The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity : 15.3- Swami Krishnananda.

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Swami Swaroopananda

November 22 at 9:06 PM  · 

Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram is located in the idyllic valley of Sidhbari, where this great institution was founded by Pujya Gurudev, to impart in-depth learning of the Gita and the Vedantic scriptures. Seekers can find themselves within the heart of nature, surrounded by majestic Himalayan peaks, imbibing knowledge at the various camps and discourses conducted at the Sandeepan HIM.

The entire campus has a positive, vibrating energy drawn from Gurudev’s samadhi alongside the Shri Rama and Shri Hanumana temples.

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Thursday, November 25, 2021. 7:00. PM.

The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity :15-3

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita 

Chapter -15. Seeing the Eternity in the Temporal-3

(Spoken on Bhagavadgita Jayanti).

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Swami Swaroopananda

November 22 at 9:06 PM  · 

Chinmaya Tapovan Ashram is located in the idyllic valley of Sidhbari, where this great institution was founded by Pujya Gurudev, to impart in-depth learning of the Gita and the Vedantic scriptures. Seekers can find themselves within the heart of nature, surrounded by majestic Himalayan peaks, imbibing knowledge at the various camps and discourses conducted at the Sandeepan HIM.

The entire campus has a positive, vibrating energy drawn from Gurudev’s samadhi alongside the Shri Rama and Shri Hanumana temples.

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Our evaluation of things is our conditioning in life. We have a peculiar notion about this world, and we can act in respect of the objects of the world only in the light of the opinion that we form about them. Our relationship in respect of the objects of the world and our opinion, our understanding of the world, are something like the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. We put on an attitude in respect of the world outside which is determined by our understanding of the world, conditioned by our opinions about things; but who tells us that our opinions are correct opinions? Who tells us that we have properly understood the world? Then how could we actually read meaning into the objects of the world in the light of merely our fragmentary sensory perceptions and mental cognitions?

This kind of individual reaction in respect of truly existent objects is called jiva-shrishti, the manufacture of the individual. We have a world of our own which may be considered as the psychological world. The pure physical world is regarded as the creation of God, but we are not experiencing the pure physical world of God. We are receiving impressions of the presence of this pure physical world of God as cast in the mould of our sense organs and mind, so we have a representation of the world, not a presentation of it. This is to land ourselves practically in the great controversy of presentationism and representationism in philosophical controversies. Do we see the world, or do we see only a representation of the world as determined by cognitive faculties? We need not enter into this controversy. However, it appears that there is some truth in the judgment that much is contributed by our mind and sense organs to the manner of our receiving the nature of the world outside. Philosophers both in the West and the East have come to some sort of a unanimous conclusion that we do not see the world as it is in itself. Though there must be a physical world outside in order that it may look like an external something and it may become a content of our consciousness of perception, yet we too contribute something because the whole world has to be thrust into the mould of our perceptive capacities. In that sense, we do not see the world as it is but as it is presented to us through our cognitive faculties. Thus it is that our experience of the world is personal to some extent, and not purely objective. We do not understand the world. We try to understand it as we would like to understand it from the point of view of the structural pattern of our own psychophysical individuality.

So the manner of God operating in the world cannot become a content of the human mind because God is transcendental operation, non-spatial and non-temporal action. God's activities are not a succession of performances. It is not something being done now and something else being done afterwards: I do something today, and another thing tomorrow. There is no today and no tomorrow for God; therefore, there is no succession or one thing coming after another. It is instantaneous operation that is called God's action because God is another name for eternity, and not a time process. Hence, God's operation in the world is eternity operating in time, man as something different from his body operating in this body. I am a whole in myself in spite of the discreteness of the limbs of my body. The many organisms that come together to form my physiological structure do not prevent me from feeling that I am one whole. What makes me feel that I am one whole is to be known by each one for himself or herself. The world is not made up of diverse particulars, in the same way as a human being – yourself, myself – are not discrete, isolated parts, but one single total.

Hence, God acts in this world as a total, as an instantaneous eternity stamping its force on apparent diversities of forms and names. He who knows this secret will not be born again. But we cannot know this secret, inasmuch as temporal sense organs cannot recognise non-temporal operations in the world. The timeless secret that is also there in the midst of time processes cannot be visualised by the sense organs and the mind, which can work only in time and space. We human beings are in time and space. Thus, we are conditioned by the necessity to see things piecemeal, bit by bit, part by part. Not only that, we are compelled to cognise everything as a physical object. But are you a physical object, yourself seated here? You will not say that you are a physical object. You are a living being. If you are a living being, why should anything else be a physical object? To my senses, to my tangibility and visibility, you are a physical object, but you will say, “I am not a physical object. I am a living being.” In a similar manner is the mistake we commit in the evaluation of things in the world. There is a living meaning in all things. Everything has an intelligent eye; every atom is a seeing ray of the consciousness that is transcendentally ideal.

There is a wealth of meaning, therefore, in this little misunderstood or bypassed sentence of the Bhagavadgita. 

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Gita-Ch-4 Slo-9.

"janma karma cha me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah

tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti so ’rjuna."

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Translation :

janma—birth; 

karma—activities; 

cha—and; 

me—of mine; 

divyam—divine; 

evam—thus; 

yaḥ—who; 

vetti—know; 

tattvataḥ—in truth; 

tyaktvā—having abandoned; 

deham—the body; 

punaḥ—again; 

janma—birth; 

na—never; 

eti—takes; 

mām—to me;

 eti—comes; s

aḥ—he; 

arjuna—Arjuna.

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BG 4.9: Slokam Translation :

Those who understand the divine nature of my birth and activities, O Arjun, upon leaving the body, do not have to take birth again, but come to my eternal abode.

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Commentary :

Understand this verse in the light of the previous one. Our mind gets cleansed by engaging it in devotional remembrance of God. This devotion can either be toward the formless aspect of God or toward his personal form. Devotion toward the formless is intangible and nebulous to most people. They find nothing to focus upon or feel connected with during such devotional meditation. Devotion to the personal form of God is tangible and simple. Such devotion requires divine sentiments toward the personality of God. For people to engage in devotion to Shree Krishna, they must develop divine feelings toward his names, form, virtues, pastimes, abode, and associates. For example, people purify their minds by worshipping stone deities because they harbor the divine sentiments that God resides in these deities. It is these sentiments that purify the devotee’s mind. The progenitor Manu says:

na kāṣhṭhe vidyate devo na śhilāyāṁ na mṛitsu cha

bhāve hi vidyate devastasmātbhāvaṁ samācharet [v8]

“God resides neither in wood nor in stone, but in a devotional heart. Hence, worship the deity with loving sentiments.”

Similarly, if we wish to engage in devotion toward Lord Krishna, we must learn to harbor divine sentiments toward his leelas. Those commentators who give a figurative interpretation to the Mahabharat and the Bhagavad Gita, do grave injustice by destroying the basis of people’s faith in devotion toward Shree Krishna. In this verse, Shree Krishna has emphasized the need for divine sentiments toward his pastimes, for enhancing our devotion.

To develop such divine feelings, we must understand the difference between God’s actions and ours. We materially bound souls have not yet attained divine bliss, and hence the longing of our soul is not yet satiated. Thus, our actions are motivated by self-interest and the desire for personal fulfillment. However, God’s actions have no personal motive because he is perfectly satiated by the infinite bliss of his own personality. He does not need to achieve further personal bliss by performing actions. Therefore, whatever he does is for the welfare of the materially conditioned souls. Such divine actions that God performs are termed as “leelas” while the actions we perform are called “work.”

Similarly, God’s birth is also divine, and unlike ours, it does not take place from a mother’s womb. The all-Blissful God has no requirement to hang upside down in a mother’s womb. The Bhāgavatam states:

tam adbhutaṁ bālakam ambujekṣhaṇaṁ

chatur-bhujaṁ śhaṅkha gadādyudāyudham (10.3.9) [v9]

“When Shree Krishna manifested upon birth before Vasudev and Devaki, he was in his four-armed Vishnu form.” This full-sized form could definitely not have resided in Devaki’s womb. However, to create in her the feeling that he was there, by his Yogmaya power, he simply kept expanding Devaki’s womb. Finally, he manifested from the outside, revealing that he had never been inside her:

āvirāsīd yathā prāchyāṁ diśhīndur iva puṣhkalaḥ (Bhāgavatam 10.3.8) [v10]

“As the moon manifests in its full glory in the night sky, similarly the Supreme Lord Shree Krishna manifested before Devaki and Vasudev.” This is the divine nature of God’s birth. If we can develop faith in the divinity of his pastimes and birth, then we will be able to easily engage in devotion to his personal form, and attain the supreme destination.

Gita-Ch-4 Slo-9.

"janma karma cha me divyam evam yo vetti tattvatah tyaktva deham punar janma naiti mam eti so ’rjuna." : 

“After having cast off this mortal coil, he who has an insight into this mystery of My operation in this world as a perennial coming will not be reborn.” Why should the eternity be reborn? It is the temporal that gets reborn, and to have an insight into the eternity of operation in the temporal processes of the world, we should also have an element of eternity within us. We have to be spiritual. Only the spiritual eye can gain insight into the spiritual operations in this world. But our eyes are physical, and our mind is conditioned by physical action of the senses. Space and time, and even cause and relation, are physical operations as we understand them, and any understanding we have in terms of space, time and causation will also be physical. Therefore, we are barred entry into the spiritual secret of the cosmos. The perpetual dance of God's powers is so crucial in every one of our lives.

Chapter -15. Seeing the Eternity in the Temporal - ENDS.

NEXT : Chapter-16. Understanding the Essence of the Mind

To be continued ......

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