कच्चिन्नोभयविभ्रष्टश् छिन्नाभ्रमिव नश्यति ।अप्रतिष्ठो महाबाहो विमूढो ब्रह्मणः पथि ॥
kaccinnobhayavibhraṣṭaś chinnābhramiva naśyatiapratiṣṭho mahābāho vimūḍho brahmaṇaḥ pathi
Does he not, O mighty-armed, lose both this life (of human activity and thought and emotion which it has left behind) and the Brahmic consciousness to which it aspires and falling from both perish like a dissolving cloud?
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
His translation
URJOONA When a man hath faith but cannot strive aright & his mind swerveth from Yoga and he attaineth not to success in Yoga, what is the last state of such a man, O Krishna? Doth he lose both this world & that other, doth he perish like a breaking cloud, failing, O strong-armed, to get his immortal seat, losing his way on the path of the Eternal? This doubt of mine must thou solve to its very heart, O Krishna, for I shall not find any other who can destroy this doubt but only thee.
Essays on the Gita
The rest of Arjuna’s questions and utterances proceed from the same temperament and character.3·35 When he is told that once the soul-state is assured there need be no apparent change in the action, he must act always by the law of his nature, even if the act itself seem faulty and deficient compared with that of another law than his own, he is troubled. The nature! but what of this sense of sin in the action with which he is preoccupied? is it not this very nature which drives men as if by force and even against their better will into sin and guilt? His practical intelligence is baffled by Krishna’s assertion that it was he who in4·1–8 ancient times revealed to Vivasvan this Yoga, since lost, which he is now again revealing to Arjuna, and by his demand for an explanation he provokes the famous and oft-quoted statement of Avatarhood and its mundane purpose. He is again perplexed by the words in which Krishna continues to reconcile action and renunciation of action and asks once again for a decisive statement of that which is the best and highest, not this “mingled” word. When he realises fully the nature of the Yoga which he is bidden to embrace, his pragmatic nature accustomed6·33–34 to act from mental will and preference and desire is appalled by its difficulty and he asks what is the end of the soul which attempts and fails, whether it does not lose both this life of human activity and thought and emotion which it has left behind and the Brahmic consciousness to which it aspires and falling from both perish like a dissolving cloud?
Other writings
The former attitude has on its positive side played a powerful part in the history of human thought, has even been of a considerable utility in its own way—we shall have to note briefly hereafter how and why—to human progress and in the end even to religion; but its intolerant negations are an arrogant falsity, as the human mind has now sufficiently begun to perceive. Its mistake is like that of a foreigner who thinks everything in an alien country absurd and inferior because these things are not his own ways of acting and thinking and cannot be cut out by his own measures or suited to his own standards. So the thoroughgoing rationalist asks the religious spirit, if it is to stand, to satisfy the material reason and even to give physical proof of its truths, while the very essence of religion is the discovery of the immaterial Spirit and the play of a supraphysical consciousness. So too he tries to judge religion by his idea of its externalities, just as an ignorant and obstreperous foreigner might try to judge a civilisation by the dress, outward colour of life and some of the most external peculiarities in the social manners of the inhabitants. That in this he errs in company with certain of the so-called religious themselves, may be his excuse, but cannot be the justification of his ignorance. The more moderate attitude of the rational mind has also played its part in the history of human thought. Its attempts to explain religion have resulted in the compilation of an immense mass of amazingly ingenious perversions, such as certain pseudo-scientific attempts to form a comparative Science of Religion. It has built up in the approved modern style immense façades of theory with stray bricks of misunderstood facts for their material. Its mild condonations of religion have led to superficial phases of thought which have passed quickly away and left no trace behind them. Its efforts at the creation of a rational religion, perfectly well-intentioned, but helpless and unconvincing, have had no appreciable effect and have failed like a dispersing cloud, chinnābhram iva naśyati.
Writings in Bengali
গীতায় অর্জ্জুন শ্রীকৃষ্ণকে জিজ্ঞাসা করিলেন, “যাঁহারা যোগপথে প্রবেশ করিয়া শেষ পর্য্যন্ত যাইতে না যাইতে স্খলিতপদ ও যোগভ্রষ্ট হন, তাঁহাদের কি গতি হয়? তাঁহারা কি ঐহিক ও পারত্রিক উভয় ফলে বঞ্চিত হইয়া বায়ুখণ্ডিত মেঘের মত বিনষ্ট হন?” উত্তরে শ্রীকৃষ্ণ বলিলেন, “ইহলোকে বা পরলোকে সেইরূপ ব্যক্তির বিনাশ অসম্ভব। কল্যাণকৃৎ কখনও দুর্গতিপ্রাপ্ত হন না। পুণ্যলোকসকলে তাঁহার গতি হয়, সেখানে অনেক কাল বাস করিয়া শুদ্ধ শ্রীমান্ পুরুষদের গৃহে অথবা যোগযুক্ত মহাপুরুষদের কুলে দুর্লভ জন্ম হয়, সেই জন্মে পূর্ব্বজন্মপ্রাপ্ত যোগলিপ্সাচালিত হইয়া সিদ্ধির জন্য আরও চেষ্টা করেন, শেষে অনেক জন্মের অভ্যাসে পাপমুক্ত হইয়া পরমগতি লাভ করেন।” যে পূর্ব্বজন্মবাদ চিরকাল আর্য্যধর্ম্মের যোগলব্ধ জ্ঞানের অঙ্গবিশেষ, পাশ্চাত্য বিদ্যার প্রভাবে শিক্ষিত সম্প্রদায়ের মধ্যে তাহার প্রতিপত্তি বিনষ্টপ্রায় হইয়াছিল, শ্রীরামকৃষ্ণ-লীলার পরে বেদান্তশিক্ষা প্রচারে ও গীতার অধ্যয়নে সেই সত্য পুনঃপ্রতিষ্ঠিত হইতেছে। স্থূলজগতে যেমন heredity প্রধান সত্য, সূক্ষ্মজগতে তেমনই পূর্ব্বজন্মবাদ প্রধান সত্য। শ্রীকৃষ্ণের উক্তিতে দুইটী সত্য নিহিত আছে। যোগভ্রষ্ট পুরুষ তাঁহার পূর্ব্বজন্মার্জ্জিত জ্ঞানের সংস্কারের সহিত জন্মগ্রহণ করেন, সেই সংস্কার দ্বারা বায়ুচালিত তরণীর ন্যায় যোগপথে চালিত হন। কিন্তু কর্ম্মফল প্রাপ্তির যোগ্য শরীর উৎপাদনার্থ উপযুক্ত কুলে জন্মলাভ প্রয়োজন। উৎকৃষ্ট heredity যোগশরীরের উৎপাদক। শুদ্ধ শ্রীমান্ পুরুষদের গৃহে জন্ম হইলে শুদ্ধ সবল শরীর উৎপাদন সম্ভব, যোগীকুলে জন্মগ্রহণে উৎকৃষ্ট মন ও প্রাণ গঠিত হয় এবং সেইরূপ শিক্ষা ও মানসিক গতিলাভও হয়।
Letters
You have forgotten the context. Arjuna asks what of a Yogi who fails in this life because of his errors—does he fall from both the ordinary life and the spiritual and perish like a broken cloud? Krishna says no. All who follow the Good get the reward of their effort and do not perish—they get it first in the life beyond and afterwards in the next birth in which the Yogi who fails now may even resume his effort under the best conditions and arrive at Siddhi. Krishna never said that nobody ever in this life fails who attempts the Yoga.
Evening talks
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by realisations? There is always the possibility of being Yoga-Bhrashta [_fallen from yoga_].
