There are two kinds of people I have seen when it comes to reading and listening to Bhagavatgita. One says that they have no time to read the whole Gita as they are busy with their yogaskshema, which in their dictionary means earning money and looking after the needs of themselves and their family. But I wish to ask them, "Do you spend all your waking hours on that ? Do you now spend time watching TV , or attending other work that you enjoy?" Yes they accept it but they seem to thinkl that all these are light work but to read Gita requires serious attention. To them I would say , "You just read one chapter and assimilate it and try to follow in your life." But to read even one chapter seems to be difficukt for some . Then I would like to make it easy for them. "Read just one sloka which will take care of both your secular and spritual life." What is that sloka you may ask. Before answering that let me tell you of the other kind of people who when called for the study of Gita or listening to the discourse of it, say that they know Gita already!" If so I will prostrate before you because I am reading Gita taking classes writing about it for several years but still I cannot say that I know Gita already!"
Now to come to the one sloka which will take care of you in this world and the next, it is the following one.
ananyaaH chinthayantho maam ye janaah paryupaasathe
theshaam nithyaabhiyukthaanaam yogakshemaam
vahaamyaham
For those people, who think of me without any other thought and persistent in my devotion always , I take care of their welfare.
The Lord promises that He will look after those, who think of Him and worship Him, persistently and consistently, in this world and the next. Yoga is attainment and Kshema is preservation of that which is attained. The Lord looks after the acquirement and preservation of the needs of his ardent devotees in this world and takes the responsibility of bringing them to Him and preserving them in that state forever. It means that they do not return to samsara.
This sloka interpreted with a secular slant proves to be the formula for success in any endeavour, most valuable in management sciences. If one thinks of nothing else except the work at hand, and works on it persistently and consistently the work itself promises success. This and the sloka in second chapter 'karmaNyEvdhikarasthE' (ch.2.47)taken together will be invaluable principles in worldly pursuits for one who aims for success. When the same work done without the expectation of result and as an offering to God it becomes karmayoga.
The important words to be remembered in this sloka are paryupaasathe and nithyaabhiyukathaanaam. When one thinks of an ideal or goal to be reached he should remember it always , nithyaabhiyuktha, and continuously, paryupasathe. A worker who works relentlessly on his work, may it be painting, singing or studying etc. he is crowned with success. This is because he gets totally involved in his work becomes dedicated when, even the thought of success never enters his mind. But the work performed thus takes care of the result. This is the implication of yogakshemam vahaamyaham even taken in the worldly sense.
The same dedication and involvement towards the Lord, and puts the responsibility of taking care of the devotee on His shoulders and He says "I will look after the welfare of such a devotee." The life history of all the saints is the proof of this. When the devotee says, kaayena vaachaa mansendhriyairvaa budDhyaathmanaa vaa prakrthersvabhaavaath karom yath yath sakalam parasmai naaraayaNaayethi samarpayaami, meaning , what ever I do feel and think I offer it to Narayana, the onus is on Narayana to look after him.
He cut vegetables in the house of Ghorakumbha, prepared cowdung cakes for Bhaktha Jana, helped in the daily worship for Ramanuja and some others, repaid the loan of Badrachala Ramadas, protected the money given to Thyagaraja by a devotee from the thieves, what ever He did not do for His devotees! It produces horripilation even to mention these acts of love of the Lord and they are countless, starting from early yugas right down to Kaliyuga. In this sloka the Lord shows the easiest way to attain His grace.
There may arise a doubt regarding this sloka where the Lord says, yogakshemam vahaamyaham. We often see that the devotees of the Lord are not very prosperous in the world and how could yoga , attaining and kshema, preservation holds good in the case of one who has no possessions? Here the word yoga should be understood as attaining the Lord and kshema is the preservation of the means of attaining Him. The real devotee does not know anything else except the love for the Lord. Hence like the mother who takes care of her child by giving him what he needs and removing what is not good for him, the Lord gives the devotee what all that are necessary for his attaining the goal and takes away from him which is not conducive for that. He looks after the devotee by securing his basic needs like food etc. which help him to carry on in his spiritual journey and protects him from that which may obstruct his path . This is the yogakshema mentioned in the sloka.
When you tell someone this one sloka and if he diligently studies it and follows it he will autiomatically strat readin the whole Gita later! It is like the clever plan of Vaisampayana who wished to narrate Mahabharatha to Janamejaya who said he had no time.Then Vaismpayana told him that Janamejaya was like the ten headed one who had no sense and also like the man with one head who had no sense. Janamejaya's curiosity was aroused and he asked who these two men were. The sage said that the ten headed one was Ravana and that the one headed senseless person was Duryodhana. Janamejaya wanted to know more about these two men and so Vaisampayana narrated their stories to him.Thus the sage cleverly kindled his curiosity and made him listen to the narrations.
The Lord also takes care of the welfare of those who do not think of him. But the pity is that they might not know. Whatever they do not know do not simply exist for them.
I will give another metaphor. Let's say a person has sipped very hot tea. (In my example in the speech). His tongue has gone perfectly numb. Or to put it more precisely his taste buds are temporarily dead. Now if he is given hot payasam. He won't feel the taste. 'Why is this liquid so very insipid?' he may ask. The problem is not in the liquid. But in his taste buds. Our Lord is like the payasam. Our hearts are the taste buds. The payasam will be sweet any way. The Lord just asks us to look after our taste buds so that we can taste Him.
We all have the highest regards for Bhagawat Gita that was supposed to be a motivating talk given by Lord Krishna to Arjuna in the battle field.. here my friend Dr K Srinivasa Rao from US - an ex-State Banker and a brilliant Mathematician, who incidentally is NOT AT ALL an Atheist - has sent me the following comments by EMail on another post " Bhagawat Gita in ine Slokha".
ReplyDelete" The only problem is that it is doubtful whether the Lord of the Universe ever said so.
After all, this is a sloka written by a poet, probably Vyasa, who later imparted 'divinity' to the utterance. There is even a suspicion among scholars that Adi Sankara interpolated the entire Gita in Mahabharatha, at a place and in a context that is most unsuitable and jarring for it. The philosophy of the Gita, claimed to be the highest, is delivered to a confused Arjuna who was horrified at the prospect of shedding the blood of senior and junior relatives and commoners in the battlefield where armies of opposing sides were arrayed and were ready to fight. All for five villages which had been demanded by Krishna in Kauravas' court.
All scriptures of other religions too were written by people who were perhaps more learned than the persons to whom they were addressed. They inculcated fear in the minds of their followers that they would be punished if they disobeyed the "divine" instructions. One thing that is certain is that the Lord of the Universe is too busy running the universe, to spend his valuable time talking to a chosen person in private.
Swami Vivekananda asks, "Was there a stenographer present in the Kurukshethra battlefield to take down notes when Krishna was speaking?"
It is high time for everyone in the twentyfirst century to get rid of all kinds of spiritual brainwash. "