The Philosophy of the Bhagavadgita : 12.2. - Swami Krishnananda.

===============================================================

Friday, 01 Sep 2023 07:00. 

Chapter 12: God and the Universe - 2. 

================================================================

With this cautious introduction the Teacher of the Bhagavadgita takes us to a picture of the cosmos, which is concisely explained in a few words. The whole universe is constituted of the five elements and certain phases of the universal consciousness, the elements being grosser than the latter—earth, water, fire, air and ether—the mind, intellect, ego. Here the teaching resembles, to a large extent, the cosmological explanation offered by the Samkhya system. We have touched upon this theme earlier on some occasion.

The lowest category of reality that we observe is the earth plane, physical matter, solid substance, gross objects, all which can be grouped under the category of the mahabhutas, or the five elements. Anything that is perceptible to the senses is regarded as material. The five elements, so-called, are not five different substances as we might have heard it said earlier. These elements are rather five degrees of the density of the cosmic substance. It does not mean that there is a total distinction of one from the other. According to the cosmology of the Samkhya, and also Vedanta, the effect can be resolved into the cause, so that, ultimately, it can be safely said that space is the container or the bosom of all things. These physical elements—earth, water, fire, air and ether—therefore, form the sum and substance of the physical universe.

But there are subtler realities which are not accessible to the senses of the individual. The higher we go, the more imperceptible does the object become because of the rarefaction of its constituents. The Samkhya tells us that beyond the five elements, subtler than the five elements, are what are called the tanmatras, the subtle essences of the five elements. They are something like the electrical constitution of gross objects, though this analogy is not complete; only we cannot explain it in a better manner. The substantiality of the gross objects loses its accepted significance when we view it as an eddy of electrical force, or energy, which is co-extensive with the other parts of the universe, which are also constituted of similar waves of force. Thus, there being only a continuum of energy, we are bordering upon what the Samkhya calls prakriti. All these details are not in the slogas of the Bhagavadgita, but the reference made is certainly to these principles.

Above the five gross elements, beyond the tanmatras or the subtle essences, behind all these is the Cosmic Thinking Principle. This is something which we cannot conceive and cannot perceive. From the practical point of view, the Cosmic Reality beyond the elements can only be an object of direct realisation and experience, and it can never become a spatiotemporal object. But we can infer the presence of the Cosmic Mind, by logical deduction from facts of present experience. It is certain that the mind conditions the objects in some manner. But it is not proper to say that an individual mind can condition the objects, though it is true that a large contribution is made by the mental structure in the perception of an object, so that it can be said that no object is seen as it is in itself. Yet, at the same time, we cannot be sure that any individual mind is the creator or a total conditioner of the object of perception. There is some sort of a reality in the object, notwithstanding the fact that there is a conditioning of the object by the perceiving subject.

*****

To be continued

===============================================================