Baghawad Gita, Class 178: Chapter 13, Verses 27 to 30

Shloka 13. 27:He sees who sees the supreme Lord as existing really
in all beings, and as the Imperishable among the perishable.

Continuing
his teachings Swamiji said up to the 24th shloka, Sri Krishna dealt with all the six
topics that Arjuna wanted to know: Prakrti,
Purusha, Kshetram, kshetragnya, Gyanam
and Gneyam. And thereafter, from shloka No.25 up to 27 in three shlokas, Sri
Krishna talked about the sadhanas or preparatory disciplines required to gain this
knowledge; Knowledge given in the first 24
shlokas. And he talked about all the levels of sadhanas, starting from Karma Yoga, and then passing through Upasana, then Shravanam, Mananam and
Nidhidhyasanam and that the
culmination of the sadhana should be only
in knowledge.

And also Sri Krishna pointed out why he
is insisting on knowledge, the reason is that the problem of samsara is because
of an error with regard to our perception of ourselves.
So self-error, or error with regard to self-understanding is the problem and
any error is caused by ignorance alone and therefore without the removal of ignorance,
self-delusion cannot go away. And therefore, knowledge is compulsory and
through the knowledge self-delusion goes away and through that the samsara also
goes away. Thus the sadhanas were talked
about in three shlokas from shloka  #25 to
27 and then from 28 onwards Sri Krishna is talking about the phalam, the benefit
of this knowledge. In shloka # 28, one gets the right vision of the
world, a complete understanding of world, and a proper perspective. Proper
perspective is that the whole universe is a mixture of Prakriti and Purusha.
Just as a child has features of both father and mother, our vision will be
right and balanced only if we are aware of Prakriti and Pursuha.. If we are
preoccupied with just anyone of them alone it can be a problem. Every living
being is a mixture of Prakriti and Pursuha. The Prakriti part is solidly
visible; it is Saguna, Savikara, Mithya and Achetana Tatvam.While Purusha is
Nirguna, Nirvikara, Satyam and Chetana Tatvam that is not visible to physical
eyes and one has to appreciate it through our understanding. Just as in an
electric fan there is the physical fan and the electricity principle. Fan we
can see but electricity we have to appreciate it through our knowledge of
physics. So, the Shastra Gyana Chakshu (understanding) helps us see the
Purusha. Our two eyes will see Prakriti and the third eye will see Purusha.
Here we should note that Prakriti changes while Purusha does not change. Prkriti
is variable from individual to individual; varna
bheda
is there; ashrama bheda is there; linga
bheda
is there; it is vishamam, whereas Purusha
is samam in all the people.

Therefore
Sri Krishna says parameshvaram
is Purusha. Do not imagine a personal God is sitting in everyone. Here, the
word parameshvara represents
Nirguna, Nirvikara, Sathya, and Chetana Tatvam Parameshvaram. And that
does not mean in his preoccupation with Purusha darshanam, he loses sight of Prakrti; he
sees the Prakrti also, he is also aware of the
Purusha; Just as I
apprecite both the fan aspect, as well as the electricity aspect. And according
to the context, he emphasizes Prakrti or Purusha. But
there are occasions when Prakrti creates problems. Mortality frightens. Actions
become a burden. Life becomes a bore. And when a person troubled by life, when
it appears noisy, constant activity and becomes
a drag, then a person requires a different channel. Then change the channel.
When you look for stability, when you look for permanence, when you for purnathvam, then
the Prakrti will not be able to provide; in
fact all the higher needs of human beings, Prakrti will not provide. It is very
useful and entertaining in all transactions; but whenever there is a higher
need Purusha alone helps. One lady was telling me; Swamiji I have everything
but I am missing something. I do not have anything to complain, because I have wonderful
husband, wonderful children, beautiful house, no water problem; and the
business is going well; I do not have any
complaint at all; but there is something missing. This is called higher spiritual
need; when such a need arises, I should be able to withdraw from Prakrti and
own up the Purusha tatvam which
alone gives peace, purnathvam, security,
immortality, stability, etc. And once you are rejuvenated and fresh, you are
ready for all the activities. Like getting up after sleep. Therefore, that balanced vision of Purusha and Prakrti; not losing sight of Purusha in and
through the transaction, is
called atma nishta. They call it
sahaja samadhi. Sahaja samadhi means in and through
all the transactions, not losing sight of the Purusha tatvam. Up to
this we saw in the last class.

Shloka
# 13:28: Since by seeing eally God who is present alike
everywhere he does not injure the Self by the Self, therefore he attains the
supreme Goal.

So the previous shloka gave the first phalam
as right vision. Then in this shloka, Sri Krishna
gives the second benefit of this knowledge, which is amruthathva prapthi;
Transcending mortality; or immortality, is the second benefit. This wise person
learns to have the sama darshanam,
in and through the vishama darshanam,
which is required for transaction. Though transaction requires vishama darshanam the moment
you lose sight of the sama darshanam,
Prakrti will frighten you. It is like the dream. The moment you lose sight of
the fact that you are lying down on the bed
comfortably; that is forgotten, the dream is capable of frightening You. The
moment you lose sight of the screen in a movie, the characters
become more real than they actually are, and the movie can terribly frighten
you; not only at that time, afterwards when you go home also. Similarly, the moment Purusha is lost sight of, Prakrti becomes a
nightmare; and, therefore, samam pashyan sarvathra; in all the states, all the
conditions he see Arupa
Ishvaram, free
from all attributes. Samam means which is same in everyone.

And sama vasistitham is very present as
the adhishtanam, the support
of Prakrti. Because Purusha
is sathyam, while Prakrti is Mithya, without any support.

The wise person sees all the time, in
all the places appreciating through Gyana chakshu the Purusha.
And what is the benefit he attains? He attains the highest
goal of immortality. He attains immortality. He, thereafter, does not subject
himself to mortality. And here Sri Krishna says, presents that this Gyani does
not destroy himself thereafter. So according to Sri Krishna, every Agyani samsari is
destroying himself. Even though he puts the blame on the world and the people,
according to Vedanta, world does
not create any problems, rather because of ignorance, we are killing ourselves.
We are all self-destructive people. This is based on the Ishavasya Upanishad, which says
everyone is committing a suicide. How is everyone committing a suicide? Shankaracharya explains
this in two different ways:

How does a person destroy himself?
Because of the self-ignorance, ignorance of the fact that I am atma, he
identifies with the body, the anatma. So ignorance leads to body identification. And once I
identify with the body I become a karta. As atma,
I am not a karta, but once Dehabhimana comes, I
become a karta. And as a Karta, means Doer of actions, I perform
varieties of actions and earn punya papa
karmas. And therefore
what are my earnings? So we have a very huge deposit of punyapapa karmas. And according
to vedanta, it is
these punya papa karmas that
are responsible for the creation of the body. And therefore, I create a body
for myself by my own karma. If in the next janma, I am going to acquire a body
who is responsible? Not the next janma parents. Not God. Not anything else. If
I acquire a body in the next janma, I am responsible for the arrival of that
body through my own karma. So therefore, according to the Shastra, I create
a body and then after the body hangs around for sometime, when the body
perishes, the end of the body is also caused, by our own karmas.

Therefore, body’s arrival and departure
is all caused by my own karmas, and once that body is gone I then acquire another
body. This process of acquiring and departing from bodies continues.  Therefore I
alone am responsible for the repeated birth and death of myself; through the
arrival and departure of the body. Therefore I am creating myself and I am destroying myself from the standpoint of the
body. And therefore, I am self-destructive. I kill myself. And how long this
will continue? As long as Karmas continue.
Punarapi Jananam, punarapi maranam. I am
responsible for my death. So therefore I am a atmaha;
atmaha means killer of
myself, from the standpoint of my body.

And then Shankaracharya gives another meaning as well. From the standpoint of my
higher nature, that is my atma
svarupam nature
also, because of self-ignorance, I am killing, (as though), my own higher
nature. I am destroying myself; myself means not the
body; my own higher nature. Then Shankaracharya raises the question: how can a self-ignorant person kill
his own higher nature, the atma,
because, after all, the atma
is indestructible? Shankaracharya says ignorant
person kills the atma
in a figurative sense.  What do you mean
figuratively killing the atma?
When I am not aware of my higher nature, I disown my higher nature. Just as a
person who does not know the treasure, which is lying underneath the ground;
his own land; is not going to claim it, he is going to disown it because of his
ignorance; Similarly, an ignorant person disowns his higher nature and
therefore the benefit that he can derive from his higher nature is denied to
him. Since I am not enjoying the benefit of my higher nature, it is as though
the higher nature is absent. While the higher nature is present, it is as
though absent, because I do not derive the benefit of my higher nature; because
of my sheer ignorance; and since the higher nature is as though absent; Shankaracharya says: we have
killed or destroyed the higher nature as though. If something is destroyed, you
do not derive the benefit of that. Similarly, atma is as though destroyed because I do
not derive the benefit of it. And therefore, a self-ignorant person has “destroyed”
his own higher nature, because he does not enjoy the benefit of purnatvam, abhayathvam,
etc. And therefore from that standpoint also, he is a committing suicide; he is
destroying himself. And therefore every aGyani
destroys himself from the standpoint of the body as well as from the standpoint
of atma as well.

And if every aGyani is self-destroyer,
what is the definition of a Gyani? Its opposite. Therefore, Sri Krishna says, a
Gyani does not destroy himself; he is not a self-destroyer. Unlike an Agyani, a
Gyani does not destroy himself, either by the standpoint of the body or from
the standpoint of the atma. And therefore he is not a self-destroyer; he has
discovered immortality.

Shloka
13.29: And he who sees actions as being done in
various ways by Nature itself, and also the Self as the non-agent,-he sees.

The third benefit of the knowledge is
given here. We have seen two: first one is sama darshanam; the
second one is amruthathva prapthi. The third benefit is akartrtva
prapthi.
Discovering the fact that I am akarta. I am not a doer of any action. And
this is a very important thing because kartrtvam alone is the cause of all the
problems. Because as long as I am a karta, I can never avoid karmas and therefore
Karta
will
be eternally associated with karma. And karmas will never remain the same, they will gradually ripen. The
karmas will gradually ripen and get converted into favourable and unfavourable
conditions. Even now our prarabdha karmas are
ripening. When the karmas ripen, the ripened
karma phalam in the form of favourable and unfavourable
situations, they will come back to me alone. When the karma phalas comes
to me and I have to face the music, I become a
bhokta. If I am a
karta, I can never
escape from being a bhokta and that bhokta status is a choiceless, helpless
situation. So therefore, you can never escape
from being a bhokta. To get out of
bhoktrtvam, there is only
one way; you should get out of kartrtvam. You will definitely have kartrtvam as long as you
have deha abhimana, because deha means karma
will be there, because there are Gyanendriyani, karmendriyani; and
therefore, Prakrti abhimana makes me a
karta. And the
moment you drop the Prakrti abhimana, and claim that aham Purusha, that Purusha-owning up
alone will take you out of both kartrtvam and bhoktrtvam. Therefore, Sri Krishna says: All the karmas, good
and bad actions, they are all done by Prakrti alone, Prakrti alone can do karmas,
because doing karma requires modification. Any karma, change is required. If I have to talk, my mouth has to undergo change. Even
if I have to do a thinking action, there should be thought change. So karma
means vikaram. Prakrti
alone can do karma, because it is subject to
modification. Whereas Purusha means he is
Nirguna, Nirvikara, Satya, Chetana Tatvam;
that Purusha is incapable
of doing action and therefore Sri Krishna says all the actions by all means, whether
it is kayikam, vachikam, or manasam, whether
it is dharmikam, or adharmikam, all of them are performed by Prakrti. Prakrti means
the body mind complex.  And this wise
person is very much aware of that. But he does not identify with the body mind
complex rather he identifies with Atmanam. He does not say I am doing. He says in my presence Prakrti does
everything. In my presence, Prakrti does everything
or body mind complex does everything. Then who am I?  I am akarta and therefore I do not have sanchitam;
I do not have agami; I do not
have prarabdham. Or
else how is it possible to experience and finish off the karmas? It is
impossible for you to exhaust all the karmas as even as we are exhausting
karmas we are also adding many more. So it is impossible to put an end to the
cyclic arrival and departure of karmas. The only way out of is you do not stop
the cycle, but you get away from the cycle.  Similarly, Prakrti cannot be stopped; I
have to transcend Prakrti, like waking up from dream.  Prakrti will continue. Let me now
identify with that. Of course this verse should be carefully understood. It
should not be misunderstood and abused. Suppose a person argues after
performing all the akramams and says that the body does everything. Imagine a
criminal who is tried in the court and the
judge passes a verdict and therefore 7 years RI. He tells, Oh Judge, the body
does all the karmas, I the atma did not do any karma at all, and why are you giving me
RI. What will judge the say: My dear, I am not imprisoning you. In fact, I
cannot imprison you because you are the all-pervading atma, which
cannot be accommodated in any prison. In fact, all prisons are existing in you;
I am not imprisoning you, because you are akarta and abhokta, you said body
only did all the crimes and therefore I am only imprisoning the body.  So therefore:
Remember Vedanta should never
be used for promoting adharma. Whenever we feel like supporting adharma through
Vedanta, it means
we have not assimilated vedanta properly. If vedanta is correctly assimilated, it will
promote dharma. In fact Vedanta is the best method of promoting dharma. So whether I have assimilated vedanta properly or
not, how do I know? If vedanta promotes dharma in my life, it should promote ethical
life, if it is supporting adharma, the best thing is keep aside the vedanta for
sometime; follow dharma shastra after studying
it properly and therefore vedanta is not for abuse. This should not be misinterpreted.
Thus the third benefit of atma Gyanam is Akartrtva prapthi.
Discovering the fact that I am akarta.

Shloka
13. 30: When one realizes that the state of diversity
of living things is rooted in the One, and that their manifestation is also
from That, then one becomes identified with Brahman.

So this is a deeper and significant
verse wherein several steps of vedantic understanding are hidden. The
understanding of atma has to grow through several stages.
And to understand those several stages, we will first take the example of akasha or space.
Initially, I do not understand space at all, because it is too intangible, invisible.
Generally we think space is emptiness and nothingness and therefore we take
space for granted. So first I should learn, this hall, for example, or any enclosure for that matter, has got space within.
So when I am looking into a hall, there are two things. Not hall alone, but the
hall with space inside. When space alone is
there, generally we think, we say there is nothing. It is not nothing, space is
not nothingness but it is a positive substance. Even scientifically space is
not emptiness or nothingness, it is a positive
substance; a subtle substance.

What I understand first. There is space
inside. Then later I understand that space is not only within this hall, but
the space is inside all the enclosures; big halls, small halls, or even a
vessel or our own stomach, in all space is there. That is the next stage. Space
is not only within one hall, but also in all enclosures, next stage. The next stage I understand is that even though
halls are many and varied, the space within is not many and varied; space is
one and the same within every hall. The halls
are different but space is not different. This is the next stage. Then the next stage I go through is not only there
is one space inside all the halls, but there is space outside the halls also. Space
is not only within every hall, but the space
is outside, both inside and outside. Thereafter
the next stage is, space is not inside and outside the hall, that is not the
right expression, there is only one space, in
which all the halls are resting. So space is not in the hall; but it is the
reverse; halls are within spaces (you should
not say ‘spaces’). I will say that there is space within. Therefore space is
only one. Within one space, all the halls exist. So space is the stithi karanam of all the halls. And then the final
stage is; Space is not only the stithi karanam, (means the support for the
existence of all the hall), according to Shastra, Taittirya Upanishad, all
the things in the creation are even born out of space alone.  From the so
called empty space alone, everything is born, and in the space alone, all of
them survive and into that space alone, all of them resolve. See how many stages we have seen. First we said that
there is the hall and space. Then space is in every hall. Then space is the
same in every hall; thereafter space is not
only inside the hall but outside also. Then really speaking space is not
inside; all the halls are in the space; And finally what we said; Space is the
one which holds all the halls and space is the one from which all of them are
born and into all of them resolve. If you
understand this in space, you have to extend it to the consciousness. So space should
be equated to consciousness and hall should be equated to the body.

Thus, within the body there is consciousness.
Then what is the next stage? Consciousness is not only in my body but also in
every body. Then what is the next stage. Even though the bodies are many and
varied, consciousness behind all the bodies is one and the same. Then what is
the next stage. Consciousness is not only within the body, but consciousness is
outside the body also. Then what is the next stage? Really speaking, consciousness is not inside the body; then all the
bodies are resting in one consciousness. And then the final stage is not only
all the bodies are resting in that consciousness,
they are all born out of that consciousness; rest in that consciousness,
resolve in that consciousness and that consciousness I am. If you can tell this, you can say, Aham Brahma asmi. This
is the essence of this verse.

With Best Wishes,

Ram Ramaswamy