Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 12- Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday, January 01, 2021. 6:00.PM

Commentary on the Bhagavadgita :

Discourse 41

The Fourteenth Chapter: Rising Above the Three Gunas

POST-12.

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Lord Krishna is never tired of speaking. He goes on even without being questioned by Arjuna. “Now, listen again! I shall tell you something more.” They must have had a good breakfast that morning that they could afford to go on speaking like this when there was a terrible situation in front of them! Anyway, Sri Bhagavan now speaks: “I shall now tell you something which is a great secret.” 

He has already told two or three secrets, and now he is telling a fourth secret.

Param bhuyah pravaksyami jnananam jnanam uttamam, yaj jnatva  munayah sarve param siddhim ito gatah (14.1) : “I shall tell you that secret of wisdom, by knowing which, ancient sages andsaints have attained perfection.”

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What is this great knowledge?

Idam jnanam upasritya mama sadharmyam agatah   (14.2) : “People have become almost Me; they have attained My form; they have attained My permanent Eternal Abode; they have practically become Me. How? Because of the knowledge which I am going to describe to you now, they shall not be born at the time of creation: sargepi nopajāyante. People who know this secret will not be born in the beginning of creation, and they will ot be dissolved into prakriti at the time of cosmic dissolution: sargepi nopajayante pralaye na vyathanti ca.”

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When the cosmic pralaya, or dissolution, takes place, all of us are helplessly driven into the bosom of prakriti’s three gunas. In the process of creation and activity as we see before our eyes, the three gunas are in a state of disturbance. the qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas—the properties of prakriti—are not in equal proportion, and are not equally distributed. Because of the preponderance of one at the cost of another, we see varieties of things and manifold objects in front of us. At the time of dissolution, the three gunas lie in a state of equilibrium. There is no activity at that time, and even sattva does not operate. It is complete darkness, as it were. There is neither the solar system, nor is there anything else.

All the galaxies get dissolved into it. The jivas who have not been liberated at the time of dissolution are thrown into this vast cosmic sea of prakriti, and they remain sleeping—like seeds hich have not yet found the opportunity to germinate. They sleep there for as many years as Brahma sleeps when his dayof a hundred years is over. When a hundred years of Brahma’s night are over, Brahma’s day dawns. Then gradually, one by one, all those sleeping jivas manifest themselves, as sleeping seeds inside the earth begin to germinate and become tendrils and plants when there is rainfall. But one who knows this truth, this secret wisdom, is not dissolved, and is not reborn when creation again begins.

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Once again, Lord Krishna emphasises this fact. “I am the source of all things. The entire universe is originating from Me. I am the abode, the source, the very womb of all things.” It is Mahat-brahma. It is called Brahma because it is all pervading—universal in its nature. It is equal to what is called Hiranyagarbha, wherein all the seeds of creation are potentially lying. In Sankhya parlance, Mahat is a condition where the potency for future creation lies in a latent form as very subtle possibilities, not actualised. “The entire Mahat-brahma—that great Universal Brahma, through which I generate the entirevariety of creation—is my womb, as it were, wherein I place  the seed of manifestation in all its variety through this potential Mahat-tattava, Hiranyagarbha-tattava.” Sambhavah sarvabhutanam tato bhavati bharata (14.3): All beings originate from this seed of all creation. 

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To be continued ,,,,

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