Verse 6.73

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration and English translation by Ganganath Jha:

उच्चावचेषु भूतेषु दुर्ज्ञेयामकृतात्मभिः ।
ध्यानयोगेन सम्पश्येद् गतिमस्यान्तरात्मनः ॥ ७३ ॥

uccāvaceṣu bhūteṣu durjñeyāmakṛtātmabhiḥ |
dhyānayogena sampaśyed gatimasyāntarātmanaḥ || 73 ||

By the practice of meditation he shall recognise the presence of this Inner Soul in all beings, high and low,—which is difficult to understand by unregenerate people.—(73)

 

Medhātithi’s commentary (manubhāṣya):

Inner soul—the inner controlling personality ‘presence’—character—should be recognised.

Notions of pleasure and pain appear not only among human beings but among all kinds of ‘beings, high and low’—i.e., among animals, goblins, Piśācas &c.—there is the notion of ‘I’ and ‘mine’; and this has to be got rid of.

Or, the man may go on pondering over the following ideas—‘This soul is omnipresent, higher than the sky, higher than heaven, higher than all these regions, having all happiness, all tastes, all odours, all touches; and yet he is beset with hunger and thirst; and in the midst of such pleasures and pains, he passes through the experiences of his physical body, known as the I; how wonderful is the power of actions, that even this all-pervading, all-embracing soul is made subservient to the actions! I shall never have recourse to these acts, which are like a wicked master. Like a hired servant I shall wait upon the acts (already done by me); as when a man enters a man’s service being urged to it by his need, thinking him to be kind, but soon finding out that he is difficult to please, irascible, given to beating, and harsh of speech, the man decides that he would not serve him any longer, after he has cleared off by service all that may have been advanced to him.’ The thought to be practised should be in the form—‘I shall get to the end of my past acts by going through the experiences resulting from them, and shall perform no further acts’, and so forth. Similarly one should study the Vedānta, and having, with its help, discussed the question as to whether the embodied soul? are only manifestations of the Supreme Self or independent entities, and come to the conclusion that there is no soul apart from the Supreme Self,—he should ponder over this.

Others explain the text as follows:—‘Dhyāna’ is Contemplation, and ‘Yoga’ is Meditation; and by means of these ‘he should recognise the presence of the Inner Soul’; and having recognised it, he should meditate upon it.

Or ‘Dhyāna-yoga’ may be explained as ‘yoga’, calmness of mind, for the purposes of^‘dhyāna,’ contemplation;—having secured this calmness,^‘he should recognise the presence of the Inner Soul’; i.e., by means of devout worship he shall realise its presence as equipped with the qualities of Immortality and the like, free from defects, as described in the Vedānta-texts.

‘Akṛtātman’ ‘unregenerate person’ is one whose ‘ātman’, soul, mind, is^‘akṛta,’ untutored. By such persons the Inner Soul cannot be grasped.—(73)

 

Comparative notes by various authors

Viṣṇu (96.25).—‘He must reflect upon the transitoriness of the passage through mundane existence.’