Swami Nirmalananda Giri (Abbot George Burke)

A Commentary on the Bhagavad Gita. Part 2 of How Should the Yogi Think of God? [read Part 1 here]

The way of Form (Saguna Brahman)

Now Krishna expounds the way of those who devote themselves to the attainment of Saguna Brahman.

“But those who, renouncing all actions in Me, and regarding Me as the Supreme, worship Me, meditating on Me with undistracted yoga, of those whose consciousness have entered into Me, I am soon the deliverer from the ocean of death and rebirth” (Bhagavad Gita 12:6, 7).

This, too, merits close scrutiny.

Renouncing all actions in Me.

There are a lot of shameless idlers wandering around India pretending to be monks and excusing their indolence and worthlessness as renunciation of action. But Krishna indicates that renunciation must only take place in the state of God-consciousness–that mere abstention from action to supposedly free or purify the mind is meaningless and worthless, a delusion based on ignorance and laziness.

It is utterly mistaken to think that withdrawal from action will free our minds to seek God. That is getting the order completely turned around. First we must establish ourselves in at least a working degree of spiritual awareness before we can think of stopping action.

Sri Ramakrishna said: “There is a kind of renunciation called ‘monkey renunciation.’ A man tormented by the troubles of the world goes to Benares wearing an ocher robe. No news of him for days. Then comes a letter, ‘You should not worry. I have got a job.’”

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Through the ages a philosophical tug-of-war has gone on between those who prefer to consider God as possessing limitless, divine qualities, and those who prefer to think of God as being unthinkable–as being utterly beyond anything that can be conceptualized or spoken.

These two aspects are called Saguna (with qualities) and Nirguna (without qualities). The yogi knows that both are true, but the philosophers insist on holding to one and rejecting the other, or declaring one to be higher or more accurate than the other. Consequently Vyasa has this twelfth chapter open with these words from Arjuna:

“The constantly steadfast devotees who worship You with devotion, and those who worship the eternal unmanifest: which of these has the better knowledge of yoga?” (Bhagavad Gita 12:1)

Arjuna addresses Krishna as the Saguna Brahman, since he is communicating with Arjuna as a conditioned being.

Krishna answers:

“Those who are eternally steadfast, who worship Me, fixing their minds on Me, endowed with supreme faith: I consider them to be the most devoted to Me” (Bhagavad Gita 12:2).

This is extremely clear, at least as far as the traits of those who have a better grasp of yoga is concerned. But why is their grasp better?

Because they are able to focus their intention on a concept of the Divine that is not only within the scope of their intellect, it is a concept that inspires their seeking, for it is based on love which, as Swami Sri Yukteswar points out in The Holy Science, is in its essential nature a magnetic force that unites the seeker with the object of the seeking. The path of devotion (bhakti) is as pragmatic as the path of knowledge (jnana).

The path of the formless

“But those who honor the imperishable the indefinable, the unmanifest, the all-pervading and unthinkable [inconceivable], the unchanging, the immovable, the eternal…” (Bhagavad Gita 12:3).

None of these qualities are within the range of our experience–no, not even from eternity. So how can we begin to conceive of them? For example, in the West it is thought that “eternal” means that which is without end, but in reality it means that which has neither beginning nor end–that which is absolutely outside the realm of time, space, or relativity. Can we think the unthinkable? Can we conceive the inconceivable? Of course not–its very nature makes it impossible for us. So how, then, can Nirguna Brahman be approached, much less known? Krishna tells us.

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