Posted on: 27 Jul 2023
[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- While answering my question just now, You told that Christianity shall not stop at the second stage of repentance and confession. But, when You quoted Gita, it says that the sins will end at the stage of knowing the knowledge, which is the first stage of reformation i.e., realization of sins, which means that we can stop at the first stage itself. Please explain.]
Swami replied:- You have misunderstood that knowledge means the first stage of reformation, which is realization of sins done by the soul. Several times, I told that knowledge means the information of the total topic related to the subject, path and the object or goal. This is called as Triputi or Triad. The subject is the sinner. The final goal is to burn all past sins. The path in between these two is reformation involving three steps, which are realization of the sin through impartial logical analysis (knowledge), repentance through confession (devotion) and finally, non-repetition of sin (practice). In this topic, the word ‘knowledge’ is used in two contexts:- i) Context of realization through impartial logical analysis and this logical analysis is called knowledge. ii) Context of explaining the triad (path) in which while explaining the path, the three steps, realization, repentance or confession and non-repetition of sin are fully explained, and the total explanation of the triad is also called knowledge. The word knowledge mentioned in the Gita refers to the second type of knowledge i.e., explaining the triad. Once the digestion of these three steps is over, such knowledge-fire spontaneously introduces repentance and the non-repetition of sin. By this, the path ends and the goal is reached. The word knowledge quoted in the Gita is misunderstood by you as the first step of realization through logical analysis and hence, you got this doubt.
To clarify finally,
i) Total knowledge:- This is the explanation of the Triad called the subject, path and the goal to be achieved.
ii) Partial knowledge:- This is the explanation of the first step (realization of sin) in the path mentioned above through logical analysis.
The knowledge-fire (Jnaanaagni) mentioned in the Gita is about the total knowledge and not about the partial knowledge. In the total knowledge, the Triad is fully explained. In such an explanation, the middle path is well explained fully. The middle path contains three steps fully, which are realization (realizing the deed done by you as sin through logical analysis, which is partial knowledge), repentance and final non-repetition of the sin. In total knowledge, the explanation of the path includes all the three steps and not just the first step (realization) only.