HOW THIS BOOK HAS COME TO BE WRITTEN
I have not intended any commentary or attempted exhaustive notes on either the philosophy or the teachings of the Gita after the manner of the philosophers and scholars of India and abroad. This book has just come up strangely from a small Sanskrit text which I carried with me during my visit in the summer 1989 to the erstwhile USSR, where, to my knowledge and understanding, talking about God or religion would have been an offense. I was not even confident enough there while sharing in a closed room the unsuppressed enthusiasm of a Tajik gentleman Hakim Shah who wondered if people would some day move in the streets of Dushanbey, the Capital of Tajikistan (A Republic of the then USSR), chanting ‘Hare Krishna’. It was, therefore, not a surprise to me that I was asked to put down the ‘Message of the Gita on Yoga in Everyday Life’ for the local newspapers after lecturing on different aspects of Yoga at the ‘Iroda’ Yoga Centre there. It was during the course of these lectures that I was required to give a detailed background of the Indian Yoga system and the practices advocated by various exponents of it through the ages. I believe, a quotation from an article published in ‘Communist Tajikistan’ (a Russian daily of Tajikistan) would be of quite some interest for the readers:
“YOGA is one of the six systems of Indian philosophy.1 According to these ancient systems and theories, Indian seers of past have tried to explain the purpose of life, the world and the overall design of God and nature. Yoga, among them, lays much greater emphasis on human capabilities. According to it, it is not important whether there is a God or not, but it is desirable that a man realizes his potential in accordance with his conception of Godhood. The founder of this science was PATANJALI whose theory has been propounded in his famous work YOGADARSHANA (The Science of Yoga).2 Yogadarshana explains in detail that there are eight steps of yoga practice. They are YAMA (mental discipline), NIYAMA (adherence to certain rules), ASANA (physical postures ), PRANAYAMA (breathing exercises), PRATYAHARA (making mind introspective), DHARANA (contempolation), Dhyana (mediation) and SAMADHI (realization). In brief, physical and mental preparation is necessary for one to tread the higher paths of YOGA.
Another famous exponent of the Yoga system is Lord Krishna. Krishna’s classic conversation with his friend and disciple Arjuna is recorded in a unique book called the BHAGVAT GITA. Krishna does not talk much about theories in it since Arjuna is facing a mighty army in the battlefield and he wishes to have an immediate and practical solution of his doubts concerning the propriety of killing his close relatives assembled in the battlefield. Krishna first explains that every living being has an immortal and a mortal part and to believe him to be dying is a mistaken notion. He further points out to Arjuna that when a man becomes yogi his actions are transformed into KARMAYOGA (skilled actions). In such actions there is invariably such an added efficiency that they do not follow the causal sequence.
This science of yoga remained confined to the monks and mendicants for centuries. It is now a highly acclaimed feature of modern advanced age and the peoples’ conscience all over the world is all influenced by it now. Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi were first such modern Indians who put this knowledge into practice for the liberation of India from the British Rule. In 1893, Swami Vivekananda startled the whole world by demonstrating the splendor of Yoga in the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago (USA). His teachings of Rajayoga have been immensely popular ever since. There are numerous institutions run after his teachings of Yoga. They, are rendering many constructive humanitarian services to the society in India and abroad.
Broadly, yoga in India has two main branches: Hatha Yoga (Yoga of physical exercises) and Dhyana Yoga (the Yoga of meditation). Further divisions like Bhakti Yoga (the Yoga of devotion), Karma Yoga (the Yoga of action), Gyana Yoga (the Yoga of knowledge), and Rajayoga (Yoga the Supreme ), fall under the second category. I had accompanied Maharshi Mahesh Yogi during 1968-69 to All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, when experiments on the efficacy of his ‘transcendental meditation’ were being conducted. According to this system, meditation effectively releases people from the stress and strain and fills them with an added energy, intelligence and happiness.
An absolutely authentic record of the splendor of yoga is available in the biography of Yoganand Paramhansa called ‘An Autobiography of a Yogi’. This yogi died in 1950, but his dead body was certified by eminent physicians as intact even after 24 days of his passing away. We find the first hand record of this Yogi describing how he met his teacher Yukteswara in the Regent Hotel of Bombay at 3 p.m. on 6th June, 1939, after 99 days of his departure from the world. He had a three hour long discussion with his departed guru while receiving advance courses on this science. He has provided a photograph of Mahavatara Baba also who was his great grand teacher and who, according to him is alive for more than 3500 years.
Late Shri Shivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh U.P. India, himself initially a physician, made immense contribution towards a systematic exposition of this science through many books and has a wide ranging following in India and abroad.
Yoga tends to become mystical in the course of the expansion of consciousness of a man. Yogis tell us that there is a mysterious power called Kundalini lying dormant at the base of the spinal cord in every human being. If this power is awakened and activated, a man can perform miracles by exercising conscious control over his autonomous nervous system. He can also at the same time experience extra-sensory perceptions like hearing, seeing and smelling things existing at any distance or time. Some Yogis call it the science of Shaktipata (the incidence or fall of energy from the enlightened one to the disciple). By following this system, the aspirants does not have himself to take any trouble of being effortful doing the physical exercises because they occur automatically once the dormant power of the person is awakened and put to action. Late Swami Vishnuteertha of Dewas, MP India had his disciple Swami Shivomteertha have this competence. Late Swami Muktananda of Bombay also was an acclaimed yogi of this category.
The devotional aspects and properties of yoga have been vitalized by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada of Krishna Consciousness and Satya Sai Baba of South India. Srila Prabhupada prescribes a Mantra for chanting whose vibrations lift a person on to a transcendental plane. Sai Baba is a man of miracles. He says that the miracles are as inherent in his nature as the normal physical movements of an ordinary human being. I have myself witnessed a number of miracles while visiting him many times in his place and have experienced them several times from a distance of thousands of kilometers. I have seen many kilograms of sacred ashes falling from his empty hand while materializing also many precious objects from nowhere. The greatest of all his miracles is the universal love flowing from his person which keeps millions of people in his following. His Yogic presence is felt and experienced by thousand of people all over the world.”
It was afterwards on August 14, 1991, that I was sitting in a long queue of about 40 thousand people in Puttaparthy with this manuscript in my hand. Sai Baba walked in my direction and halted for some moments, but I could not seek his blessings for the book as I wished. My desire of dedicating it to Sai Baba in the literal sense seemed to remain unfulfilled till I had the following dream at 5 AM on 7th June, 1992 (exactly a week before I heard from my Publishers about their willingness to print the book with some modifications as per editorial screening). I am reproducing here the vivid dream from a personal note made immediately after it.
‘I am just awake from a vivid dream. It must have been exactly 5 AM at the time of my undergoing this awakened experience! - I am sitting among devotees of Sai Baba, praying for Baba to appear. He appears. Baba looks towards my direction and characteristically asks me not to talk about the approval of the book as he has been waiting for the ‘Doctors’ examination. He also mentions that there is the need to change some of the references. The devotees present there urge that the pattern of the book is flexible enough to accommodate necessary changes.
‘Baba agrees. He nods his head. He asks me if it is so. Then he asks me to give him the copy of the book. He opens the last page. He asks me if it is the first copy. I say ‘Yes, it is’. He puts his signature stating ‘The first copy signed.’
Can knowledge and action be indeed combined? Yes, Gita teaches and trains for it..
It is evidently improper to think that the Gita just teaches Yoga or Knowledge, or Action. The Gita has been an eternal source of all universal philosophies and shall continue to remain so for ever.
What is the significance of the Yoga technique which Krishna lays so much stress on and the ‘Supreme Knowledge’ which he introduces with adjectives like ‘Top most secret’, ‘Superbly sacred’, ‘Directly experienced’, ‘Righteous’, ‘Easy to practice’ and ‘Imperishable’.
राजविद्या राजगुह्यं पवित्रमिदमुत्तमम्
प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्म्यं सुसुखं कर्तुमव्ययम् ।.( 9-2)
As a matter of fact, the technique and the science that Krishna introduces does not differ in the sense that it points out the knowledge which should form the basis of all our doings. Our actions in this manner shall stand qualified to be termed as ‘Karmayoga’. It does not, therefore, carry much meaning when the message of the Gita is construed as Yoga, or Knowledge, or Action. The Gita, in fact, has interwoven all them so uniquely that it could well be concluded to be three in one. It is thus an awareness, a constant vigil on the part of a doer which is material. Obviously, action in human life is the base and the knowledge input is the technique of skillfully performing it.
I have often said when asked that the knowledge of Bhagvad Gita is the dearest and the best gain of my life so far ‘attaining which no other acquisition seems to be greater than that”.
यं लब्ध्वा चापरं लाभं मन्यते नािधकं तत: । (6-22)
Naturally, I am extremely happy to share this experience with my readers.
I have obviously not gone into every detail of the text and have confined myself to just summation at places.
I have added an appendix ‘Agniyoga’ to the book to link the traditional yoga system to the psychic phenomenon of it as seen and noticed all over the world. There are also a few notes given in the end on some relevant terms so as to bring home to the foreign readers their true meaning and significance.
P.D.Mishra
Bhopal
October 16, 1992
CONTENTS
1.THE SETTING FOR THE DISCOURSE
2.THE PATH OF DISCRIMINATION
3. YOGA THROUGH ACTION
4. YOGA THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
5.RENUNCIATION OF ACTION THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
6. YOGA THROUGH SELF CONTROL
7. SCIENCE OF CREATION
8. THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEING
9. THE SUPREME SECET KNOWLEDGE
10. DIVINE FORMS AND SPLENDOR
11. THE VISION OF THE UNIVERSAL FORM
12. YOGA THROUGH DEVOTION
13. DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE EMBODIED SELF
14. THE THREE MODES AND GOING BEYOND
15. THE SUPREME SELF
16. THE DIVINE AND THE DEMONIAC PROPERTIES
17. THREE CATEGORIES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
18. REALIZATION
APPENDIX-1
“
I have not intended any commentary or attempted exhaustive notes on either the philosophy or the teachings of the Gita after the manner of the philosophers and scholars of India and abroad. This book has just come up strangely from a small Sanskrit text which I carried with me during my visit in the summer 1989 to the erstwhile USSR, where, to my knowledge and understanding, talking about God or religion would have been an offense. I was not even confident enough there while sharing in a closed room the unsuppressed enthusiasm of a Tajik gentleman Hakim Shah who wondered if people would some day move in the streets of Dushanbey, the Capital of Tajikistan (A Republic of the then USSR), chanting ‘Hare Krishna’. It was, therefore, not a surprise to me that I was asked to put down the ‘Message of the Gita on Yoga in Everyday Life’ for the local newspapers after lecturing on different aspects of Yoga at the ‘Iroda’ Yoga Centre there. It was during the course of these lectures that I was required to give a detailed background of the Indian Yoga system and the practices advocated by various exponents of it through the ages. I believe, a quotation from an article published in ‘Communist Tajikistan’ (a Russian daily of Tajikistan) would be of quite some interest for the readers:
“YOGA is one of the six systems of Indian philosophy.1 According to these ancient systems and theories, Indian seers of past have tried to explain the purpose of life, the world and the overall design of God and nature. Yoga, among them, lays much greater emphasis on human capabilities. According to it, it is not important whether there is a God or not, but it is desirable that a man realizes his potential in accordance with his conception of Godhood. The founder of this science was PATANJALI whose theory has been propounded in his famous work YOGADARSHANA (The Science of Yoga).2 Yogadarshana explains in detail that there are eight steps of yoga practice. They are YAMA (mental discipline), NIYAMA (adherence to certain rules), ASANA (physical postures ), PRANAYAMA (breathing exercises), PRATYAHARA (making mind introspective), DHARANA (contempolation), Dhyana (mediation) and SAMADHI (realization). In brief, physical and mental preparation is necessary for one to tread the higher paths of YOGA.
Another famous exponent of the Yoga system is Lord Krishna. Krishna’s classic conversation with his friend and disciple Arjuna is recorded in a unique book called the BHAGVAT GITA. Krishna does not talk much about theories in it since Arjuna is facing a mighty army in the battlefield and he wishes to have an immediate and practical solution of his doubts concerning the propriety of killing his close relatives assembled in the battlefield. Krishna first explains that every living being has an immortal and a mortal part and to believe him to be dying is a mistaken notion. He further points out to Arjuna that when a man becomes yogi his actions are transformed into KARMAYOGA (skilled actions). In such actions there is invariably such an added efficiency that they do not follow the causal sequence.
This science of yoga remained confined to the monks and mendicants for centuries. It is now a highly acclaimed feature of modern advanced age and the peoples’ conscience all over the world is all influenced by it now. Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi were first such modern Indians who put this knowledge into practice for the liberation of India from the British Rule. In 1893, Swami Vivekananda startled the whole world by demonstrating the splendor of Yoga in the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago (USA). His teachings of Rajayoga have been immensely popular ever since. There are numerous institutions run after his teachings of Yoga. They, are rendering many constructive humanitarian services to the society in India and abroad.
Broadly, yoga in India has two main branches: Hatha Yoga (Yoga of physical exercises) and Dhyana Yoga (the Yoga of meditation). Further divisions like Bhakti Yoga (the Yoga of devotion), Karma Yoga (the Yoga of action), Gyana Yoga (the Yoga of knowledge), and Rajayoga (Yoga the Supreme ), fall under the second category. I had accompanied Maharshi Mahesh Yogi during 1968-69 to All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, when experiments on the efficacy of his ‘transcendental meditation’ were being conducted. According to this system, meditation effectively releases people from the stress and strain and fills them with an added energy, intelligence and happiness.
An absolutely authentic record of the splendor of yoga is available in the biography of Yoganand Paramhansa called ‘An Autobiography of a Yogi’. This yogi died in 1950, but his dead body was certified by eminent physicians as intact even after 24 days of his passing away. We find the first hand record of this Yogi describing how he met his teacher Yukteswara in the Regent Hotel of Bombay at 3 p.m. on 6th June, 1939, after 99 days of his departure from the world. He had a three hour long discussion with his departed guru while receiving advance courses on this science. He has provided a photograph of Mahavatara Baba also who was his great grand teacher and who, according to him is alive for more than 3500 years.
Late Shri Shivananda Saraswati of Rishikesh U.P. India, himself initially a physician, made immense contribution towards a systematic exposition of this science through many books and has a wide ranging following in India and abroad.
Yoga tends to become mystical in the course of the expansion of consciousness of a man. Yogis tell us that there is a mysterious power called Kundalini lying dormant at the base of the spinal cord in every human being. If this power is awakened and activated, a man can perform miracles by exercising conscious control over his autonomous nervous system. He can also at the same time experience extra-sensory perceptions like hearing, seeing and smelling things existing at any distance or time. Some Yogis call it the science of Shaktipata (the incidence or fall of energy from the enlightened one to the disciple). By following this system, the aspirants does not have himself to take any trouble of being effortful doing the physical exercises because they occur automatically once the dormant power of the person is awakened and put to action. Late Swami Vishnuteertha of Dewas, MP India had his disciple Swami Shivomteertha have this competence. Late Swami Muktananda of Bombay also was an acclaimed yogi of this category.
The devotional aspects and properties of yoga have been vitalized by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada of Krishna Consciousness and Satya Sai Baba of South India. Srila Prabhupada prescribes a Mantra for chanting whose vibrations lift a person on to a transcendental plane. Sai Baba is a man of miracles. He says that the miracles are as inherent in his nature as the normal physical movements of an ordinary human being. I have myself witnessed a number of miracles while visiting him many times in his place and have experienced them several times from a distance of thousands of kilometers. I have seen many kilograms of sacred ashes falling from his empty hand while materializing also many precious objects from nowhere. The greatest of all his miracles is the universal love flowing from his person which keeps millions of people in his following. His Yogic presence is felt and experienced by thousand of people all over the world.”
It was afterwards on August 14, 1991, that I was sitting in a long queue of about 40 thousand people in Puttaparthy with this manuscript in my hand. Sai Baba walked in my direction and halted for some moments, but I could not seek his blessings for the book as I wished. My desire of dedicating it to Sai Baba in the literal sense seemed to remain unfulfilled till I had the following dream at 5 AM on 7th June, 1992 (exactly a week before I heard from my Publishers about their willingness to print the book with some modifications as per editorial screening). I am reproducing here the vivid dream from a personal note made immediately after it.
‘I am just awake from a vivid dream. It must have been exactly 5 AM at the time of my undergoing this awakened experience! - I am sitting among devotees of Sai Baba, praying for Baba to appear. He appears. Baba looks towards my direction and characteristically asks me not to talk about the approval of the book as he has been waiting for the ‘Doctors’ examination. He also mentions that there is the need to change some of the references. The devotees present there urge that the pattern of the book is flexible enough to accommodate necessary changes.
‘Baba agrees. He nods his head. He asks me if it is so. Then he asks me to give him the copy of the book. He opens the last page. He asks me if it is the first copy. I say ‘Yes, it is’. He puts his signature stating ‘The first copy signed.’
Can knowledge and action be indeed combined? Yes, Gita teaches and trains for it..
It is evidently improper to think that the Gita just teaches Yoga or Knowledge, or Action. The Gita has been an eternal source of all universal philosophies and shall continue to remain so for ever.
What is the significance of the Yoga technique which Krishna lays so much stress on and the ‘Supreme Knowledge’ which he introduces with adjectives like ‘Top most secret’, ‘Superbly sacred’, ‘Directly experienced’, ‘Righteous’, ‘Easy to practice’ and ‘Imperishable’.
राजविद्या राजगुह्यं पवित्रमिदमुत्तमम्
प्रत्यक्षावगमं धर्म्यं सुसुखं कर्तुमव्ययम् ।.( 9-2)
As a matter of fact, the technique and the science that Krishna introduces does not differ in the sense that it points out the knowledge which should form the basis of all our doings. Our actions in this manner shall stand qualified to be termed as ‘Karmayoga’. It does not, therefore, carry much meaning when the message of the Gita is construed as Yoga, or Knowledge, or Action. The Gita, in fact, has interwoven all them so uniquely that it could well be concluded to be three in one. It is thus an awareness, a constant vigil on the part of a doer which is material. Obviously, action in human life is the base and the knowledge input is the technique of skillfully performing it.
I have often said when asked that the knowledge of Bhagvad Gita is the dearest and the best gain of my life so far ‘attaining which no other acquisition seems to be greater than that”.
यं लब्ध्वा चापरं लाभं मन्यते नािधकं तत: । (6-22)
Naturally, I am extremely happy to share this experience with my readers.
I have obviously not gone into every detail of the text and have confined myself to just summation at places.
I have added an appendix ‘Agniyoga’ to the book to link the traditional yoga system to the psychic phenomenon of it as seen and noticed all over the world. There are also a few notes given in the end on some relevant terms so as to bring home to the foreign readers their true meaning and significance.
P.D.Mishra
Bhopal
October 16, 1992
CONTENTS
1.THE SETTING FOR THE DISCOURSE
2.THE PATH OF DISCRIMINATION
3. YOGA THROUGH ACTION
4. YOGA THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
5.RENUNCIATION OF ACTION THROUGH KNOWLEDGE
6. YOGA THROUGH SELF CONTROL
7. SCIENCE OF CREATION
8. THE INDESTRUCTIBLE BEING
9. THE SUPREME SECET KNOWLEDGE
10. DIVINE FORMS AND SPLENDOR
11. THE VISION OF THE UNIVERSAL FORM
12. YOGA THROUGH DEVOTION
13. DISCRIMINATION BETWEEN THE BODY AND THE EMBODIED SELF
14. THE THREE MODES AND GOING BEYOND
15. THE SUPREME SELF
16. THE DIVINE AND THE DEMONIAC PROPERTIES
17. THREE CATEGORIES OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR
18. REALIZATION
APPENDIX-1
“
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