[Advaita-l] What is siddhiH? gita 2.48 yogasthaH kuru karmANi

[sriram]

Dear Members
We have to take siddhi as pointing to the the results of action which are 
performed without any attachment.The previous stanza which is hall mark of 
Gita and oft quoted by all has said that action should be for actionsake 
only and without attachment to its fruits nor  attachment to inaction as 
action may not give the sought result.That is one has right only to perform 
action.This is  the status of a Karma yogi.Baghavan has used three ma`s to 
indicate the undesirable and in the next stanza He uses kuru to indicate how 
the action is to be done by a yogi.So siddhi can be taken to mean success in 
action and asiddhi to mean failure.R.Krishnamoorthy.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jaldhar H. Vyas" <jaldhar at braincells.com>
To: "A discussion group for Advaita Vedanta" 
<advaita-l at lists.advaita-vedanta.org>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2008 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: [Advaita-l] What is siddhiH? gita 2.48 yogasthaH kuru karmANi


> On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, Ajit Krishnan wrote:
>
>> In gita 2.48, we have "siddhi-asiddhyoH samo bhUtvA samatvam yoga 
>> ucyate".
>>
>> What is siddhiH?
>>
>> "phala-siddhau harSham phala-asiddhau ca viShAdam tyaktvA (madhusudana
>> saraswati)"
>> "phala-tRiShNA-shUnyena kriyamANe karmaNi sattva-shuddhi-jA
>> gyAna-prApti-lakshaNA siddhiH (shankara)".
>>
>> I expected siddhiH to be be "phala-siddhiH / karma-phala-prAptiH",
>> along the lines of M.S.
>>
>> (1) Where does the acharya's phrase "sattva-shuddhi-jA
>> gyAna-prApti-lakshaNA" come from? It looks out of place to me.
>>
>
> siddhi is the result of jnana which is the result of pure sattva or
> ishvararadhanabuddhi as M.S. puts it.  The latter has a more theistic
> orientation but the idea is the same.
>
>> (2)  Sri Warrier translates this as "attainment of knowledge born of
>> mental purity". Again this just looks out of place to me.
>>
>
> To compare, A. Mahadeva Shastri translates it as "attainment of knowledge
> as the result of the mind attaining purity"
>
>> And then, in the commentary on 2.50 (buddhi-yukto jahAti-iha . . . ) ,
>> we find:
>>
>> "sa jahAti . . . iha . . . sukRita-duShkRute . . .
>> sattva-shuddhi-gyAna-prApti-dvAreNa yataH, tasmAt
>> samatva-buddhi-yojAya yujyasva".
>>
>> (3) The logic here seems loopy. Immediately after saying "you
>> shouldn't worry about siddhi in the least. That is yoga", we have "the
>> siddhi is important, so attain yoga". How is this seeming
>> contradiction resolved?
>>
>
> We shouldn't care about sucess or failure in attaining siddhi because it
> is not the "product" of human volition.  Detachment from worry about
> results gives rise to jnana which naturally results in siddhi.
>
>> Is anyone aware of any audio recordings of gita / upanishad teachings
>> etc. with the vyAkhyA given in samskritam itself?
>
> Sorry I don't know.
>
> -- 
> Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>
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