Bhagavad Gita Commentary–Twenty-three
by Swami Nirmalananda Giri
Calming the Storm
“The wind turns a ship from its course upon the waters: the wandering winds of the senses cast man’s mind adrift and turn his better judgment from its course. When a man can still the senses I call him illumined.”
The theme of peace is being continued in these two verses, and its imagery brings to mind the following: “When the even was come, he [Jesus] saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side. And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships. And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.…And they said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Rather than being some special, unique person that we can only admire, Jesus was exactly what each one of must become. We, too, must bring peace into our stormy minds.
The storm
It is the wind and rain of the senses that “cast man’s mind adrift and turn his better judgment from its course.” However much the “captain” of the buddhi grasps the wheel and tries to hold the ship steady on its course, the struggle is hopeless. This is because, as the verse literally says, the mind wanders after the senses and becomes guided by them, losing its intelligent awareness (prajnam). Caught then in the heaving waters of samsara, of constant birth and death, with their attendant anguish, each of us is carried away by the waves, lost and disoriented completely.
“Better judgment” is the translation Swami Prabhavananda uses for prajnam. Prajnam means both consciousness and awareness, and includes the knowledge gained by the evolving atman. Just as Krishna has described before that we lose “the lesson of experience,” it is prajnam that we lose.
The statement that we are turned from our course points out a basic truth: by nature we are all “on course,” and our drifting is unnatural. Therefore when we set our wills to recover our course, there is no doubt that we will succeed. It is inevitable. In the sixth chapter of the Gita, Arjuna will say that the wind is no harder to subdue than the mind, and Krishna will agree. But the mind must be subdued, nevertheless. That is easy to say, but how? “When a man can still the senses I call him illumined.” And how do we effectively say, “Peace, be still” to the senses?
The mind
We must understand that the senses are simply instruments (indriyas) of the mind, that although they “cast man’s mind adrift” this is the reversal of the natural order, that it is the mind that is meant to “drive” the senses, the way a charioteer drives the horses that pull the chariot. Krishna surely had in mind these two passages from the upanishads:
“Know that the Self is the rider, and the body the chariot; that the intellect is the charioteer, and the mind the reins. The senses, say the wise, are the horses; the roads they travel are the mazes of desire. The wise call the Self the enjoyer when he is united with the body, the senses, and the mind. When a man lacks discrimination and his mind is uncontrolled, his senses are unmanageable, like the restive horses of a charioteer. But when a man has discrimination and his mind is controlled, his senses, like the well-broken horses of a charioteer, lightly obey the rein. He who lacks discrimination, whose mind is unsteady and whose heart is impure, never reaches the goal, but is born again and again. But he who has discrimination, whose mind is steady and whose heart is pure, reaches the goal, and having reached it is born no more. The man who has a sound understanding for charioteer, a controlled mind for reins–he it is that reaches the end of the journey, the supreme abode of Vishnu, the all pervading.”
“Sit upright, holding the chest, throat, and head erect. Turn the senses and the mind inward to the lotus of the heart. Meditate on Brahman with the help of the syllable OM. Cross the fearful currents of the ocean of worldliness by means of the raft of Brahman–the sacred syllable OM. With earnest effort hold the senses in check. Controlling the breath, regulate the vital activities. As a charioteer holds back his restive horses, so does a persevering aspirant hold back his mind.”
The awakened mind
Krishna expresses it to Arjuna this way: “The recollected mind is awake in the knowledge of the Atman which is dark night to the ignorant: the ignorant are awake in their sense-life which they think is daylight: to the seer it is darkness.”
By “awake” Krishna means having the awareness centered in an area of existence. There are, then, two kinds of minds: those that are awake in the atman and those that are awake in the senses–consciousnesses centered in the spirit and consciousnesses centered in matter. And of course, to be centered in something will cause us to be identified with it. Some identify with the immutable, imperishable Self, and some identify with the ever-changing, perishable world and the body which links us to that world. The Self, on the other hand, links us to the Supreme Self, Brahman. Both types are awake, having reached the evolutionary level of humanity, but the difference is vast, even abysmal.
How Jesus saw it
Jesus speaks of the awake mind in this way: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
Two words in these verses are translated “light.” The first is luchnos, which means a lamp or something that gives light. The other is foteinos, which means to be radiant or full of light.
“Body” is soma, which not only means “bodily” as well, but also interestingly enough means slave! For the body is a slave to the world and the senses.
Ophthalmos means both the eye and the faculty of vision.
Now things get really interesting. The word translated “single” (aplous) means not one in a numerical sense, but in the sense of unified, of having come into oneness with something. Its root is pleko which means to be twined together with something.
The opposite of aplous is poneros, which through translated “evil,” does not mean what it does in our time. “Evil” was used at the time of the King James’ translators in the sense of misfortune and harm as well as negative moral condition. It also means to be degenerated from its essential character or virtue.
Putting this all together we see the meaning of Jesus. When the consciousness, the mind, is united to the Self, even our body is filled with the light of spirit. If, however, the mind is drawn away from atmic awareness and turned toward its antithesis, the world of the senses and mortality, then both body and mind are plunged into darkness. Consciousness is not extinguished, but is subverted, evoking the words of Jesus: “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” In other words, we become conscious of unconsciousness, we “see” blindness. How great, then, is that darkness. For it is utter annihilation of the purpose of our existence.
Two darknesses
There are two forms of darkness. To the person “awake in the knowledge of the Atman” the world and life of the senses is rightly perceived to be darkness and death. But to the dead-alive person who is absorbed in the false life of the senses, the knowledge and knowing of the Self is absolute nothingness. Either he does not belief in the spirit, or he considers it thoroughly irrelevant, even disruptive to his desires and goals. Both of these individuals consider themselves wise, but only the one with atmic vision is really a knower of the truth.
It is completely worthless for these two to dialogue or discuss. Each must pursue what he “sees” until it reveals its true nature to him. Both need the freedom to do this. They should leave each other alone, free to follow the way they have chosen.
Beyond disturbance
“Water flows continually into the ocean but the ocean is never disturbed: desire flows into the mind of the seer but he is never disturbed. The seer knows peace: the man who stirs up his own lusts can never know peace.”
There is one expression in the text that we have not yet discussed: “the recollected mind.” The meaning is clear. Krishna is speaking of the one who has restrained and mastered the mind by uniting it to the Self. This is the “seer” he now refers to.
As the ocean is unaffected by the flowing of rivers into it, so the recollected mind, the mind that has been returned to its true center, the Self, receives a multitude of sense-impressions, yet makes no response. This is the real meaning of Patanjali’s definition of yoga: the non-responsiveness of the mind (chitta–the mind substance) to outer stimuli. The illumined individual does not become inert or unconscious, but becomes unmoved by that which perpetually agitates and conditions the mind of the ignorant, expecially those who are kamakami–desiring not just the objects of desire, but desiring the state of desire, one “who stirs up his own lusts.” For “he knows peace who has forgotten desire. He lives without craving: free from ego, free from pride.” Ego and egotism are the twin roots of desire. If they are eliminated, desire becomes impossible.
The final word
“This is the state of enlightenment in Brahman: a man does not fall back from it into delusion. Even at the moment of death he is alive in that enlightenment: Brahman and he are one.”
These words are too sublime to need comment.
Read the Bhagavad Gita online: The English text of the Gita posted on this Web Site is arranged according to the meter of the original Sanskrit text so it can be sung–as it is done every morning in our ashram and in most of the ashrams of India.
1) Bhagavad Gita 2:67, 68
[Go back]
2) Mark 4:35-41 [Go back]
3) Katha Upanishad 1:3:3-9 [Go back]
4) Swetashwatara Upanishad 2:8, 9 [Go back]
5) Bhagavad Gita 2:69 [Go back]
6) Matthew 6:22, 23 [Go back]
7) Bhagavad Gita 2:70 [Go back]
8) Bhagavad Gita 2:71 [Go back]
9) Bhagavad Gita 2:72 [Go back]
