Chapter 3
The illustrious Ganesha said, ‘Formerly, at the time of creation, having produced three bodies relating to creation, maintenance and destruction, I described the supreme yoga to Visnu. He told it to Aryaman and he to Manu, his own son. From him the great sages knew it as it had come from their lineage. But after a long time, it will be destroyed in the final cosmic period, because it will not be fit for funerary rites, it will not be trusted and will be sung imperfectly, King.
You have heard from my mouth this yoga which originated in the past. It is more secret than any secret, it is the secret of the Vedas, supreme and auspicious.’
Varenya said, ‘Gajanana, being born into this world, how did you first tell this superb yoga to Visnu?’
Gajanana said, ‘Both you and I have had many past births. I remember them all. You cannot remember any of them. Great-armed king, the gods led by Visnu, were born from Me alone and after the cosmic destruction, everything is again absorbed in me alone. I alone am the Supreme Brahman and I alone am the Great Rudra. And I alone am this world and its moving and immovable things. I am unborn, imperishable, the elemental self, having no beginning, the Lord. Though my illusory energy, between the creation, maintenance and destruction of the worlds, I am born within many wombs. When there is an increase in irreligion and a decrease in religion, I am reborn to protect the good and to anilate the miscreants. Having destroyed the evil ways, I will re-establish true religious principles, and, happily engaging in divine pastimes, I will kill the malevolent and the demons.
Taking many forms I preserve the social classes, the ashrams, and the good. He who knows those divine births of mine millennium after millennium, all my actions, heroic deeds and diviner forms, and gives up the ideas of “I and Mine”, he is not reborn in this material world.
Without desire, without fear and without anger are they who take refuge in Me, who are absorbed in Me. Many who are purified by austerities in the form of discriminating knowledge have approached me. With whatever form of conviction, those excellent men worship Me, the imperishable, I award them the corresponding result of their devotion. There will be other men, King, who follow my other paths and in that manner alone they conduct their daily business with self-interest and by helping others. Desiring the fruit of their actions they please various deities. In this world they quickly obtain the result that is derived from such acts.
From portions of rajas, sattva and tamas and from the portions of the results of past actions, the four social classes were created by Me in the world of mortals. The wise know me as both doer and non-doer, without beginning, the Lord, constant, untouched by the qualities which arise from actions.
Karma certainly does not bind him who knows the absence of desire. Having first understood this, those who want liberation perform action. Understanding this, a man is freed from all bondage to ignorance that is certainly caused by connection with the psychic traces from earlier actions, from what is eaten, and by transmigration in the world. Hence I will now tell you about action and non-action, in respect of which the sages who have understanding become free from delusion.
The truth of action and non-action are realized by a person who seeks liberation. The path of those who are profound comprises three kinds of actions in the world, dear one.
Whoever has knowledge of inaction in action and the understanding of action in inaction, will be liberated in this mortal world while performing all his actions. Without the fruition of past actions what man would begin any actions. The wise declare the intelligent man as one whose actions are consumed by a vision of the truth. After giving up the desire for results of one’s present activities, he will always be satisfied, even without striving. Though ready to undertake activity, he does nothing at all. Without desire, self-controlled, given up possessiveness, doing only those duties required for his maintenance, he does not fall from his position. Having adopted the view that there are no opposites, being without greed and having the same attitude towards success and failure, very happy in the world because he has attained such a state, he engages in activity and is not bound. He who possesses intuitive and discriminating knowledge is freed from all sense-objects. All the karmic results of activity he engages in for the sake of sacrifice is destroyed.
Thinking, ‘I am fire, the oblation, the offered, the burnt offering and I am offered to You,’ he should realize Brahman, since he is devoted to Brahman alone. Some yogis speak that karmic destiny is the sacrifice. Others think that the fire of Brahman is the sacrifice. Others offer the senses into the fire of restraint, Protector of the earth. Others offer the sense objects, sound etc., into the fires of the sense organs.
Others offer the actions of their vital breaths and sense organs in the fire of the joy of their own Self kindled with knowledge or with the austerity as the substance of recitation of the sacred texts to oneself.
Ascetics sacrifice to Me with severe vows and knowledge. They cast their outgoing breath into their incoming breath and their incoming breath into their outgoing breath. And after suppressing the movements of both, they focus on restraint of the breath. Once he has conquered the breaths, he offers the movements of the breath into them. In this way, devoted to various sacrifices, their evil actions are destroyed by the sacrifice. Those who eat the nectar of the remains of the sacrifice proceed to the eternal Brahman. This world is not for the man who does not sacrifice. Whence where will there be another world for him? By knowing, Protector of the Earth, that all these sacrifices, which are of three kinds – pertaining to the body and the rest, are grounded in the Vedas, you will become free of any attachment. Of all sacrifices, the sacrifice of knowledge is considered the best. All results of actions are dissolved in knowledge that leads to liberation.
True knowledge, O tiger of men, can be known by humbly questioning and serving the self-realized soul. Those who are enlightened will speak only truth. A man who, due to many attachments, does not hear from self-realized soul, will, in consequence, act in the world of transmigration and enter material bondage. Through attachment to the good soul there arises good qualities and the disappearance of misfortunes. This sort of good fortune is gained in this world and in the next. Material fortune is easy to obtain, King, but association with the good soul is difficult to find.
Once he knows what should be known he is not reborn here or there. Then he sees all beings as his own self, that same man intent upon committing sin is freed from even that.
Different kinds of actions are instantly burnt in the fire of knowledge. Just as a fire that has been started does not instantly turn everything to ashes, other purifications, King, are not identical with knowledge.
In time yogis realize the self through yoga. The devotee who conquers the senses and concentrates the mind on the Self, he will obtain divine knowledge. After gaining That, which is Supreme, he becomes liberated after a short time. But the person who has no devotion, who has no faith and always doubts, he has no discriminating knowledge that is a refuge here or in other worlds. There are those who the results of actions have been destroyed by yoga, who are intent upon knowledge of the self, and whose doubts are destroyed through knowledge. These actions do not bind. Therefore, having forcibly cut the doubts in the heart, which have arisen by ignorance, by the sword of knowledge, a man should stay fixed in yoga.”
Om. This is the truth. This is called ‘The Attainment of Knowledge’. It is the third chapter in the conversation between Ganesha and Varenya in the Uttarakhanda of the illustrious and great Ganesha Purana in the learned treatise on the immortality of yoga, in the illustrious Ganesha Gita which is in the essence of the Upanisads. .
