Contents
Shri Sankara's Gita Bhashya
(Sri Sankaracharya's Commentary on the Gita)
CHAPTER -18
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"To them, I give that Buddhi-yoga, by which they come unto Me"[1],-implying that the un-enlightened who follow the path of action cannot reach (the Lord). Those who render service to the Lord, though even steadfast, are followers of the path of action and un-illumined, and they resort to one of the means mentioned in descending order, the last of which is the abandonment of the fruit of action[2]. But those who contemplate the Indefinable and Imperishable possess the aids mentioned, beginning from "hating no creature" and ending with the close of that Chapter[3] and they arc also possessed of the means to Knowledge stated in the three Chapters beginning with that on the K?etraiu.[4] The three- fold fruit of action, the disagreeable and the rest[5], does not accrue only to those,[6] the Paramahamsa Parivrājakas, (the highest order of samnyāsins,) who have renounced all actions which are produced by the five causes, the seat and the rest[7], who have realised that the Self is One and nonagent, who are ever engaged in the supreme devotion of Know ledge, who know the true nature of the Lord, and who have found refuge in the identity of the Lord's Being and the Self. And, it does accrue to the others, the un-enlightcned who follow the path of action and are not samnyāsins. This is the apportionment of the duty to action and the duty to non-action mentioned in the gita-satra. |
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