A Study of the Bhagavadgita :15.2. - Swami Krishnananda.

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Thursday, September 29, 2022. 07:00. 
Chapter 15: Krishna and Arjuna Together is Victory-2.

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If the interrelation of things in the cosmos frees a person from attachment to particular objects only, that person is broadminded – we could say educated, cultured, and a gentleman. That is a higher kind of knowledge, a medium kind of knowledge – interconnectedness. But there is a knowledge higher than that, also.

The idea of the interrelation of things is again dependent upon the notion of the duality and plurality of things. The items of the world are considered as bits of process which act and react upon one another, and therefore it is that sometimes we feel there is an organic relation among things in the world. Everything is different from everything else; this is the lowest kind of knowledge. That everything is connected to everything else is the medium kind of knowledge. The highest knowledge is something quite different from both of these.

What is that highest knowledge? A question will arise in your mind, "How does one know that one thing is different from another thing?" Who told you that everything is different from everything else? And who is telling you that things are interconnected, that one thing is hanging on something else? A particular thing which is hanging on something else cannot know that it is so hanging. The differentiated objects cannot know the difference at all. The isolation of things as well as the interconnection of things is a knowledge that has to be attributed to something which is neither isolated nor interconnected. There is something that is superior to both these notions, a transcendent presence which is consciousness.

Sarvabhūteṣu yenaikaṁ bhāvam avyayam īkṣate, avibhaktaṁ vibhakteṣu taj j–ānaṁ viddhi sāttvikam (Gita 18.20). 

knowledge, the highest kind of knowledge, is described in this verse of the Gita as that which beholds one thing everywhere. Even if there is an apparent interconnection, as it were, from the point of view of the notion of the reason and the mind, truly speaking such interconnection cannot become an object of anyone's awareness unless one stands above this concept of interconnection. So there is an absolute indivisibility of consciousness. The Supreme Almighty is there, before which nothing can stand, outside which nothing exists, and within which there is no difference. It is not different from anything else as one thing is different from other things in the world, because outside this Absolute there is nothing. Therefore, there cannot be external differentiation in the Absolute. There also cannot be internal variety in it, because it is indivisible; it is not internally divided.

Our body is not an indivisible whole. We feel that it is indivisible; we do not go on thinking that the body is made up of different physiological or anatomical parts. Because of the pervasion of consciousness through every limb and organ of the body, we do not feel the differentiation among the organs or limbs. An anatomist or a physiologist will not observe our body in the way we feel about it, but as a scientist would see it.

Differences are of three kinds, none of which can apply to the Absolute as indivisibility. There can be a difference among dissimilar things, there can be difference among similar things, and there can be difference within one's own self. These are the three kinds of difference that we can observe in the world. A tree is different from a stone. This is difference between dissimilar things, external variety. But one branch of a tree is different from another branch of a tree. This is difference among similar things, internal variety. And the variety that is felt in one's own self is a third category – svagata bheda, as it is called. In Sanskrit these differences are called sajatiya, vijatiya and svagata. But none of these is applicable to the Absolute Being. There is nothing similar to the Absolute, there is nothing dissimilar to it, and there is no internal variety. Such a knowledge of this great, Indivisible Being should be regarded as the highest kind of knowledge, for which we have to aspire.

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To be continued ...

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