Commentary on the Bhagavadgita : 25 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, March 16, 2022. 20:00.

Discourse 42 : Chapter-15 Begins: The world as an Inverted Tree.

POST-25.

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Mamaivāṁśo jīvaloke jīvabhūtaḥ sanātanaḥ (15.7): 

“This jiva, this ‘me' or ‘you' etc., these individuals, these eighty-four lakhs (8,400,000) of species of manifestation throughout the fourteen realms of creation—all these are My aspects, My parts, as it were, a little fraction.” Viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat (10.42); pādo'sya viśvā bhūtāni tripādasyā'mṛtaṁ div (P.S. 2): “In this world of manifestations of individuals, I support these individuals by a little fraction of Myself. They are only part of Me. I support this world of creation by pervading the whole of creation as the vitality thereof, and I do not exhaust Myself entirely.”

There is a kind of theory called pantheism, which says that God is totally exhausted in this world—as milk is exhausted when it becomes curd and it cannot become milk once again. The point here is quite different. God does not convert Himself into the world by a modification of Himself as milk modifies itself into curd, and God is not exhausted entirely in this world as milk is exhausted in curd. There is no exhaustion at all. The transcendent Being remains unaffected, even as our waking mind is not at all affected by what we saw in the dream world. Again, the same analogy is very apt here.

“This jivaloka, this world of individuals, is sustained by Me, by a little fraction of Myself as the vitality of creation. What happens to these individuals that are so created with a part of Me? They are pulled by the sense organs, which are five in number.” 

Śrotraṁ cakṣuḥ sparśanaṁ ca rasanaṁ ghrāṇam eva ca (15.9): 

These are the sense organs, including the mind, which is also considered as an organ of perception. The mind is the internal sense, and the other five—hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell—are external senses; so the five plus the mind totals six. Manaḥṣaṣṭhānī: The six senses, including the mind, are rooted in the powers of nature, which are the three gunas, due to which they are helplessly dragged hither and thither on account of the mutation of the gunas of prakriti—prakṛtisthāni karṣati.

Śarīraṁ yad avāpnoti yac cāpyutkrāmatīśvaraḥ, gṛhitvaitāni saṁyāti vāyur gandhān ivāśayāt (15.8): 

If there is a fragrance somewhere, when the wind blows the fragrance also is wafted up and the fragrance is carried by the wind in whatever direction it blows. In a similar manner, when an individual—a jiva, or a soul—leaves this particular body and endeavours to enter another body, the mind and the senses are taken together with it: gṛhitvaitāni saṁyāti. The body is left here, but our main treasure trove—the mind with which we think, and the sense organs, which are the causes of our attachment—they, in a subtle potential form, get attached to the subtle body which is actually reincarnating. The jiva does not die while the body is apparently dead.

Śrotraṁ cakṣuḥ sparśanaṁ ca rasanaṁ ghrāṇam eva ca (15.9): 

Basing themselves on the mind which cognises, these five senses of hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling enjoy the objects outside—viṣayān upasevate.

End.

Next - Discourse 43: The Fifteenth Chapter Concludes – The Greatest Secret Revealed

Śrotraṁ cakṣuḥ sparśanaṁ ca rasanaṁ ghrāṇam eva ca, adhiṣṭhāya manaś cāyaṁ viṣayān upasevate (15.9): 

To be continued ....

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