Chapter 4 Gnana Yoga Verse 24
Sloka
Yajjnaatwaa na punarmoham evam yaasyasi paandava;
Yena bhootaanyasheshena drakshyasyaatmanyatho mayi.
Translation
Knowing that, thou shalt not, O Arjuna, again become deluded like this;
and by that you shall see all beings in your Self and also in Me!
Interpretation
In this sloka Lord Krishna starts talking about the equivalence that a man can achieve with God. This equivalence is also called Moksha where the person attains the highest levels of spirituality. He tell Arjuna that if he learns how to dissolve himself in the knowledge by knowing the methodology of prostration, question or service will not become a confused person like how Arjuna is right now. And if Arjuna knows and masters how to dissolve himself in knowledge then such kind of person will see the whole mankind in him and that will take him closer to the Almighty and that state is called the state of moksha.
Extending Interpretation to Mankind’s Life!
The point we should look at in this sloka is how a person can see all the beings in himself and also see the same in God. Does that mean he is equal to God? The simple answer is he can never become equal to God. Seeing all beings in himself is nothing but the level of acceptance that a person can have. Acceptance means he should like and should be able to relate to everything that he sees around himself. Acceptance of everything comes only when one kills the ego in himself completely. Ego stops us from seeing things as they are and builds perceptions about things and people around us.
Let’s take an example of a financial analyst who is analysing the movement of stock market. He always tends to see the movement from his own viewpoint and tends to build perceptions around them accordingly. Any information that comes, that is against his beliefs he flatly rejects them. If he gets success a few times then such kind of behaviour becomes a regular habit and he starts restricting his outlook to a select few things and vastly neglects things that are outside his acceptance range. He forgets the fact that reality exists in every corner and knowledge keeps expanding all the time. That makes him irrelevant after few years and then he slowly goes out of touch.
How should one avoid such a situation? It can be done when you start viewing every information and take note of every failure, keeping aside ego. If that financial analyst, instead of ignoring the instances where he failed to predict the market takes serious note of the failures and works on them, then the ego in him disappears. The moment the ego in him disappears he will be able to acquire knowledge. That knowledge helps him to see every viewpoint. Once he starts seeing every viewpoint then slowly he will be able to identify with every individual and their thought process. This is the beginning of the journey towards moksha for an individual.
