Bhagavagd Gita - Session 21- Track 2110

Question: Then the ultimate goal is the Dhyana yoga in both, or is it the integration of the Karma and the knowledge.

The ultimate goal is already told to us at the end of the 4th chapter, in which all actions must arrive at a culmination in Knowledge, and, as a result of that:

“ātmani atho mayi, (IV, 35), you get settled in the Self and then in the Supreme Self”: this is the goal.

The mere distinction between the Real and the unreal, that special process, you may do or you may not do, because Sri Krishna says that “Buddhi yoga as applied to Sankhya, I have given to you; but I will give you another process of Buddhi yoga where while doing actions, you can attain to the same realisation.” So, in the other process, Karma is very much emphasised, because it is by doing actions you will attain to the same result. But when we say the same result means…the goal in the Bhagavad Gita, whether you do Sankhya or you do Karma, or whether you do Dhyana yoga, or any process, the goal is threefold: 1) you must get settled in the Knowledge of the niṣkriya, of inaction; 2) you should be capable of becoming wide, in which you capacity to act does not cease; 3) and beyond all that, mayi, you should be established in Me, the Supreme. These three goals are present in all the processes of Yoga, which have been prescribed by the Bhagavad Gita, although these processes in their exclusiveness, outside the Gita, they may not coincide with all the three goals, which have been prescribed in the Bhagavad Gita.

For example, in the pure Buddhi yoga, (practised by many other people as ‘Buddhi yoga’, not as a part of Bhagavad Gita’s Yoga), they aim at arriving at a complete state of immobility. By distinguishing between the Real and the unreal, and stabilising themselves in the Real, they stabilise themselves in that which is “immobile”, and nothing more than that. Those who are doing Raja yoga, (the Dhyana yoga), they attain to a state of Samadhi, in which whatever is the object, in that object there is a complete cessation of the movements of citta. Now, that object ‘may be’ the Supreme, but ‘may not be’ the Supreme.

As I said in the Raja yoga, surrender to the Divine is only an optional way: it is not a necessary part, not imperatively demanded. But in the Bhagavad Gita, concentration upon the Supreme is already included in this process. But those who practise Raja yoga alone, for them, concentration upon the Divine is not obligatory, and the goal of realisation of the Supreme Divine is not the ultimate goal of Raja yoga, even the realisation of the immobile Purusha is enough.

Is it clear?

So, in the Bhagavad Gita, all these Yogas are given as elements of the synthesis of Yoga: how they can be all get synthesised. Even giving away the details, all the details are not here, but their elements are all present; and in that case the goal is threefold. But this threefold goal may not be in the specialised processes, which Yogis perform in their exclusive pursuit of their own Yoga. Clear?

I think we stop here today. I thought I will finish today 6th chapter, but it seems our goal is still receding backwards, so, let us next time we shall finish the 6th chapter.