Beach 8: One's
Nature vis-ŕ-vis One's Duty
Wave 2: The
Secret of Secrets from the bhagavad-gItA
Drop 4: The
Secret of Secrets - 1
The gItA
is a unique and unusual book in the scriptural literature of the world. It is
the one book where God Almighty in person speaks to Man, not just a few words,
but a whole scripture. The context of the gItA
in the mahA-bhArata
is well-known. At the crucial moment, right at the start of the war, Arjuna collapses
psychologically. It is the war for which plans have been under way for more than a month now. It is the
war, the seeds for which were planted several years earlier. It is
the war for which Arjuna had collected mystic armamental powers for
himself by going to the very heavens
where his natal father Indra ruled. It is the war which was anticipated and
eagerly looked forward (by the four
younger Pandavas) so that the public humiliation of Draupadi could be avenged.
It is the war which was anticipated and feared (in the interests of peace) by Yudhishtira and which was sought to be
prevented by him by an unending series of compromises all these thirteen years.
It is the war which could not be
prevented even by the ambassadorial intervention of the divine personality like Krishna. And Krishna is now confronted with the problem of bringing Arjuna
back on the track. The problem
is not just to make Arjuna fight; it is to bring him back to his normal senses
where he would not be clouded by false compassion and self-pity. The problem for the Lord is to make him see what his own dharma
is at this deciding moment of his life. The Lord first attempts to
put some common sense into Arjuna but the
latter is adamant. And that is
when Krishna starts a whole philosophical sermon. He uses five arguments to convince Arjuna that
his duty is not to withdraw from the war. And in the process of His repair of
Arjuna's psyche, the Lord propounds five teachings to
all humanity. He devotes full five chapters for the so-called karma yoga, the two-fold concept of
efficient action with an attitude of detachment and of the yajna methodology of detachment and
dedication. And then He devotes two chapters on Devotion and Dedication to the
Divine, which now He identifies as Himself. And it is at this point (9th
chapter of the gItA), in his discourse, that he announces His
first Secret of Secrets . Having announced it as a Secret of
Secrets. He creates an interest by eulogising it (gItA:
9 - 2):
rAja-vidyA rAja-guhyam pavitram idam-uttamam /
pratyakshAvagamaM dharmyaM susukhaM kartum-avyayaM
//
This is the Queen of Wisdom, King of Secrets, most pure knowledge,
Can be confirmed by personal experience,
accessible by direct means, and
it is imperishable.
And He also says in the
next verse what will happen to people who do not place faith in this great
declaration of His. They will never reach Me, says He; they will have to keep
revolving in the transmigration cycle of birth and death. And, with such a
dramatic introduction, He starts: 'By Me all this universe (= jagat,
in Sanskrit) is pervaded, occupied'.
Every Sanskrit word comes from some original verb. The word jagat
comes from the verb jag, to vibrate, to change constantly, to undergo
mutation. That is why the universe is called jagat.
This universe is pervaded by Me, who has an unmanifest Form. What does it mean
to say 'Form which is not manifest'? The absolute is not mutable, not manifest,
not perceptible to the senses or intellect.. The secret of Secrets comes now..
In Verse
No.4 2nd line the Lord says
mat-sthAni
sarva-bhUtAni na cAhaM tesh-vavasthitaH //
meaning, Every being is located (or situated) in Me but I am not situated in them.
In Verse
No.5 1st line, that is, almost in the same breath, He says:
na ca mat-sthAni bhUtAni paSya me yogam-aiSvaraM //
meaning, Yet, the beings are not situated in Me; see my divine magical
power.
These contradictory wordings, one closely following
the other, has puzzled almost every reader. In Vidyaranya's panca-daSI this point is discussed and
clarified. Let us go to the standard analogy of the advaita
school-- the rope appearing as a snake in the absence of proper
lighting and turning out to be the rope
when properly lighted. Now follow the
conversation below between the guru and the disciple:
Guru: Where was the (appearance of the) snake?
Disciple: In the rope.
Guru:
Was the snake in the rope?
Disciple: Never. There was only the rope.
This is exactly what is being said by the
Lord.
To the inquisitive question: The universe
and all the Beings in it, where are they located?, the Lord answers:
They are all (appearing) in Me.
To the question: Are they really in You,
Oh Lord?, He answers:
Never. I am the only Reality all the time.
The fact that God pervades everything will be easily
accepted by the aspirant to spirituality. But what he has to learn, on his way
up the ladder of spirituality, is that this permeation causes the universe to
be only an appearance. The universe is therefore unreal. But it is not
illusory; that is, it is not non-existent. It exists as brahman. That is why all our seers say that
we should see God in everything, in every being and everywhere.
In the same strain He continues: (gItA 9 - 5, 2nd
line):
bhUtabRn-na-ca-bhUtastho mamAtmA bhUta-bhAvanaH /
My self is the bearer
of all existences and it is not situated in existences.
Let us analyze now the statement that God pervades
everything. The statement is not as innocuous as it appears. First of all there
is the above secret message of the Lord that while he pervades everything, in
reality there is nothing other than Himself. Secondly the ordinary meaning of
pervasion has to be understood by us carefully. To explain this sometimes the
11th chapter of the gItA is cited where the Lord shows His
cosmic transcendental Form (viSva-rUpa). Those who cite it for this
purpose make us feel that the Cosmic God is having His hands and feet in all
directions, extending over everything. The description in the gItA also seems to say this. But if you
visualize such a gigantic form of God, it is only frightening as it did
frighten Arjuna himself. It may not be a pleasant sight to see the Lord in that
gorgeous form pervading everything and gobbling up every being. The visual
media which tries to portray this makes it such a gorgeous show that only instils awe and fear in you but not
respect and love. It is very difficult to love that Form. The fact of the matter is, we are overdoing
the meaning and significance of the Cosmic Form. The
purpose of God's Cosmic pervasion of everything is to tell us that the Lord is
the ultimate substratum, the ultimate bundle of Consciousness, to which
everything has to reduce. Everything arises from Consciousness and merges in
Consciousness. There is no other way in which you can explain the physical
pervasion of God in everything. It seems the Lord anticipates this
erroneous comprehension of the all-pervasiveness of Himself; so He provides an
analogy for us almost immediately in the next verse: (gItA: 9 - 6):
yathA-kASasthito
nityam vAyus-sarvatrago mahAn /
tathA
sarvANi bhUtAni mat-sthAnIty-upadhAraya //
Air is in Space. It is
located in space. The substratum for air is space. So also every being is in
the Lord. Without space being the base there can be no air. So also every being
is located in the Lord. Without the Lord there is no being. This is the meaning
of pervasion. The universal existence of Consciousness is all-pervading and
infinite. It is one but not many.
However it expresses itself as every existence. This does not mean that It (The
Self) is contained by any one of them or even all of them. Space is not contained in air nor is it the
sum of all that is air. Listen to Sri Aurobindo on this:
One is Being; the other is Power of Being which moves and creates and
acts
in the existence of the
fundamental, supporting, immutable Spiriit….
The One is a relation of self-existence to the universal movement; the
other,
the immanence, is a relation of the universal existence to its own
forms.
The one is a truth of being in its all-containing immutability,
self-existent;
the other is a truth of Powerof the same being manifest in the
government and
information of its own self-veiling and self-revealing movements.
Essays on the Gita, pp319,320
If this is difficult for
you to understand I will give you Swami Dayananda's simple manner of
presentation. The Vedas don't say that God is a man or a woman. They don't even
say that there is a God! Nor do they say that there is One God. Nor that there
are many Gods. The only final thing that they say is: Whatever there is, is
God! sarvam khalvidam brahma.
This is the meaning of pervasion. There is nothing else but God. We
teach children that God is everywhere. Even that is not a precise statement. We
should rather say: God is the only thing that is anywhere.
To put all this in practice is the teaching
that goes on in this 9th chapter of the gItA. The Lord Himself summarises in these terms
in the last verse of this chapter:
man-manA bhava mad-bhakto madyAjI mAM namaskuru /
mAmaiveshyasi uktvaivaM AtmAnaM
mat-parAyaNaH //
Your mind seated in Me,
totally devoted to me, working only for Me, prostrate to Me.
Having thus yoked yourself to
none but Me as your Refuge you will certainly reach Me
Again
and again the doubt arises in our minds: 'How can I do all that' and still live
a productive useful life in this world?
Ramakrishna, the Master of Masters comes to our help here with
analogies. Here is one of his famous statements:
'Just as a dancing girl fixes her
attention on the waterpot she bears on her head even when she is dancing to
various tunes, so also the true devotee does not give up his attention to the
blissful feet of the Supreme Lord
even when he attends to his many
and varied concerns'
Here is another striking
analogy from our every day life, so characteristic of Sri Ramakrishna's style
of conveying high thoughts in familiar language:
What do you do when you are having a nagging stomach-ache? Do you take vacation from your office work
just for a stomach-ache? You keep on doing your work, as diligently as
possible, but all the time the stomach-ache never allows you to forget it. It
is always telling you 'I am here, I am here!' So also keep the thought of God
at the bottom of your mind, never allowing the awareness of the Divine to slip
away from you, but carry on your day-to-duties as if you have nothing else in
the world to think about!
October 27, '99 Ó Copyright V. Krishnamurthy Home
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