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GITA-RAHASYA OR KARMA-YOGA
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Upanisads had come into existence. But, although the paths of Yoga and of Devotion acquired importance later on, the importance of the previous Knowledge of the Brahman was not thereby diminished; and it was not possible that it should be so diminished; and therefore, even in those Upanisads, which support Yoga or Devotion, we find statements statements that the Knowledge of the Brahman is the ultimate ideal of Devotion and of Yoga; and that Rudra, Visnu, Acyuta, Narayana, or Vasudeva and other objects of worship, are only forms of the Paramatman or of the Parabrahman (See Maitryu. 7. 7; Rāmapū, 16: Amrtabindu. 22 etc.). In short, the various sub-divisions of religion, which have from time to time been promulgated by various Self-Realised (atma-jänen) sages into the Vedic religion, at different times, have arisen from the aspects of religion which were then already in vogue; and it has been the principal tendency of the growth of the Vedic religion, from the very beginning, to harmonise new aspects of religion with the older aspects; and the writers of the Smrtis have later on expounded the arrangement of the various stages of life, by adhering to this tendency of harmonising various aspects of religion. When one considers this ancient Indian tendency of harmonising various aspects of religion, it is not proper to say that the Gităreligion was the only exception to this previous and subsequent tendency.
I have mentioned above the general history of the growth of the principal aspects of the Vedic religion, namely, the ritualistic Karma mentioned in the Brahmanas, the Spiritual Knowledge in the Upanisads, the Kapila-Samkhya philosophy, Yoga in the shape of Concentration of of the Mind, and Devotion. Let us now consider the origin of the consideration of all these various aspects of religion which has been made in the Gita-that is, whether it has been taken into the Gita directly from various distinct Upanisads, or there is any intermediate stage. Where the Knowledge of the Brahman alone is being considered in the Gita, stanzas from the Katha and other Upanisads have been adopted word for word into the Gits; and where the Jñana-Karma (Knowledge-Action) combination path is being dealt with, illustrations have been taken from the Upanisads of persons like Janaka etc. From
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