The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita : 8.1 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, 13 Jul 2023. 06:10.

Chapter 8: Creation and Life After Death-1.

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Chapter 8: Creation and Life After Death-1.

The Bhagavadgita is a moksha-shastra, a scripture on the science of the liberation of the spirit. Thus it follows the course of the return process along the same lines as the evolutionary process of the descent of the soul from the Supreme Being. The first six chapters may be said to be engaged in an exposition of self-discipline from the individual point of view, the integration of the human personality and the preparation of the whole man for the greater task which is yet to come – namely, the at-one-ment of the individual with the set-up of the universe. Some of the interpreters and commentators on the Bhagavadgita hold that the first six chapters have a relevance to the significance of the term 'twam' in the famous Upanishadic passage – tat twam asi. The next six chapters pertain to the characteristic of 'tat', or That, and the last six chapters are confined to the exposition of the process of the union of the two, signified by the term 'asi', That Thou Art. Thou That Are, to put it another way – twam tat asi. So this twam is in the first six chapters, tat in the next six, and asi in the last six. This is one of the opinions held by certain interpreters like Madhusudana Saraswati and commentators of that category. However, there seems to be some point in this opinion that the first six chapters are concerned with the discipline of the person, which culminates in the art of concentration, meditation – dhyana-yoga, which is the theme of the sixth chapter.

Now, if we can remember again the scheme of the entire process of the descent of the evolutes in the cosmological process from the higher realities, we would realise that this individuality, this personality, this so-called 'I-consciousness' of ours is a phenomenal appearance. The individual essence itself may not be phenomenal, but what we call the principle of individuality – characteristics which go to constitute the isolated individuality of ours – these externalising features are phenomenal in their nature because it is not true that the individual is totally cut off from the universe. This will be clear and obvious to us if we know how we came from the higher regions. So, the study of cosmology is the background and the rock-bottom, as it were, of any kind of study in philosophy, and certain modern thinkers have held that metaphysics is a critique of cosmologies. This is something very interesting, and without knowledge of the cosmological process it will be difficult for us to know where we are standing today. From the position we are occupying at this moment, we have to ascend further, gradually, through the stages by which we have come from the highest status – the Supreme Being. The Bhagavadgita, from the seventh chapter onwards, right up to the eleventh or the twelfth, occupies itself with this grand subject: the theme of the constitution of the whole universe and its relationship to the creator, Ishvara, Paramatman, Purushottama – the Supreme Being as the director of the whole of creation.

Yesterday, we concluded our studies with a little mention of the five elements, which are the grossest manifestations of the cosmical substance, by a permutation and combination of whose inner constitutions the individuals are formed – organic or inorganic. Now, the very commencement of the seventh chapter touches upon this principle of the five elements, which are the visible forms of the inner constitution of the universe as it is visible to our eyes. 

(Gita 7.4): 

Bhumir-apo ’nalo vayuh kham mano buddhir eva cha

ahankara itiyam me bhinna prakritir ashtadha."

The outer cloak as it were, of the Creator, is this physical universe, eminently organised by the presence of the Supreme Being.

Here we have a very important task to perform, because now we are entering into certain processes of practice which are more difficult than the ones we passed through earlier during the course of the first six chapters. The discipline of the first six chapters is difficult enough. It is not easy for a person to pass through this course of the first six chapters of discipline, culminating in the art of meditation as described in the sixth chapter. Now, the greater difficulty is before us – our relationship to the universe as a whole, our association with this cosmos and the relevance that obtains between us and God Himself. This is a frightening theme for unprepared minds and persons uneducated in the art of thinking profoundly in this manner, because the world persists in being recognised as an external object due to the force by which the senses work, and most of the theories of knowledge – these processes of the science of epistemology, as they are called – stand on the hypothesis that the world is outside and the whole perceptional process becomes meaningful only if the object is somehow outside the knowing subject. A sort of outsideness of the object is necessary for seeing any meaning at all in the process of perception or visualisation of the object of the senses. The knowledge of the world is the knowledge of the object of the senses. So in all perception which would be considered as purely empirical in its character, the world is taken for granted as something totally outside us, and to establish any kind of meaningful relationship with that which is entirely outside us would appear to be a futile endeavour, because that which is totally outside us bears no connection with us. We cannot even know that the world exists if it is wholly outside.

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To be continued

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