Daily Readings from the Works of Swami Venkatesananda


Song of God (Bhagavad Gita) Daily Readings Chapter 2:69

February 26, 2024

™yᾱ niśᾱ sarvabhῡtᾱnᾱṁ tasyᾱṁ jᾱgarti saṁyamī
yasyᾱṁ jᾱgrati bhῡtᾱni sᾱ niśᾱ paśyato muneḥ (II-69)

II/69. That state which is night to all beings, to the
self-controlled man is wakefulness; when all beings
are awake, that is night for the sage who sees.

Swamiji's Commentary

     The worldly man is ignorant. The sage ‘does not understand’ how the worldly man finds his pleasure in the objects of the world, in spite of the fact that the daily deep sleep experience teaches him that all happiness is within and life teaches him that pleasure is inseparable from pain.

     The worldly man is ignorant of the path that leads him to bliss of the self. The sage turns a blind eye on worldly pleasures which do not attract him. For him they are like an object lying in a dark chamber. At night one who is in a brightly illumined room sees only darkness outside, even if there is moonlight; in the divine light of his self- realization, the sage sees the world as a pale and misty illusion.

     Tamas or darkness or ignorance is exceedingly difficult to remove. Illusion dies hard. It is possible to remove the pain in an aching hand; but sometimes there is pain ‘in’ an amputated hand – the hand that is not there or the phantom limb! This pain is extremely difficult to cure.

     The worldly man has no idea at all of the inner world of the qualities of nature, the senses, the mind, the buddhi, etc. He is completely at the mercy of nature which, in his case, is base nature, the large residue of past incarnations. The sage is aware of this inner world and is also aware that the outer world is part of the body of God. The earth disappears from his view; the whole space looks blue – the color of the body of God! A word of caution: there is no use in attempting to gain this vision without practicing self- control. This vision is not imagination nor is it psychedelic experience. It is the vision of the unconditioned when all conditioning has dropped away.

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