2. The Path of Knowledge (jnana-yoga)

Upanisads had broadcast the great importance of knowledge. The Gita continues the Upanisadic tradition and eulogizes knowledge as a valid path to the ultimate truth.

Krishna makes the following declaration to Arjuna:

“Even if thou shouldest be the worst all sinners, merely by the boat of knowledge, thou shalt cross over all the sea of evil”. (iv.36).

Thus true knowledge has the power of saving. It has the overriding power which supersedes all actions.

“As a kindled fire burns fire-wood to ashes, so the fire of knowledge (jnanagni) burns all deeds to ashes” (iv, 37).

It would appear that even the Law of Karma is overruled by the might of knowledge. Doubt and ignorance cause sufferings. One should cut doubt with the sword of knowledge. Knowledge is much more powerful than ritual and sacrifices.

The Gita says,

“Better than material sacrifice is the sacrifice that consists of knowledge. All actions without remainder are completely ended in knowledge.”

Knowledge purifies; indeed there is nothing on earth equal in purity to knowledge:

nahi jnanena sadrsam pavitramiha vidyate (iv.38).

With a right knowledge man can exercise properly with a sense of responsibility. This is brought out beautifully in the Gita as,

“I have given you wisdom. Having reflected on it fully, do as thou please” (xviii, 63).

This saving knowledge consists in knowing the real nature of God. “He who knows me to be unborn, without beginning, the great lord of the world, being free from delusion, is released from all sins” (x, 3). Thus the true knowledge is the knowledge of God and about God. By knowing God one is liberated.

The Gita believes that for attaining the spiritual vision the individual should learn to live within and fix his mind on the highest reality. What hides the truth from our vision is not merely the fault of intellect, but also the passion of selfishness. Arjuna is not in intellectual error, but spiritual blindness. To remove it we must cleanse the soul of the defilement of the body and the senses, and kindle the spiritual vision which looks at things from a new angle. The fire of passion and the tumult of desire must suppressed (iv, 39). It is a means of mental training that the Gita accepts the yoga system. The yoga discipline gives the directions by which we can lift ourselves from our mutable personality into a super-normal attitude, where we possess the key which is the secret of the whole play of relations.

The essential steps of the yogic discipline are:

1. Purification of mind, body and senses, that the divine may take possession of them;

2. Concentration or withdrawal of the consciousness from the dispersed movement of thoughts running after the senses and fixing it on the Supreme.

‘bahunam janmanam–ante jnanavan–mam prapadyate

At the end of many births does the knowledgeable take refuge in Me (vii, 19).

But does every one of us strive for this true knowledge?

The Gita says

‘mnushyanam–sahasreshu kashcit–yatati siddhaye. Yatatam–api siddhanam kashchin–mam vetti tattvatah,

Someone out of the thousands puts in an effort to gain success and perfection. Even among the few who do try it is some rare one only who knows Me in essence (vii, 3).

It is an accepted fact that knowledge has no bounds, no limits, and no end. One seeks knowledge of something, gaining which the quest for further and deeper knowledge continues and this thirst for knowledge is never quenched. One could conclude that no one can know everything–in fact no one is able to know even anything in its totality. It is because of this that Shaunaka Rishi asks Acarya Angira, ‘kasmin bhagavo vijnate sarvam idam vijnatam bhavati’–What is that knowing which everything becomes known.(Mundaka Upanisad 1.3). In reply the Acarya says that the knowledge is of two types, para, the higher and apara, the lower. It is the former which leads to self realization and thereby liberation.

In another context the Upanisad says,

‘sa vidya ya vimuktaye

Education is that which has liberation as its goal and aim.

‘Vidya in context is experienced knowledge as opposed to’ avidya ‘, the acquired knowledge. This corresponds to what the Gita calls, jnanam savijnanam knowledge, both theoretical and applied. ‘Yat jnatva neha bhuyo–anyaj–jnatavayam–avashishyate–on knowing which nothing further remains to be known (VII, 2). In the tradition philosophy in India jnana, the knowledge is also categorized as prama, authentic and aprama, un-authentic. Yet something’s need neither proof nor any evidence. They are self–established and self evident known as svatah pramanya. However knowledge becomes authentic only after it is established by practical experience. Three things are needed to gain knowledge: shraddha, devotion and faith, tatparata, commitment and consistency and sanyat–indriyani, senses under control.

The knowledge obtained with these three traits promptly leads to supreme peace.

‘sraddhavan–labhate jnanam tatparah sanyat–indriyah.
jnanam labdhva param shantim achirena–adhigacchati

The man of faith, commitment, who is also master of his senses, obtains knowledge. Having obtained knowledge he promptly attains peace supreme (iv, 39).

Just as the essence of righteousness is said to be hidden deep, dharmasya tattvam nihitam guhayam, the knowledge too veiled by ignorance, ‘ajnanena-avritam jnanam (v, 15). It is because of this that an ordinary person is all the time deluded.

But this veil of ignorance can be destroyed by self-knowledge.

‘jnanena tu tad-ajnanam nashitam–atmanah (v, 16).

Once this self-knowledge is achieved and the barriers of ignorance are crossed, the Supreme in us is revealed like the shining sun,

‘adityavaj-jnanam prakashayati tat–parma (v, 16).

At this stage the jnani, informed person thinks of the Divine, merges with the Divine, gets fixed in the Divine and has the Divine as his goal. His sins are washed off and he attains a position of non-return.

But Sankara most emphatically maintains that the liberation can be attained only through knowledge and not by any other means. He established that it is possible by knowledge alone and neither by action nor by knowledge combined with action^[1]. While discussing the claims of actions as means of liberation, he comments^[2] that as liberation is not an achievement, nor a modification, nor a refinement so it cannot be the result of an action because apart from achievement, production, modification, refinement there is no other effect of an action. To Sankara, action itself is an ignorance. How can once ignorance be done away with ignorance, namely the action? Darkness cannot be removed by darkness. It is in this sense that Sankara holds that knowledge and action are to each other as are light and darkness to each other. As an illusion of rope-snake cannot be removed by any action or devotion, so is the case with the cosmic illusion which cannot be removed by any action or devotion. What does the lamp do in the riddle of rope-snake? It does not transform the snake into a rope. Its light paves only the condition in which we are able to perceive that it is not a snake but the rope which was there even prior to the rise of our knowledge. Similarly when the knowledge of brahman arises in us, we realize ourselves to be one with brahman, the state which was even existent and which was not perceived by us before because of the wrong identification of ourselves with body, mind, senses, etc. Liberation is only a change of outlook which perceives the substratum of cosmic illusion and comes to know the reality.

It has nothing to do with the meritorious or the sinful actions which lead to the worldly pleasures or sufferings or a place in heaven and hell.

“Liberation is different from merits and demerits, different from cause and effect, and different from past and future”.^[3]

Sankara has therefore categorically denied the efficacy of karma as direct means of moksa^[4]. Actions are not absolutely good because of the fact that they spring forth from ignorance. Their good or bad, noble or ignoble, benevolent or harmful, is all measured by our own false standards. However good actions may appear to us, but they are necessarily the result of ignorance. So they cannot lead us to brahma realization.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Sankaracarya: Bhagavadgita tr by Alladi Mahadeva Sastry, xi,10,p-350

[2]:

Sankara Bhasya on Brahmasutra, 1.1.4

[3]:

Katha Upanisad, 1.ii.14.from Eight Upanisads,vol,1,Commntary of Sankaracarya translated by Swami Gambhirananda,p-145

[4]:

Sankara Bhasya on B.G xviii(Introduction)