Contemplation on Power of animation
With a few striking words Krishna emphasizes that the brilliance called ‘life’ is no other than the eternal supreme Reality itself, the one Great Divinity enfolding and sustaining the whole creation. His effort is to awaken the sādhaka to the importance of understanding the majesty and magnificence of the supreme Power that resides within the body – a point that eludes most people, even seekers.
The Soul (jīva) manifesting the power called ‘life’ abiding in the body is eternal and a part of the supreme Reality itself. It draws the five senses and the mind from the elemental nature.
And like wind carrying fragrances from their seats, it takes away these six powers while exiting from the body.
The supreme Reality from which the visible creation has emanated, which interpenetrates the whole manifold existence, is itself imperceptible to the senses and even inconceivable to begin with. As such the whole grandeur is inaccessible to human comprehension.
But the supreme Reality manifests as the power or spirit called life. It is as though a part of the Supreme has itself become life or the enlivening power that animates and activates one’s body. It is something to be contemplated upon, conceived in its full potential and glory. In fact, this is the only goal of spiritual sādhanā.
While the body is mortal, this animating power is immortal (sanātanaḥ). Where there is life, there alone we find the glory of the Supreme manifest. So Krishna says that the supreme Reality has become the manifest jīva (life) and jivabhūtaḥ (living power). In earth, where survive various kinds of life forms, the Supreme has manifested as life and animation.
To have a glimpse of the profundity, potency and grandeur of this inner power as a distinct expression of the Supreme, Krishna draws attention to the fact that the whole group of senses, as well as their powers, is evolved by this Power of Animation. He speaks of the senses as six (ṣaṣṭhāni-indriyāṇi). Of these eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin constitute the five. And mind itself is the sixth. Mind is called a sense because, like the other senses, its function also is to perceive. The bodily senses perceive outer objects, whereas the internal mind perceives internal processes like thoughts, feelings, emotions, memory, etc. In both cases it is perception or comprehension that takes place.
This inner Power of Animation is what holds the power of the senses. The senses left to themselves are inert. To illustrate this fact, Krishna says that when the life-forces depart, the senses, which were till then functional become functionless. A person’s eyes and ears may be quite healthy, intact. Suddenly, if his life forces become inoperative making him dead, neither the senses nor the mind will be active in him thereafter. At the same time, if a healthy part, like the cornea, is taken out and grafted to a blind person, then the latter begins to see.
That which could not bring about vision in the dead body, suddenly enables vision in a living body. What does this mean? The actual perception is not just due to the sense organs, but the perceiving Spirit within. Hearing, seeing, holding, tasting, smelling and touching are actually the powers and potentials of the animating agent, the life itself, and not of the senses. This is a point people mostly fail to grasp.
Can we imagine such a magnificent source that holds all these powers? It can only be something great, stupendous, incomprehensible and transcendental! Every sense is unique and exclusive in its place and function. Take the eye for instance. It can only see, not hear or smell or feel or taste. Very small though, the eye is capable of observing infinite distances and variety. That is how we are able to see the sun, moon, stars and the rest in great distances. We also have a clear vision of the endless sky.
Notions like infinitude, endlessness, manifoldness, multiple dimensions etc. are brought about by the eyes alone. But the eyes are just external perishable instruments in the process of external comprehension. What verily employs the eyes and other senses, connects them with the objects around and causes comprehension, is the Power of animation in the body, which is invisible, internal and supra-material.
To have a glimpse of it, Krishna first of all takes the seeker to the instance of death, when suddenly all the sensory functions cease. Though physically sense organs are healthy and can fulfill their roles, life spirit being absent, they become useless. This implies that it is the Power of animation that empowers senses as well as renders them powerless.
The same Power also generates the entire physical aggregate called the body. For example, how does a foetus grow in the womb? Right from the moment of fertilization of female ovum by male sperm, there is no external interference at all in empowering growth of the fertilized ovum. Power and potential that brings about growth of each part, organ and its function in the foetus is not at all external.
Blood cells from the mother at best carry food and nourishment for the foetus to grow. All the cells are just physical in nature. In fact, blood itself is generated from food and nourishment that the mother takes in response to her hunger, thirst and taste. All the food substances are inert. But when digested and assimilated in the alimentary canal, they become hot living blood in a few hours. Who administers this livingness to the food substances taken by us?
Evidently it is the potential and Power of animation itself. The same potential is what formulates the various organs and parts of the body. Eyes are its handicraft. Ears and other senses too. The same is the truth about hands, feet and other physical organs and their functions. Together they enable an adult individual to interact with this endless world, comprehend its infinite magnitude, think, know, probe into virtually any sphere of this endlessness.
To whom or which factor can this be attributed? Initially to the body and its parts. But when one thinks about death, which makes the body useless, then he is obliged to think of the inlying Power of animation, which alone holds the key to this multiple potential. And this Power, the jīva, is but a part of the supreme Reality itself. In a way it is the Lord of Nature, whose manifestation this huge endless world is.
Krishna said, when death befalls the body, jīva transits taking the power of the senses away with it. He had explained it in the second chapter too. Just as one removes used clothes and puts on fresh ones, so does the Soul leave the body and take to another. There also Krishna has used the word saṃyāti, as in this verse. This is more to make the seeker think of the jīva as different from the body and the senses.
Right introspection leads to enlightenment
Once this body-different nature of the Soul is grasped, the seeker has to develop his understanding properly. The body-different Soul will never be affected by any of the changes the body undergoes. Thus it is birth-free and death-free. In the same manner, while associated with the body too, it is unaffected in all the conditions like growth and decay.
As fire, blazing through many media, does not get the least affected by the character or plights of the media, the jiva too because of its pristine nature is not at all affected by the various plights of the body. The same idea he makes clearer in the next verse:
By presiding over the ear, eye, skin, tongue and nose and also the mind, it enjoys the multiple qualities of world objects.
Dwelling in the elemental body, which it has shaped itself, jiva experiences the world objects through the five senses and the mind. Here, the senses and the body fulfill the role of instruments or media. No experience belongs to any of these instruments, which are but means to contact the objects. In interacting with the objects around as well as getting the imprints of these, the senses and the body are merely employed by the jiva.
Think of a driver who runs a vehicle. The vehicle alone moves forward, backward, to the right or left. The driver makes it move variously, himself not undergoing any of those motions.
Those under the spell of ignorance fail to perceive the Soul either while departing from or residing in the body or while experiencing the sensory objects, associated with the three guṇas. But those with the eye of wisdom do perceive it.
Krishna adds that only due to sheer delusion, people in general, miss the presence of the jiva. There are three instances, occurring repeatedly, through one of which at least the seeker can gain access to the Soul. The first is when death befalls the body, making it insensitive and useless. Following death, although the body remains warm for a while, does not all sensation and activity cease abruptly?
Secondly, living itself is a clear evidence of the Soul. For, every one refers to himself as ‘I’. The ‘I’ is obviously not the body. It is also not the senses, the mind or even the intelligence. We refer to all these as ‘mine’, indicating clearly that ‘I’, the wielder of all these, is inmost and something different. What is that ‘nominative case’ existence, to which mind, intelligence, body and senses, together with all that they do, are related? This question should normally occur to any rational person! But seldom one thinks deeply about it.
Thirdly, think of sleep, during which everyone totally forgets his body, mind and intelligence. He wakes up to say that he did not know anything at all. Obviously, the knower of the sleep state is different from the body, for during sleep the body remains un-sensed.
Though all these states are equally available for all, the sense of enquiry is not there. Thus they remain deluded.
The only way to remove such delusion is to take up the enquiry and be dedicated to it until the intelligence gets properly enlightened. When the seeker is able to have the eye of Knowledge, the Soul-presence within the body will be revealed to him without any doubt or lack of clarity.
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(From Essential Concepts in Bhagavad Gita - Volume 5)