Gita 02.72 – Nirvana may be extinction, but brahma-nirvana is not

Even amidst your even amidst duties that may otherwise seem agitating thank you so this is the concluding verse of the second chapter of the bhagavad-gita and here krishna is telling arjuna that one shouldn't be agitated how one can live in this world in such a way that one can be unbewildered and ultimately be liberated so this is a conclusion to the fourth answer as well as a conclusion to the chapter the fourth question to which the answer is how should one move how does a self-realized person move about in this world project okay so charati was answered mentioned this is how one should move without desires without attachment without ego without proprietorship that was what a previous verse said and then a person can be peaceful in this verse continues on asia brahmi stithi partha now asia this brahmi stithi it is the spiritual state now partha oh arjuna nainam prapya vimuhiyati once having obtained it enam prapya and obtained it one will not be deluded again and sthithwa asyam if one is situated like this at the time of death brahma nirvana one will attain brahma nirvana one will attain the supreme liberation so brahma nirvana so here krishna what he is essentially telling is two things first is how to live without being deluded and how to become liberated what is this for both we have to cultivate a state of consciousness that is brahmi stithi the spiritual state of consciousness so sri prabhupada writes in his purport about how such a condition is all one is already liberated and going back to the kingdom of god spiritual world is only a matter of time and still liberation can happen in one moment it cannot happen for many lifetimes it's just a matter of understanding and accepting the fact what is that understanding accepting that we are not the body of the soul that we meant to life we lead life at the level of the soul so esha brahmi stithi partha a brahmi stithi spiritual state nainam prapya vimuhiyati one will not be bewildered so arjuna has become bewildered although arjuna has led a life of virtue he has been dharmic but still he has become bewildered because kshatriyas in general follow dharma but they don't always follow para dharma they follow para dharma of dharma and they have material desires although those material desires are framed within a dharmic context such material desires cannot actually free one from illusion because they themselves are an illusion although eventually one will go towards moksha and ultimately go from beyond illusion but that will take some time many lifetimes in fact so but krishna is telling that you can there's an alternative way you can work not at the level of karma kanda but at the level of karma yoga and or in general the level of yoga which will culminate in bhakti yoga so if one works like that then brahmi stithi will be situated at the spiritual level nainam prapya vimuhiyati vimuhiyati one will not be bewildered so arjuna had said so mudha was the word over there and muhiya it is a similar word deeras tatranamuhiyati muhiyati so mudha muhiya moha are all related so krishna says that and now we muhiyati you will not become deluded so that means you know there is a state of consciousness which is attainable for us which is beyond illusion so we all at the present stage of our life at the present stage of our spiritual evolution sometimes come to consciousness sometimes go into sensory consciousness and the way to deal with this oscillation of our consciousness is by purification purification so the purification means that we place ourselves more closer and closer to the all pure person krishna and further and further away from impurities so krishna is telling this by talking about acting with detachment so attachment is a form of impurity and one works with attachment and one distances oneself from that impurity and when one fixes one's mind on the atma the atma itself is pure and if one fixes one mind on krishna and krishna is supremely pure and by steadily practicing connection with krishna that is the cultivating connection with krishna and steadily maintaining disconnection from matter or from material attachments more specifically we can't be disconnected from matter person because we have to live in the body and we have to live in the world but we can minimize material attachments living in this way we can actually come to a stage where we'll no longer be in illusion that is the spiritual state of consciousness so now sthitva asyam if one is situated like this antakaleti even at the time of death and this is the first time krishna has referred to the time of death specifically here in the gita in almost all cultures of the world especially all spiritual cultures of the world the moment of death is considered to be very significant a scholar of Vaishnavism Stephen Rosen Satyaraj Prabhu has written a book death and dying in the world traditions and he describes how the various world traditions they may have widely differing specific beliefs but they all generically consider the moment of death to be important and not just in terms that a person should have a as much as possible peaceful death with proper emotional closure that is okay it is important in its own way but even more important is that person should have some spiritual stimuli while departing from the world and that principle of developing spiritual stimuli is developed in the spiritual culture of India many times in many different ways in the most classic example of facing the antakal with profound absorption in spiritual impressions the spiritual sound spiritual culture spiritual atmosphere the most reverting example of this is Parikshit Maharaj who had seven days remaining and who renounced his kingdom and focused on the on hearing Bhagavatam on the banks of a sacred river for seven continuous days from the great sage Shukadeva so Krishna says Krishna doesn't elaborate the importance of antakal because Krishna is speaking to Arjuna and Arjuna is living in a culture that implicitly recognizes the importance of antakal of the last moment and so Krishna says just assumes the importance of antakal over here and then sattva asyam antakale be if one is treated like this brahma nirvana which this person will attain what brahma nirvana now what exactly is brahma nirvana may seem a little confusing or at this stage it may not be clear brahma is spiritual nirvana is the buddhistic term used for liberation a mundane commentators or historians they try to say that because with the nirvana is a buddhist term and because now the bhagavad-gita is featuring a buddhist term so this indicated the bhagavad-gita was written after buddhism was propagated actually speaking this is a this is a quite a um outstandingly weak tenuous leap of reasoning the various philosophies such as nihilism which is what buddhism represents atheism or atheism they are always present and they have certain prominent proponents at certain times in history and so it is not that buddhism did not exist with varbuddha that school of thought of rejecting tradition and using an empiricism and inference alone to try to find out everything about life and rejecting scripture as god revelation of god all that characterized the early centuries of buddhism but thereafter buddhism it's propagated became propagated widely under buddha but it was existing before also and the term brahma nirvana in and of itself has got nothing to do with buddhism it simply refers to nirvana in buddhism refers to a conception of nothingness actually even in buddhism it doesn't refer to nothingness rather it refers to existence at a higher level the standard example is when a candle is switched off or is extinguished then the candle ceases to exist so like that they say our consciousness will cease to exist when we attain nirvana but dalai lama has said that even when a candle is switched off this is the energy that made the candle flame does not go away that continues to exist at a different higher invisible level similarly we continue to exist so brahma nirvana here doesn't have anything to do with buddhism specifically it simply means liberation in the spiritual reality brahma nirvana so this it is one is extinguished or liberated from material existence but more important than from where we are liberated that is important but equally if not more important is where we are liberated so a person comes out of jail but where does the that person go after coming out of the jail similarly we are liberated from material existence and then we go into brahma so actually brahma nirvana when that is brought together the whole concept of the advait the buddhist shunya and associate concept of nirvana was propagated to counter the vedic conception of brahma and mukti so brahma nirvana together talk about how there is not at liberation there is not extinction of existence but there is elevation of existence to a higher level to the brahman level and that is attained by living at the brahman level in this life so brahma stithi will bring brahma nirvana and both happen for one who lives in a mood of detachment that is the concluding message of this chapter thank you.