The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 12.4. - Swami Krishnananda.

 

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Tuesday, 12 Sep 2023 08:45. 

Chapter 12: God and the Universe - 4. 

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The “I-Am-What-I-Am” is God in Himself, and not God as He appears to us. He cannot appear to anybody because He is not an object of anybody's cognition or perception. The Bhagavadgita is emphatic that God is all-in-all and He is not limited in any manner whatsoever by anything outside Him, because nothing can ever be outside God. The movement of the soul towards God, therefore, becomes an inexplicable process under the circumstances of this peculiar definition of God. The idea of movement gets ruled out in the context of the Omnipresence of the Supreme Being, and yet it has to be explained. It does not appear that the movement of the aspiration is in a horizontal manner through space or even in time. It is not a covering of distance as on a road; it is, rather, an ascent from the lower degrees of concept and being to the higher ones. When we travel from dream to waking, we are not moving on a road by sitting in a vehicle, yet we travel; it is true. The travel is a psychological movement, more properly explicable as an ascent or rising from the lower to the higher than a travel or movement in a particular direction in space.

Describing the possible character of the movement of the soul towards God, we are told that there are four types of aspiring souls, all these aspirations being regarded as worthwhile and very valuable in their own way. Our love for God is variegated in its motivation. And the more perfect is the love or aspiration, the greater is the chance of one's realisation of God, experience of the Absolute. The more we try to consider God as an outside object, even in a philosophical sense, the more is the difficulty that we will encounter on the path, because God resents any kind of a relinquishment of Him to the limbo of an objectivity of perception. If God tolerates not anything at all, it is our attitude towards Him as if He is an object outside. And if God is the Soul of the Cosmos, the Atman of all this consciousness behind every experience, it should be impossible, even with the farthest stretch of our imagination, to conceive Him as an object and to regard Him as being away from us even by the distance of an inch. If God is not an object, what should be our attitude towards God? All attitudes are objective and are movements of the psyche. And if God is expected to be a Cosmic Soul, the Self of all beings, it is impossible to speak of any 'attitude' or an ulteriorly motivated aspiration towards Him. Yet, people belong to various categories and degrees of evolution and experience.

There are people, mostly, who turn to God in times of distress, when they are in agony or sorrow, and when there seems to be no help coming from anyone, from anywhere in the world, they cry out, “God, help me.” The asking for God's Presence is because of the pain through which they are passing, and the lacuna that they feel in their selves (arta). The anguish that is tearing our hearts and the inadequacy that we feel everywhere, within as well as without, summons God for help. This is one sort of love for God: a devotion, a religion, of course. Everything is religious if it is charged by the touch of God-consciousness in some way. But what is the quality, the intensity, of this aspiration, is a matter to think. Bhagavan Sri Krishna, as a Teacher of Yoga, tells us that these are types of devotees, great indeed in their own way, because they turn to God, whatever be their motive.

There are others who seek knowledge, wisdom, enlightenment, and not any material favour. Not redress from sorrow or grief, not long life, not anything that human beings will regard as ordinarily acceptable or valuable is their aim. They require illumination, understanding, and blessing which will take them to an entry into Truth (jijnasu).

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To be continued

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