[Advaita-l] A Question on shlokas VI-15 and VI-28 of the Gita

V. Krishnamurthy profvk at yahoo.com
Sun Jun 5 19:17:58 CDT 2005


Namaste

In the detailed description of meditation, Lord Krishna
goes through the actual processes of meditation, once in
shlokas #s 10 to 15 and again in #s 24 to 28.

The last shlokas in the two  sets are #15 and #28. In a
sense they wind up the process of meditation.The first
quarters  of these two shlokas are  the same:
'yunjannevaM sadA AtmAnaM'  (Thus engaging himself always
in yoga) 

The second halves of these two shlokas mean the same thing;

'shAntiM nirvAN a-paramAm mat-samsthAM adhigacchati' (#15)
(attains to the peace abiding in Me, which culminates in
liberation)

'sukhena brahma-samsparshaM atyantaM sukhaM ashnute' (#28)
(easily enjoys the infinite bliss of contact with brahman).

But now mark it! The second quarters of the first halves of
these two shlokas are significantly different.

'yogI niyata-mAnasaH' (#15)
(The Yogi who has controlled his mind)

'yogI vigata-kalmashhaH' (#28)
(The Yogi, who has been freed from sins).

Now comes my question: Why this difference?  (*)

Does Krishna mean that in His first description from #s10
to 15 the Yogi has still not reached his destination,
whereas in the second description from #s24 to 28, he has?
'The YogI who has controlled his mind' says that the Yogi
is still 'practising'. 'The Yogi who has been freed from
sins' says what has been achieved after that practice!

The fact why there are two descriptions  has one logic, in
my opinion, as explained in my book on page: 
http://www.geocities.com/profvk/livehappily_4.html

in the following words

"....Lord Krishna himself must have anticipated this
question about the wandering mind. So He begins again a
second time, in the same sixth chapter from VI-24 onwards,
to take us step by step from scratch. But now He takes us
deeper into the subject.....".

 But still I do not get an answer to my question (*).
Can any one take up this matter?  I don't think the
commentaries are of help.

PraNAms to all advaitins on this list.
profvk




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