न हि ज्ञानेन सदृशं पवित्रमिह विद्यते ।तत्स्वयं योगसंसिद्धः कालेनात्मनि विन्दति ॥
na hi jñānena sadṛśaṁ pavitramiha vidyatetatsvayaṁ yogasaṁsiddhaḥ kālenātmani vindati
There is nothing in the world equal in purity to knowledge; the man who is perfected by Yoga, finds it of himself in the self by the course of Time.
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
His translation
Brahman is his giving and Brahman is his sacrifice, Brahman casteth Brahman into the fire that is Brahman, by Samadhi of his works in Brahman unto Brahman he goeth. Of the Yogins some make to the natural Gods their session of sacrifice, others offer the sacrifice by the sacrifice into the fire that is Brahman. And…Read the whole passage · 619 wordsClose the passage
Brahman is his giving and Brahman is his sacrifice, Brahman casteth Brahman into the fire that is Brahman, by Samadhi of his works in Brahman unto Brahman he goeth. Of the Yogins some make to the natural Gods their session of sacrifice, others offer the sacrifice by the sacrifice into the fire that is Brahman. And some offer the hearing and all the senses into the fires of self-mastery and some offer sound and the other things of sense into the fires of the senses. And others offer into the Yoga-fire of a controlled Spirit that knowledge hath kindled with her hands all the works of the senses and all the works of vital breathing. And some make the sacrifice of their goods and some make a sacrifice of austerity. Some offer up their Yoga as a sacrifice, others the knowledge of the Veda; lords of askesis are they all, keen in the vow of their undertaking. Some offer the upper breath into the lower and the lower breath into the upper, stopping the passages of the inbreath and outbreath, absorbed in government of Breath that is life; others eating temperately, offer up the breaths into the breaths as into a sacrificial fire. And all these, yea all are wise in sacrifice & by sacrifice the obscuration of sin fades away from them, for they live on the remnants of their Sacrifice deeming it as the food of Gods and pass over into Brahman that is for ever. This world belongeth not to him who doeth not sacrifice, how then shall another, O prince of the Kurus? Thus are many sorts of Sacrifice extended in the mouth of the eternal; know all these to be born of works; so knowing thou shalt find deliverance. Better than the sacrifice that is all of goods is the sacrifice of knowledge, O scourge of thy foemen, for all man’s work upon earth accomplisheth itself utterly in Wisdom. This Wisdom thou must learn by prostration and questioning and service, then shall the Knowers, they who have seen the Truth of Existence initiate thee in the Knowledge which when thou hast learnt thou shalt not again fall into delusion, O son of Pandou; by the knowledge thou shalt see all creatures even to the meanest in the Self, therefore in Me. Yea wert thou the vilest and most lewd in sin of all sinners, yet shouldest thou pass over to the other shore of Perversity in the ship of the Knowledge. As a fire when it hath been kindled, O Urjoona, burneth to ashes the fuel of it, even so doth the Fire of the Knowledge burn all a man’s works to nothingness. In all the world there is nought that is so great and pure as Wisdom and one who hath been made perfect by Yoga findeth Wisdom in his Self naturally and by the mere lapse of time. The man of faith, the self-devoted who has bridled his senses, he wins the Knowledge, and when a man has got the Knowledge he attains very quickly to the high and perfect peace. But the ignorant, the man of little faith, the soul full of doubts, these go to perdition; this world is not for the doubting soul, nor the other world, nor any kind of happiness. But he that reposeth all his works in Yoga and cleaveth Doubt asunder with the sharp edge of Knowledge, the man that possesseth his Self, O Dhanunjoy, his works cannot bind. Therefore take up the sword of Knowledge, O Urjoona, and cleave asunder this Doubt that hath made his seat in thy heart, the child of Ignorance, lay fast hold upon Yoga, arise, O seed of Bharat.
Essays on the Gita
Yoga and knowledge are, in this early part of the Gita’s teaching, the two wings of the soul’s ascent. By Yoga is meant union through divine works done without desire, with equality of soul to all things and all men, as a sacrifice to the Supreme, while knowledge is that on which this desirelessness, this equality, this power of sacrifice is founded. The two wings indeed assist each other’s flight; acting together, yet with a subtle alternation of mutual aid, like the two eyes in a man which see together because they see alternately, they increase one another mutually by interchange of substance. As the works grow more and more desireless, equal-minded, sacrificial in spirit, the knowledge increases; with the increase of the knowledge the soul becomes firmer in the desireless, sacrificial equality of its works. The sacrifice of knowledge, says the Gita therefore,4·33 is greater than any material sacrifice. “Even if thou art the greatest doer of sin beyond all sinners, thou shalt cross over all the crookedness of evil in the ship of knowledge…. There is nothing in the world equal in purity to knowledge.” By knowledge desire and its first-born child, sin, are destroyed. The liberated man is able to do works as a sacrifice because he is freed from attachment through his mind, heart and spirit being firmly founded in self-knowledge, gata-saṅgasya jñānāvasthita-cetasaḥ. All his work4·23 disappears completely as soon as done, suffers laya, as one might say, in the being of the Brahman, pravilīyate; it has no reactionary consequence on the soul of the apparent doer. The work is done by the Lord through his Nature, it is no longer personal to the human instrument. The work itself becomes but power of the nature and substance of the being of the Brahman.
The Gita in describing how we come by this knowledge, says that we get first initiation into it from the men of knowledge who have seen, not those who know merely by the intellect, its essential truths; but the actuality of it comes from within ourselves: “the man who is perfected by Yoga, finds it of himself in4·38 the self by the course of Time,” it grows within him, that is to say, and he grows into it as he goes on increasing in desirelessness, in equality, in devotion to the Divine. It is only of the supreme knowledge that this can altogether be said; the knowledge which the intellect of man amasses, is gathered laboriously by the senses and the reason from outside. To get this other knowledge, self-existent, intuitive, self-experiencing, self-revealing, we must have conquered and controlled our mind and senses, saṁyatendriyaḥ, so that we are no longer subject to their delusions, but rather the mind and senses become its pure mirror; we must have fixed our whole conscious being on the truth of that supreme reality in which all exists, tat-paraḥ, so that it may display in us its luminous self-existence.
The Synthesis of Yoga
The first necessity of preparation is the purifying of all the members of our being; especially, for the path of knowledge, the purification of the understanding, the key that shall open the door of Truth; and a purified understanding is hardly possible without the purification of the other members. An unpurified heart, an unpurified sense, an unpurified life confuse the understanding, disturb its data, distort its conclusions, darken its seeing, misapply its knowledge; an unpurified physical system clogs or chokes up its action. There must be an integral purity. Here also there is an interdependence; for the purification of each member of our being profits by the clarifying of every other, the progressive tranquillisation of the emotional heart helping for instance the purification of the understanding while equally a purified understanding imposes calm and light on the turbid and darkened workings of the yet impure emotions. It may even be said that while each member of our being has its own proper principles of purification, yet it is the purified understanding that in man is the most potent cleanser of his turbid and disordered being and most sovereignly imposes their right working on his other members. Knowledge, says the Gita, is the sovereign purity; light is the source of all clearness and harmony even as the darkness of ignorance is the cause of all our stumblings. Love, for example, is the purifier of the heart and by reducing all our emotions into terms of divine love the heart is perfected and fulfilled; yet love itself needs to be clarified by divine knowledge. The heart’s love of God may be blind, narrow and ignorant and lead to fanaticism and obscurantism; it may, even when otherwise pure, limit our perfection by refusing to see Him except in a limited personality and by recoiling from the true and infinite vision. The heart’s love of man may equally lead to distortions and exaggerations in feeling, action and knowledge which have to be corrected and prevented by the purification of the understanding.
Other writings
What then is it that Madhuchchhanda, son of Viswamitra, has to say in this Sukta of the goddess of inspiration, speech and knowledge? He does not directly address her, but he assigns to this deity the general control, support and illumination of the sacrifice he is performing. “Let Saraswati” he says “control our Yajna.” The epithets which fill the Rik must express either the permanent & characteristic qualities in her which fit her for this high office of control or the possible & suitable qualities with which he wishes her to be equipped in the performance of that office. First, pávaká. She is the great purifier. It is as we shall see not a literary inspiration he invokes, but a divine inspiration, an inspiration of truths and right thoughts and, it may be, right feelings. Saraswati by this inspiration, by this inspired truth & knowledge & right feeling, is asked to purify, first, the mental state of the Yogin; for a mind unpurified cannot hold the light from on high. Knowledge purifies, says the Gita, meaning the higher spiritual knowledge which comes by śruti, divine inspiration; there is nothing in the whole world so pure as knowledge: Saraswati who purifies, Pávaká Saraswatí. Vájebhir vájiní vatí. She is full of substantial energy, stored with a great variety in substance of knowledge, chitraśravastama, as is said in another hymn of the strong god Agni. The inspiration & resultant knowledge prayed for is not that of any isolated truth or slight awakening, but a great substance of knowledge & a high plenty of inspiration; the mental state has to be filled with this strong & copious substance of Saraswati. Dhiyávasuh. She is rich in understanding. Dhí in the Veda is the buddhi, the faculty of reason that understands, discerns & holds knowledge. This inspiration has to be based on a great intellectual capacity which supports & holds the flood of the inspiration. Thus rich, thus strong & plenteous, thus purifying the divine inspiration has to hold & govern the Sacrifice.
