The relationship between the visible existence and the invisible Supreme is as intriguing as it is unique. It gives abundant scope for reflection, rumination and introspection. In fact, one’s whole life can be devoted to the understanding and contemplation of the subject.
To lift the mind from the tangible ‘personal’ concepts of the Supreme to the ‘Impersonal Absolute’ is neither common nor easy. People prefer to cling to ‘forms’, even when they think about the Supreme Cause and Source of the endless universe. But as long as the ‘personality feeling’ is there about the Supreme, the seeker will not be able to imbibe stability and wholesomeness in his comprehension.
It is the apparent prevalence of the perceptible world that makes the human being seek and enquire, leading him to unravel the truth of this mysterious and ultimately illusory existence.
The seeker must necessarily have a good understanding of the world around, the relationship between the Creation and its Cause, in order that his quest for Truth will be properly founded and reinforced. Intelligence is the key component in the human. It is only next to intelligence that everything else in him exists and operates. Intelligence always looks for, seeks and hunts knowledge. Knowledge is the best and most invaluable possession of man.
Intelligence will enquire into whatever is there before it, external or internal, gross or subtle. Just as it goes into the cause of happiness, a subject of the mind, it will also seek to know the cause behind the endless existence. Apart from being a valid inevitable pursuit, knowledge also enhances the scope and joy of human life, elevating it from the mere sensory level of animals to the lofty levels of comprehension and discovery. It is this knowledge, scope and mission that fulfills human life. This is an undeniable fact.
Religion may at first be an outcome of emotions operating in the mind level, but very soon it has to respond to the quests of intelligence. Thus in Hindu thinking, the religious thoughts very soon become philosophical and spiritual. There is no religious discussion that does not take up the relationship between the perceived objects, the subject involved in these, and the causal nature of both.
Krishna now takes his discussion to the practical level of day-to-day life of the individual, the society and the world at large. Like individuals and their society, the world, as a whole also has its behavioural pattern, subject to some laws and sequences. It is important that religion, philosophy and spirituality probe into and understand these. It comes under vijnana, the expanse of jnana. Everything is explained, so that no question remains a cause of discontent or doubt.
All-pervasiveness explained
All beings inhering in one cause is rather a difficult proposition. As we see around, all gross forms of existence, small or big, are circumscribed by their size and form. Separateness is characteristic of everything. Stringing them all together is unthinkable. To overcome this difficulty, Krishna gives the example of air and space.
Know that just as the all-pervading, ever-moving air inheres in akasa, space, so too all beings inhere in the Supreme.
Air, though one of the pancabhutas, is unlike earth or water. It is very subtle, imperceptible to the eyes, and permeates everywhere. Air enters into living beings, and while present in them individually, it is also present everywhere, without getting divided by its individual association.
As air, present in all beings, is itself inhering in the all-permeating space, so too the myriad beings inhere in the Supreme. By this example, the seeking mind is able to visualize with some ease and clarity, a close inseparable connection between all beings and the all-pervading, omnipresent, Supreme.
This linking up of the Created with the Creator’s presence, is a necessary part of devotional growth, and a means to build up strength, courage and invincibility of the mind. The concept that began from the 2nd chapter, continues. Krishna had introduced the idea of all-pervasiveness (Dehi nityam-avadhyo’yam dehe sarvasya bharata 2.30). He has also repeated many times that the Soul is nitya, eternal, and sarvagatah, all-pervading. The idea of all-pervasiveness is inevitable in the discussion of spiritual wisdom.
Now Krishna slowly builds up the other part, the object-world part along with its laws, cycles and sequences. He is, in fact, moving to the vibhuti yoga of the next chapter and the visvarupadarsana of the 11th. The philosophy apart, the religious needs of the mind are also taken note of and answered even more, from now on.
Do not think that the world is merely an aggregate of matter and energy, although in the extensive creation around us, the animate part is significantly less than the inanimate. This should not lead anyone to conclude that the inanimate world will behave in an unpredictable manner. If it were, then how could we have any stability and continuity in our life and interactions in the world? We can and do expect with regularity, the day and night, the week, month and seasons. They recur unfailingly. Based on this do we live and move in the world. If everywhere and every day, uncertainty and instability surround us, how can life and activities be possible at all?
So there is a character in every particle, form and being as well as their aggregates. There is law. There is order. There is definite behaviour. It is always within this static-ness and constant-ness that the variables reign and express themselves. There is cyclicness in all Creation. It is imbued into each by the Cosmic Source, the Supreme. As is the supreme Cause beyond invalidation, so too is its effect beyond negation.
Empowering cyclic movement of the Universe
While the individual and collective existence in the universe undergoes the cycle of birth, life and death, the entire Creation itself similarly undergoes the same process of coming into existence, existing for a period, and then dissolving into its primeval cause. Only in their durations they differ.
One such big cycle involving the entire Creation is called kalpa (a very great length of time). Visible creation, in its present form, began and will last for a kalpa. Between the Supreme and the Creation it has instrumented, there is mutuality. It should be. The vyavastha (orderliness) is imbued by the Supreme. Only within such a vyavastha (orderliness), the existence can remain and function. And this imbuing alone makes Creation move in a cycle.
The span of existence may last from a few seconds, as in the case of microscopic life, to thousands of years, as we find in the Banyan Tree. The insentients last for still greater ages. It is a great wonder that within the short span of a few minutes even generations of micro level lives pass away. The cycle, span and longevity are determined by the complex Nature.
None of these cycles offers disruption to the others. Instead, all complement one another, making a beautiful whole. But everything has to subsist in and subserve the huge cycle, kalpa.
Referring to all these in three verses (9.7-9), Krishna makes a summary statement:
Nature, presided over by the Supreme, gives birth to the mobile and immobile existence. By this does the world go on cyclically.
That there is a single president, lording over the multi-potent, multi-pronged Nature and its endless manifestations, is the significant point every seeker has to grasp. But for this supreme Presidency, the whole creational display would never have been. It could not have emerged, prevailed, forming itself into cycles – huge or big, small or minute – as we find around.
The words ‘president’ and ‘presiding’, have to be properly understood. It is not like the presidency, humanity installs and is governed by in one form or another. The Cosmic Presidency is an inseparable quality, condition or character, like the axle on a flywheel. That axle is the one to impart motion to the wheel.
The transcendental Supreme unleashes Nature, assuming its presidency and makes it (Nature) bring forth all the display, with the cyclicness of each and the whole. Unless such a mutuality coupled with an overallness is there, the world would not be able to exist affording viability and reliance.
The whole jagat, world, continues to revolve, says Krishna, only because of this Presidency of the Supreme. The entire universe revolves on a central axis, and this is what makes it sustainable, giving rise to a host of smaller and bigger cycles. The phrase jagad-viparivartate is to be specially noted. This means the jagat is revolving. Revolvingness alone will enable, empower and preserve the cyclic vyavastha. If it were only parivartana (change, transformation), as opposed to viparivartana (revolving course), then it would be impossible for the world to be at all.
We have the same earth, air, seas, the sun, stars and the rest. All of them continue to be the same, and yet the world constituents are in constant motion. This ceaseless movement is the process gifted by viparivartana, cyclic motion.
In order to empower this cyclic movement, the source and cause must remain invariant, right within what moves. Krishna also concludes this part of his great exposition with a more explicit reference to the same truth. He says: The Supreme, remaining in the heart of all beings, revolves them all, as if seated in a yantra, vehicle (18.61).
Unique dimension of the Knower
Having explained the nature and course of the world, Krishna shifts to the source of this understanding, wherein the place and distinction of the human personality become prominent. That there is a Supreme and this is the way Creation is linked to it; that the Supreme holds everything in its position and prevalence, etc. are not findings or pronouncements coming from the Supreme. The Supreme is not a ‘physical personal aggregate’, like the living beings.
The only locus that can probe into, voice the principles and fundamental truths about existence, positing the concepts of the ‘Supreme’, is the human being. On discovering the presence of the Supreme, man himself has to become the representative or incarnation of the Supreme and then speak with a sovereign note. This means that only those who are able to perceive this Truth through enquiry and investigation, can assume the role of the Supreme’s protagonists. Krishna is one such. There were and will be others too. Vasishtha, Valmiki and Kapila are some of the luminaries in this horizon.
This is so, because in the human there exists a layer, a level or a dimension within the body, where this ultimate enquiry and discovery is possible, like the sight of colours is possible for the eyes, and sound for the ears.
Human body hosts such a great Knowledge-dimension. But people, by and large, do not seek and display the glory and potential of this inner dimension. Instead they just take to the immediate though transient delights of sensory objects and remain enslaved to their influences. For them, it seems a mockery to think of or accept any higher spiritual dimension where one becomes Supreme-like.
The superior dimension (param bhava) not being known to them, they ridicule and find fault with the Knowers for what they say and propound. The contradiction will continue. It is a question of difference in perception, difference in the motivations. Why so?
The answer lies in Kathopanishad, the message that Krishna quotes zealously in this dialogue.
The Creator created the senses that have only an outgoing capacity. Caught up in their flair, all begin to perceive and get involved only in the sensory perceptions and thus miss the Source within. A wise man desirous of immortality turns his eyes inward, and beholds the inner Atman.
Our birth is a physical event or outcome. As such, the senses in the body become the first and foremost in one’s life and interactions. The senses have the power only to perceive external things, the objects of the world. Once they begin and get involved in the outward perceptions, the resulting impressions start ruling them. The further perceptions and their impressions instigate subsequent interactions, which cause their impressions. It becomes a ceaseless process.
Where then is the time, occasion or motivation to look within, the source that first employed the senses to perceive the objects? The Subject, as different from the objects, never thus strikes the normal human. Overpowered greatly by the outward objects, he pitiably misses the one internal Subject of them all.
Rarely one, in such countless outward going people, pauses to think of the Subject, the great Source within the body, on which subsists everything and all. Does not what Krishna says become clear now? The conflict and resultant derision on the part of those that do not seek this lofty inner vision will continue. Such people not only slight the Knowers, but also are given to sinful, derogatory ways, that give them scope and freedom to indulge in and enjoy the sensory delights. Every trait they court and get will accordingly be a downgrading one alone (9. 11, 12).
On the other hand, the noble-souled people, hearing or thinking about the lofty dimensions and the Supreme, instantly get inspired and moved by sublime thoughts and words. They wonder about the source and cause of creation, and begin to praise and worship It wholeheartedly. Their love and fondness for the Supreme grow into a ceaseless devotional current of humility and piety. All that they do thereafter is according to this basic bond (9. 13, 14).
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(From Essential Concepts In Bhagavad Gita - Volume 4)