requires one to take action, which means doing karma, which has results or phala. Most of the phala/result is given to us in this lifetime, but some (10% to 15%) could be rolled over into another lifetime. This keeps adding up and my bondage of karma keeps on increasing. As a result of this increasing bondage, I am caught up in samsara for good.
Krishna also cautions us not to look for a similar tree here, because it’s not a real, physical tree with a form, it’s only an image. The question to ask here is, ‘How do I get out of this samsara?’ To that Krishna replies, ‘Using the sword of asangatvam’, meaning ‘a sense of objectivity or emotional independence’, ‘cut across the tree of samsara.’ Then inquire into the source of the tree and understand that Brahman. Once you understand Brahman, you are free. This Vedic wisdom says that you were never bound but you have believed yourself to be bound due to self-ignorance, and freedom is only pending understanding. What is bondage or karma? A mere sense of finitude which comes out of self-ignorance. Therefore, once you inquire into the nature of the self

and understand it, then you are free from your sense of finitude.
Krishna asserts that once this is understood, there is no return to samsara, because knowledge gained is gained for good. One ought to keep the pursuit going until things become clear, and when one knows, one discovers one was really never bound. That is lasting freedom.
In the fifth verse, Krishna refers to the type of people who will gain moksha, a complete understanding of the truth. He says, ‘Nirmana moha jita sanga dosha’, meaning ‘he who doesn’t have false pride or any delusory self-justification, he who has won over sanga dosha i.e. whatever is internalised due to the negative experiences and the people around you, who is regular in the inquiry into oneself and has outgrown his desires because he has lived a life of karma yoga... This person is free from pleasure and pain, and will gain the padam called moksha.’ Krishna says that Reality cannot be objectified, it is the very subject of the knower himself, and when one knows oneself, one discovers that one is always free.

(This series on the Bhagavad Gita for the layperson is extracted from Swamiji’s blog.)

Bhavan's Journal,May 15, 2022∎ 63