Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 3 - Swami Krishnananda

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Tuesday, November 16, 2021. 8:00.PM

Commentary on the Bhagavadgita :
Discourse 40
The Thirteenth Chapter Concludes – Understanding Purusha and Prakriti
POST-3.

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The only way we can escape unnecessary entanglement in the jumble of words explaining this verse is by understanding prakriti and purusha to be two properties, as it were, of the Supreme Being. On the one hand, the spatial extension of the Supreme Being is prakriti; on the other hand, it is omniscience acting, which is purusha. There seems to be a sound explanation because the Vedanta doctrine also holds that the process of creation begins with Ishvara and becomes more and more perspicacious from Hiranyagarbha and Virat onwards. That is, the infinite Brahman limits itself in a particular manner, not by force of the operation of something external, but by its own deliberate will. It wills, and that will is called Ishvara. This will is a delimitation imposed by itself on itself. That is, it contemplates the particular type of universe that is to be manifested.

Infinity does not contemplate infinity. It contemplates a limited manifestation, because the characteristic of limitation in creation arises on account of the fact that the universe to be created has some relevance to the jivas who are going to inhabit that universe—the jivas who lay in a sleeping condition in the previous cycle at the time of dissolution—and the universe is created merely as a field for experience by these endless number of jivas who were withdrawn into prakriti at the time of dissolution of the previous cycle. When they germinate into action at the commencement of the new creation, they have to be provided with an atmosphere commensurate with their potencies. That is to say, an individual who can have the experience of the manifestation of his or her or its potencies on earth, or in the world, cannot be taken to heaven because there the experience will not be possible; or those who are to experience their potencies in a realm like heaven should not be brought to the earth, inasmuch as the nature of the world is exactly in a state of harmony with the inhabitants thereof, and not with the inhabitants of other realms. In this light, creation does not seem to be an unnecessary action of God. It is a very necessary manifestation of a big field of experience where it is possible for the jivas inhabiting that universe to fructify their karmas and enjoy or suffer as the consequences their deeds.

Hence, this delimitation of Brahman in the form of Ishvara as a Central Will is a Universal delimitation. It is not a limitation exercised by a prakriti outside, unless of course we call this will itself as prakriti. The consciousness that is of Ishvara may be regarded as the Supreme Purusha of the Sankhya, and the objective principle which is the will contemplating a possible universe may be considered as prakriti—in which case, prakriti and purusha are not two different wings, but are something like the soul and the body. We cannot distinguish between the soul and the body. The soul contemplates the body and manifests itself in accordance with its own potential desire, and we cannot say that the body is compelling the soul to act in a particular manner. The question of compulsion does not arise, because the body is manifest exactly according to the needs of the soul as manifest in the sukshma sarira.

To be continued ....

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