Gita 08.28 – Yogi gets what other paths offer and gets more too
Thank you Bhagavad Gita 8.28 Vedeshu Yagyeshu Tapah Suchaiva Daneshu Yatpunya Palam Pradishtam Atyeti Tatsarvamitam Viditva Yogi Paramsthanam Apaiti Chadyam Vedeshu Yagyeshu Tapah Suchaiva In this verse Krishna is speaking in this conclusion of the 8th chapter where he is talking about attaining the supreme that is the title and the focus has been on remembering the absolute truth and death so that one can attain the absolute truth so Krishna concludes by how the meditation on the absolute truth through the process of yoga is the best process and the result from it supersedes the results from all other processes Vedeshu Yagyeshu Tapah Suchaiva so Dane Vedeshu so Vedas are the standard process of Dharma and within this process of Dharma the three principles ones are Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah so Krishna says over here Vedeshu Yagyeshu Tapah Suchaiva Daneshu so the study of the Vedas and the adherence to the standard processes given in the Vedas of Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah Ya Kunyaphalam Pradishtham that these give a Kunyaphala these give a pious result Kunyaphalam Pradishtham Atyeti whatever pious result one gets by that Atyeti superseding that Tatsarvam Idam Viditva all of that superseding Idam Viditva Yogi Paramsthanam Upaitichadhyam one should know that the Yogi attains Paramsthanadhyam thus in this way so here Krishna is assuring that the practice of Yoga will not deprive the Yogi of the standard fruits that come from the practice of the other items of Dharma Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah Krishna will talk about Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah again in the 18th chapter when he will talk about two schools of thought one the proponents of one school say that all activities including those about Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah should be given up whereas the others say that Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah should never be given up and Krishna himself will say that Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah should always be done because Pavanaani Manishna it can purify even the great souls so this is actually the first explicit reference to Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah in the Bhagavad Gita in this last verse of the 8th chapter Krishna has talked about these concepts these three things separately at various places the 4th chapter talks about Yagya repeatedly so here Krishna is stating that Yagya, Dhaana, Tapah that we do we get some punya phalam pradishtam we get some result by that and that result is good, it is auspicious but we will not be deprived of that by the practice of yoga atyeti atyeti means to surpass that atyeti tat sarvam itam viditva tat sarvam, all of that yogi paramsthanam upaiti jyadhyam the yogi will additionally get the paramsthan the supreme destination also now paramsthan, the supreme destination, what is that exactly this verse has not talked about it directly but this chapter has talked about it repeatedly it is Krishna's abode 8.21 so Krishna is made very unambiguously clear the supreme destination is his abode it is not something different from his abode or something beyond him and the concept of his personal existence and his personal abode, no it is his personal abode, Krishna in the same verse uses both the words saddham paramamama and paramsthanam paramangatim sorry, so that what is referred to here as atyeti tat sarvam itam viditva yogi paramsthanam upaiti jyadhyam that which is referred to here as paramsthana so Krishna says that one will get the results of yoga of yajnanatapa and on top of that one will get the paramsthana also this implies that by yajnanatapa itself one will not get the paramsthana so of course yajnanatapa can be done as a part of a transcendental process also for example in the process of bhakti yoga also we can do yajnanatapa but yajnanatapa is usually associated with karmakand and that can give one heaven, that cannot give us that cannot give us the transcendental world that cannot give us the paramsthana, so Krishna is saying that by worshipping him, by being devoted to him we can attain the paramsthana so for example if somebody gets a million dollar and that person automatically gets a hundred rupee note, a five hundred rupee note or a thousand rupees all those things are automatically included within a million million rupees or a million dollars so like that the practice of yoga gives all the other results automatically they are included in this and one shouldn't think that one will be deprived, rather one will be fulfilled and one will be getting more than what one will get from the other parts, now moving onwards if you look at the 8th chapter, the primary focus has been on attaining the supreme on remembering the supreme at the time of death so as to attain the supreme so Akshara Brahma Yoga is one of the traditional names of this chapter and that's based on the Kim Tat Brahma Kim Adhyatmam and Aksharam Brahma Paramam Subhavo Adhyatmam Uchchate, so 8.1 and 8.3 talk about this and going beyond that here Krishna has talked about, has basically talked about Bhakti Yoga and Ashtang Yoga not necessarily as radically different processes which are at cross interest to each other rather he has talked about them as processes pointing towards the same end at the same time he has also said that they comprise one process of transcendence so the word Yoga can be used as a generic category describer to refer to any process of transcendence and it can also be used as a specific specific path demarker so that means category describer means a broad path to transcendence and within that we could say path demarker or method demarker within that we could have Ashtang Yoga so Krishna says that he has already told in the 6th chapter that the topmost Yogi is the one who meditates on him and becomes devoted to him so accordingly in this chapter he has stated that that the Yogi who the Yogi attains all the results of the other paths of Yajna and Tapas and top of that the Yogi attains Krishna also Yogi attains the Paramsthaan, supreme destination and supreme destination is ultimately Krishna and we know that Krishna can be attained only by Bhakti so here Krishna is talking about how the process of Yoga culminates in the attainment of the supreme destination which is life's supreme perfection thank you.