9: The Majesty of God-Consciousness : 9. ( Last Part )

The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita  :


Bhaktya   tvananyaya   cakya    aham   evam   vidho  (Gita : 11.54):



This bhakti, this devotion spoken of here, is not a little lip sympathy that we show to God. It is not a bowing of the head, it is not the folding of the hands or the striking of the cheeks – it is the melting of ourselves in the menstruum of God-Being. We can only speak, but our reason cannot grasp what all this means.



Matkarmakrnmatparamomadbhaktah   sangavarjitah,


nirvairah    sarva-bhuteshu   yah    sa   mameti.   (Gita 11.55).



Again to repeat,


ananyah    cintayanto mam   ye    janah    paryupasate,


tesham    nityabhiyuktanam    yogakshemam   vahamyaham.  ( Gita : 9 - 22)



Recite this sloka every day – contemplate its meaning. Nobody can harm us. There is nobody who is not under the subjection of God's rule, and therefore when we are in communion with this Great Master of the World, who can do harm to us? The whole army of God will protect us, provided we are honestly in fraternal relation with Him and we regard Him as All-in-All. In a way, the response from God is proportionate to the response from us in respect of Him. The way in we envisage Him, or contemplate Him, or understand Him, that perhaps is the way in which He will respond. "As you do to Me, so I shall do to you – what you think of Me, that I will think of you – and what you give Me, that I also give you." If we give ourselves, God will give Himself. God does not give any material prosperity, though He can give that also. But when He Himself gives His Own Being, why should we expect any material prosperity? Do we not think that God is more than all matter, all the wealth of all creation? But God will offer Himself only when we offer ourselves to Him – not before. If we offer only a tidbit or tinsel, the response will be of the same type.



Thus it is that the Self-offering of God is an automatic, instantaneous occurrence as a response to the whole-souled offering of ourselves to Him. Here is bhakti reaching its culmination, its logical completion. The word 'bhakti' is not the proper word to describe this condition. It is not jnana, it is not bhakti, it is not yoga – it is every blessed thing. When we love a thing with all our soul, with all our heart, with all our being, we do not know how to describe it in our language. It is not devotion, it is not affection – it is something more than all this. Do not use any words from language; it is something more. Thus is the devotion, thus is the bhakti that is the surrender, that is the yoga and that is what is expected of us here when we reach the supreme culmination of yoga which is the vision of the Absolute in the Vishvarupa.


Jnatum    drashtum    ca    tattvena    praveshtum    ca    parantapa    (Gita: 11.54):


To know It, to visualise It and to enter into It. These are the duties of man, finally. God-realisation is the goal of life. Union with God, entry into God, merging into the Absolute is the final goal of all things everywhere, all beings, living, non-living, visible, invisible.
Thus, yoga is an art of attaining to God-consciousness. The various types of yoga, which are the ways we understand for the purpose of this grand culmination, are described in the twelfth chapter, briefly, later on.

Swami Krishnananda

Last Chapter :  10: The One Supreme Absolute Alone Is :

To be continued  ...