GEMS FROM THE OCEAN OF HINDU THOUGHT
VISION AND PRACTICE
BEACH 11: LIVE HAPPILY, THE
Wave 10: THE SECOND SECRET OF SECRETS
[ OTHER WAVES ON THE SAME BEACH: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11
12 ]
This chapter may look like a digression. But it is necessary and serves
two purposes. One, to talk about the second secret out of the three secrets of
the Gita; second, to lay the technical foundations for the next two chapters,
namely ‘Actionlessness’ (the proper consummation of karma yoga) and ‘Surrender
theory’ (the final secret of secrets). Also
hereafter we shall be mostly following the advaita
Behind
the body-mind-intellect (BMI) there exists something which gives it life. Without this, the BMI cannot express itself.
We call this the JIva.
The corresponding English word ‘soul’ would not suffice because it does not
have all the connotations which ‘JIva’ has. This JIva is nothing but a spark of the
Absolute. (VII-5; XV–7). The Lord introduces this in
the seventh chapter. His own divine
Energy – called Cosmic PrakRti – is two-fold, says He. One is
PrakRti is nothing but the Shakti or
potential of the Absolute Brahman. Brahman by itself undergoes no change and
has no action. But its potential expresses itself as ParA-shakti (or ParA-prakRti) and aparA-shakti
(or aparA-prakRti).
What is the reason for this manifestation? Nobody knows. This is one of the few
questions which has no answer. Nor is the answer
goling to be relevant. But one thing is certain. But for this manifestation, we
would not be sitting and talking here. In fact neither we nor this universe
would exist.
So parA-prakRti
is what becomes all the jIvas. Each JIva
takes several bodies (physical appearances) one after the other.
vAsAmsi jIrNAni yathA vihAya navAni gRhNAti naro’parANi /
tathA sharIrANi vihAya
jIrNAny-anyAni samyAti navAni dehI//II-22
But in all
these different appearances of the JIva,
though it takes different bodies, the same mind sticks
on to it. (XV – 7, 8). In each
such life of the JIva,
the mind accumulates vAsanAs and samskAras that go on with it into
succeeding lives. It is these vAsanAs that give a character to the mind. This
character is a mixture of satva, rajas and tamas.
Without BMI the jIva cannot
express itself as an individual. Without the sentient JIva, mind is just inert matter. But
when it sticks on to the JIva in the latter’s physical expression through
BMI, it gets sentience. Now the JIva interacts with the universe of matter as well
as with the other living beings. But
even this interaction has to take place only through the medium of the BMI.
This is therefore a seemingly endless play of the sentient Consciousness within
and the insentient universe of matter outside through the medium of the
BMI. This is the cit-jaDa-granthi that
Maharshi Ramana talked about (Ref. Ch.4) The sentient Consciousness within, which is nothing but a
spark of the parAshakti,
is called Purushha.
Everything else, including the interaction with other beings,
is of course prakRti. This interplay of Purushha and prakRti
is what constitutes our passage through life.
Now the Lord says:
There are two Purushhas.
dvAv-imau purushhau loke kshharashcA-kshhara
eva ca /
kshharas-sarvANi bhUtAni
kUTastho’kshhara ucyate // XV – 16 //
They are kshhara-purushha (the perishable purushha) and akshara-purushha
(the imperishable purushha). The kshhara is the familiar JIva. It is expressing itself through the BMI. But in so expressing itself, it invariably makes the mistake
of thinking it is just BMI and nothing more. In other words, the kshhara-purushha
commits the colossal error of identifying itself with the BMI. This colossal
error is called ‘anAdi
avidyA’ (Beginningless Ignorance). And here starts all the problems
of life. All the pleasure and pain, ups and downs, light and darkness, good and
bad, that the BMI suffers through, are mistakenly
assumed by the kshhara-purushha
as its own experiences. Not only this. All the actions of the BMI are also
appropriated by the kshhara. Thus arises the
common expression: ‘I am the doer (kartA)’ and ‘I am the experiencer (bhoktA)’.
The kshara purushha is involved in the actions of
Nature. He reflects the varied workings
of the Gunas of prakRti. He is saguNa,
personal. He associates himself with the
doings of prakRti
and thinks he is the doer. He identifies himself with the play of personality and clouds
his self-knowledge with the ego-sense in PrakRti
so that he thinks himself as the ego-doer of works. (III - 27):
prakRteH
kriyamANAni guNaiH karmANi sarvashaH /
ahamkAra-vimUDhAtmA
kartA’ham-iti manyate
//
Some one pinches my body.
It hurts. Who feels this hurt? I feel the hurt.
Who is this I that is speaking? It is the kshhara-purushha.
Why does the kshhara-purushha
feel the hurt? Because it has identified itself with the BMI. Therefore
it becomes the ‘bhoktA’
the experiencer.
Not only do I feel the
hurt, but I flare up at the other person. Who is this
I that is flaring up now? It is again the kshhara-purushha.
Why does the kshhara-purushha flare up? Because
it has identified itself with the BMI. As a consequence of this
identification, it not only experiences the hurt, but falls into the trap of
the gang of thirteen, particularly krodha (anger) and ahamkAra (ego) and flares back. So it becomes the ‘kartA’
(doer).
What does the Lord say on this
now? He says there are two purushhas – kshhara and akshhara. The akshhara is never hurt and can never be hurt, says
He.
“acchedyoyam adAhyoyam
akledyo’shoshhya eva ca” (II – 24).
This cannot be cut into
pieces; this cannot be burnt; this cannot be tainted; this cannot be dried.
So He says: “My dear Arjuna,
You (the kshhara-purushha
/ JIva)
are wrongly identifying yourself with this BMI. Don’t do this. Identify
yourself with the akshhara-purushha within you. Then there will be no hurt.
Only Happiness”
This is the bottom
line. This is the essential philosophical content of the entire teaching of the
Gita. This is the message of all spiritual teaching. This is the grand recipe
for Happiness.
Now let us come to the two
charts. The first is the Cosmology chart.
Matter came from the aparA Shakti or aparA prakRti. That is why prakRti
is also called pradhAna, the Fundamental. It
is also called kshhetra, the Field, because it is the base of all action. It
is jaDa,
because it is insentient. It is avyakta, the unmanifest, because it is not perceptible to the senses. It is kshhara, the Perishable, because it
alternates between manifestation and non-manifestation.
It is mAyA
because it deceptively hides the Spirit behind Matter and projects falsity.
jIva the spirit component is a fragment of the cit-Shakti of Brahman. cit-Shakti functioning
through a matter envelopment becomes the living organism. To quote Swami
Chinmayananda, "'That' dressed up in matter
becomes the egocentric
'Thou'. Man undressed of Matter is the
eternal and ineffable spirit".
When spirit is thus enveloped by matter it is called jIva. He is the purushha with all his
individuality. Without the interaction
of the purushha
the experiencer, and prakRti that is, without the interaction of Spirit
and Matter, there is no expression, no experience. When man looks inward of his insentient
matter-layer he is nothing but sentient vital consciousness.
Mind itself is matter. It is the effect
of the play of prakRti. The latter, individualised to each soul is the unmanifested
factor, (the individualised prakRti for each person cf.Ch.2) which, in
consequence of the good and bad performances in the previous lives, has begun
to give fruition in this life. That
which rules the functions of a given mind and intellect and determines its
reactions to the world outside is the unmanifested factor, also referred to
in the literature, as the vAsanAs. Incidentally, the gItA never uses the word vAsanA. It uses the word avyakta for the unmanifested factor
standing for the totality of vAsanAs, either
individual or collective. In its
macrocosmic aspect, the total universe of men and things spring from the
aggregate of vAsanAs of all living beings. This totality is the source of the whole
universe at the beginning of the kalpa (IX - 7, 8). It is because of this that jIva is
under the spell of mAyA or prakRti -- through whcih Brahman functions to
bring about the universe of men and things.
The play of matter and spirit in this manner is Samsâra.
All forms and qualities, changes and modifications belong to the
realm of matter. Atman or Brahman is the changeless
substratum in the presence of which this interplay takes place. The movie screen is the only basic presence
and inherent reality whereon all the turmoil and turbulence of the actions of
the movie take place. The screen by itself is untainted by any of that action.
The purushha
by himself has no samsAra. But when He identifies himself with the body
and the senses which are the effects of prakRti, he becomes the experiencer.
As the all-pervading space is not tainted because of its
subtlety, so also the Atman permeating the entire body,
is not tainted by anything that the body, mind or intellect does. (XIII – 32).
yathA sarva-gatam
saukshhmyAd-AkAshaM nopalipyate /
sarvatra-avasthito dehe
tathAtmA nopalipyate
//
The Atman is like the Sun which illuminates the whole
world but is at the same time uncontaminated by anything of the world. Every
action of the world as well as of the body, mind and intellect is dominated by prakRti.
We said of the purushha that when he identifies himself with the
body and the senses he is the experiencer.
He it is that enjoys and suffers, he it is that is subject to pleasure
and pain and he it is that thinks he is the doer and the experiencer. But deep within him, within this purushha,
there is another purushha,
the changeless, non-participating witness, the Sakshi. (XV - 16) Beyond the kshhara there is the silent,
immutable, all-pervading motionless self-existent Self
-- <sarvagatam
achalam (II-24). He is the akshhara purushha
-- <purushha,
the Imperishable. He is nirguNa,
impersonal. The guNas have fallen now into a state
of equilibrium. He is therefore dissociated
from the doings of the guNas. He is the inactive non-doer and witness. He is aware that prakRti is the doer and himself only
the witnessing self (XIII
- 29).
The concept of the two purushhas -- or two poises or roles of the one purushha
-- and a consequent grand design of a tripple purushha, is an essential
contribution of the gItA to the understanding of the eternal
Upanishads. In order to explain this
grand design to ordinary people different masters give different illustrations.
Vidyaranya's Panchadasi gives a beautiful analogy in its 4th
chapter. The analogy that Vidyaranya gives and sustains throughout his work is
so graphic that no presentation of prakRti and purushha as adumbrated in Advaita Vedanta can be complete
without mentioning Vidyaranya's analogy.
Imagine an empty pot. Even though empty, it encloses space (= AkASha). We may call this enclosed space, the
pot-space (= GhaTAkAsha).
This is not different from the universal space (= mahAkAsha) which is outside the pot
-- except that the pot-space is space enclosed, conditioned by the material
of the pot, whereas the universal space
is unconditioned (= nirupAdhita).
Now fill up the pot to the brim with water. The pot-space has vanished. We only see water now but in the water we see
the universal space reflected. This
reflection shows the sky, the stars or whatever there is in the sky or the
space, like buildings, trees, clouds, etc. with all their different shades of
colour. This reflected presentation of the outside space may be called water-space ( = jalAkAsha).
Important remark: Water-space
shall not mean 'the
space occupied by water' but shall mean the reflection, in the water, of the mahAkAsha, which is
everywhere.
Now the water-space hides the real space, namely the pot-space within and projects a falsity of an outer space,
inside. This is the grand delusion in
which we are all in.
The water-space corresponds to the jIva (the individual soul) or the kshhara-purushha. It hides the presence of the pot-space
within. The pot-space is the akshhara purushha.
Without the substratum of the pot-space there cannot be any water-space. We in our delusion think that the water-space
is all there is. We forget that there is
a pot-space within and it is the real space and that the water-space is only a
false projection of the reality. Without
the substratum of the imperishable purushha within, the jIva or the kshara purushha or what we think as
our personality has no existence. The
imperishable purushha
is also called (XV-16) kUTastha, the immovable, or the immutable, that
which remains like the unchanging iron-piece (anvil) on which the blacksmith
does all his hammering.
[kUTastha
also means the top of a mountain
which remains unchanged
and undisturbed.
kUTa also means the changeable universe
amidst which the
unchangeable remains fixed.]
The water in the pot is the mind or intellect. It is the
reflection in our intellect of the universal consciousness that generates the
feeling, an individualised feeling, in us, of 'I' and 'mine'.
The mind of Man has two alternatives -- either to be bound by prakRti in
the mutations of quality and personality or to be free from Her
workings in immutable impersonality. On
one side there is the status of the akshhara purushha or kUTastha and his immutability. On the other there is the action of the kshhara purushha
or JIva
and its mutability in prakRti.
Both these coexist. They coexist
as two contrary sides, aspects or facets of a supreme reality (mahAkAsha)
which is limited by neither of them.
This reality which is the Ultimate, is the uttama purushha,
different from the other two. (XV - 17 ). He is the purushottama. That is His param bhAvam. (supreme
nature of existence). He is the sarva-bhUta-maheSvara, the great Lord of
all beings. People foolishly think that
the visual manifestation is all there is (IX - 11 ). They allow the water-space to hide the real
pot-space within and revel in the virtual glory of the water-space. But deep within us, by clearing our minds of
all its 'contents', -- by clearing the pot of all its water -- we must get to
the pot-space, that is the akshhara purushha. It is the substratum which makes way for all the actions of
the individual purushha. The actions themselves are because of the prakRti
-- its three strands -- which in the analoogy is the reflecting capability of
the water-mind. We should be able to
transcend the mind and the reflections that it carries with it and delve deep
into our real Self, the silent watching Self.
This latter is nothing but the all-pervading Space (brahman)
except for the limitation by the material of the pot. Thou art That!
In
summary therefore, to answer our question as to who
the doer is: It is one's self which has identified with
oneself. This identification itself is due to the fact that the
intellect has allowed the JIva to hold
the fort rather than overcome them and turn the identification towards one's
Self. PrakRti comes in the picture because the VasanAs are
one's prakRti. (See chart of The Self).
Also see chart of The Self, as per advaita).
But both the purushhas are only the fragment of the Ultimate,
which is the 'third purushha'. XV
– 17 says:
uttamaH
purushhas-tvanyaH paramAtmety-udAhRtaH /
yo loka-trayam-AviSya
bibharty-avyaya IsvaraH //
Other than these two is that highest spirit called the Supreme Self,
who enters the three worlds and upbears them, the imperishable Lord.
He transcends the perishabliliy as well as the immutability. Therefore He is
called the Ultimate, Supreme, Transcendental, purushha. The One word for this is
purushottama. When we go to the analogy of VidyaraNya this becomes clear: The
water-space is the perishable purushha; the pot-space is the immutable purusha;
and the universal space is the purushhottama. And all of them are ultimately One.
The Purushhottama
of the gItA is the controller of the
other two purushhas
as well as the prakRti.
(He is just the all-pervading space of Vidyaranya's analogy). It is He that appears as the other two purushhas
and it is He that creates, sustains and dissolves, through His prakRti.
In the kshara, He puts forth his own prakRti
and manifests himself in the soul. And each
soul works out its own nature (= svabhAva ) according to the law of the divine being in
it. But it is worked out in the egoistic nature by the
bewildering play of the three guNas
upon each other. One can get beyond this play of the guNas only by transcending the guNas.
As Purushhottama
however, He is neither merely impersonal nor merely personal. He is one and the same being in both aspects.
Infinity of the Spirit does not just mean infinite immensity; it also implies
infinitesimal littleness. Though impersonal in its vastness, it has become
personal also in creating individual beings.
He is the impersonal-personal, nirguNo-guNI. guNabRn-nirguNo mahAn,
says the VishNu-sahasra-nAma.
Man as the individual self owing to his ignorant self-identification
with the work and the becoming is bewildered by his ahamkAra or egoism. (cf. ahamkAra-vimUDhAtmA
--III-27). ahamkAra
is nothing but the notion that this conglomeration of the senses and the mind
which are the cause for all the actions, is the Self ( Atman). This egoism, or ahamkAra,
is not just the feeling 'I am'. The feeling 'I am' is not wrong. But the feeling 'I am the
body, I am the mind, I am the intellect' or the feeling 'I am a combination of
these' is wrong. It is this attitude, this supposition, this feeling,
this impression, that is wrong. This ahamkAra
is not just arrogance; it is far higher in the hierarchy of undesirable
qualities - it is in fact at the top. For, the very nature of ahamkAra
is that one does not know that one has ahamkAra. It is this false identification of the
Self with the actions and the instruments of thought and action that constitutes the root cause of all
the trouble, called samsAra.
Consequently one is enslaved by the guNas,
now hampered in the dull ease of tamas, now blown away by the strong winds and
currents of rajas, and now limited by the partial lights of satva. Man has to distinguish and isolate himself
from the prakRtic
mind, by his discretionary intelligence.
If he allows himself to be mastered by the guNas, then he will have to suffer pain and pleasure, grief and
happiness, desire and passion, attachment and disgust. Thus he has no freedom. If he wants freedom –
and happiness --, he must exist in
oneness with the akshhara Purusha, the immutable and impersonal
Self, tranquilly observing and impartially supporting the action,
himself calm, indifferent, untouched, motionless, pure, one with all beings in
their self, not one with prakRti and Her works. This Self, though by its presence authorises (cf. IX–10 : mayAdhyakshheNa prakRtiH sUyate sacarAcaraM )
the works of prakRti
and supports them by its all-pervading existence, does not itself create works
or the state of the doer or the linking of the works to their fruit. (V - 14):
na kartRtvaM na
karmANi lokasya sRjati prabhuH /
na
karma-phala-samyogaM svabhAvastu pravartate //
It only watches prakRti in the kshhara. It accepts neither the sin nor the virtue of
the living creatures born into this birth. (V – 15: nAdatte kasyacit pApaM na caiva sukRtaM vibhuH ). It always preserves its own spiritual purity.
He who thus understands the purushottama is no longer bewildered either by the
appearances of the world or by the apparently contradictory purushhas;
He is the whole-knower; He loves and worships in all the perfectly illumined
ways - says the Lord in XV - 19:
yo mAmevam-asammUDho
jAnAti purushhottamaM /
sa sarvid-bhajati mAM
sarva-bhAvena bhArata //
It is only at this point the Lord says that He has now given the
greatest secret, the Secret of Secrets. This is the second time, of the three
times He uses the same expression. This
is the second Secret of Secrets.
In the next chapter on ‘Actionlessness’ which is a kind of finale to
the topic of Karma-yoga as adumbrated in the Gita, we shall further pursue this
question of ‘Who is the doer?’ and actually resort to the 18th chapter for a
closer look into the theory of Action and Doer.
Copyright © V. Krishnamurthy Feb.15, 2004
(To Wave
11)