, with a word-picture of the perfect man's attitude to life, and his relationship with the world outside, Krishna would fascinate any eagerly listening student; but Arjuna, a practical man-of-the-world, immediately discovers his incapacity to attain the goal pointed out here, and raises his own doubts, in the form of a question.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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