Commentary on Paramahansa Nityananda's Chidakasha Gita–Number 1
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

Chidakasha Gita 1

1. Jnanis are mindless. To jnanis, all are the same. They have no slumber, no dreams, nor sleep. They are always in sleep. The sun and the moon are the same to them. To them, it is always sunrise. The glass of a chimney lamp, when covered with carbon, is not transparent. Similarly, the carbon of the mind should be removed.

Jnanis are mindless.

This statement actually means two things, according to the level of the jnani’s attainment.

First, it means that the jnani has gone beyond the need for the discursive, thinking, sensory-based mind (manas).

Second, it means that, as Sri Ramana Maharshi frequently pointed out, through diligent tapasya the jnani’s mind has become transmuted into the Self and literally no longer exists in its old form. Rather, the mind has become–or resolved back into–the Chidakasha, the Etheric Consciousness. This is the highest meaning of the definition of yoga: chittavritinirodha–there are no longer waves (vrittis) in the mind-substance (chitta) because it has ceased to exist and is now the Chidakasha itself.

To jnanis, all are the same.

All are the same to the jnani because the jnani sees all as The One Reality. Where others see multiplicity, the jnani sees truly, sees the Divine Unity.

They have no slumber, no dreams, nor sleep.

Jnanis have passed beyond the three “normal” states of waking, sleep, and deep sleep and become established in the turiya state of pure consciousness–the Self.

They are always in sleep.

By “sleep” Nityananda means Yoga Nidra. Yoga Nidra has several meanings: 1) a state of half-contemplation and half-sleep; 2) light yogic sleep when the individual retains slight awareness; 3) a state between sleep and wakefulness; 4) the state in which the yogi experiences pure consciousness within the state of dreamless sleep, when he is neither awake nor asleep in the usual sense; 5) the state in which the three “normal” states of waking, sleep, and deep sleep have become transmuted into the turiya state of pure consciousness and the yogi remains “asleep” in relation to those three lesser states. This latter is his meaning in this sutra.

The sun and the moon are the same to them.

The jnani abides in the Light of the Self, of which the Gita says: “This is my Infinite Being; shall the sun lend it any light–or the moon, or fire? For it shines Self-luminous always.”1 That is, the jnani is ever swayamprakash–self-illumined. Therefore the sun and the moon are only incidental to him who can say: “The light that lives in the sun, lighting all the world, the light of the moon, the light that is in fire: know that light to be mine.”2 For it can also be said of the Self: “Light of all lights, He abides beyond our ignorant darkness; knowledge, the one thing real we may study or know, the heart’s dweller.”3

To them, it is always sunrise.

This is a most interesting statement. Yogananda described the experience of God as “ever new joy,” implying that enlightenment is not a static condition, but is ever new. Here Nityananda tells us that it is not a matter of remaining in a condition of full light forever, a condition that might even be boring. But because the Self is not an object that can be either ever-changing or never-changing, It possesses a perennial newness, it is always sunrise, always looking forward to new heights and new depths. Just how this is, or how it can be, is for us to find out by experiencing It ourselves.

The carbon of the mind

“The glass of a chimney lamp, when covered with carbon, is not transparent. Similarly, the carbon of the mind should be removed.”

It is not the nature of glass to be black and opaque, but clear with nothing obstructing the passage of light. So it is with the Self. Yet the mind obstructs the manifestation of the Self as soot inhibits the light from shining through the glass of the lamp chimney.

Whether Nityananda means that the mind becomes sooted and needs cleansing or that the mind itself is soot that needs to be purified and assumed into the Self is not clear. Both views will be helpful to us if we pursue them by means of intense sadhana.

2) Bhagavad Gita 15:12 [Go back]

3) Bhagavad Gita 13:17 [Go back]