THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 13
VERSE NUMBER 16
KSHETRA KSHETRAJNA VIBHASGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE KSHETRA AND THE KSHETRAJNA:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
avibhaktam cha bhooteshu vibhaktam iva cha sthitam
bhoota bhartrr cha taj jneyam grasishnu prabhavishnu cha
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
avibhktam = undivided: cha = and: bhooteshu = in beings: vibhaktam = divided: iva = as if: cha = and: sthitam = exizting: bhoota bhartrr: the supporter of being: cha = and: tat = that: jneyam = to be known: grasishnu = devouring: prabhavishnu = generating: cha = and:
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
He is undivided and yet He seems to be divided in beings. He is to be known as the supporter of beings. He devours and He generates.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The aakaasa (the sky) is all pervading. Yet it appears as if divided into the innumerable forms. The fact is that it expands undivided while seeming as if divided. Even such is the case with the Paramatman. As aakaasa or the sky is the support to the remaining four elements, Paramatma the universal Consciousness is the support to the Jagat and the Jivatman. In Pralaya they merge into the Paramatman. In creation, they reappear in the Paramatman. They are not exterior to the Paramatman in creation, preservation and destruction. As the waves come up, stay and disappear in the sea, these manifest things and beings are either patent or latent in the Lord.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
A holy man once saw clouds appearing suddenly in the clear sky and disappearing again, blown by the wind. This sight threw him into raptures. He exclaimed: “Brahman is Contentless Consciousness like the clear sky. As clouds appear in the latter, the universe of beings appears in the former and then disappears too! Brahman remains ever Itself.”
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Cp. Dionysius: “Undivided in things divided.” All things derive from Him, are supported by Him and taken back into Him.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Brahman must be regarded as That which supports, swallows up and also creates all beings, in the three forms of Brahma who creates the world of names and forms, Vishnu who preserves or sustains, and Rudra who destroys. It is undivided in the various bodies. It is like ether. It is indivisible and the One, but It seems to divide Itself in forms and appears as all the separate existing things and beings. It is essentially unbroken. Yet, It is, as it were, divided among all beings.
It devours this world during the cosmic dissolution. It generates it at the time of the origin of the next age. It supports all bodies. Just as the one space appears to be different through the limiting adjuncts (pot, house, etc.) so also the one indivisible Brahman appears to be different through the limiting adjuncts (the body, etc.). (Cf. XVIII.20)
An objector says: “The knowable Brahman, the Knower of the field, is all-pervading. It exists everywhere and yet It is not perceived. Therefore It must be of the nature of darkness or Tamas.”
The answer is: “No. It cannot be”
“What then?” “It is the Light of lights.”
Comments by the blogger:
All the beings, the flower and fauna, are filled pervasively by one Atman. We cannot even say one Atman. Because the Spirit or Nirguna Brahman is the Atman. And He has filled all the beings here on the earth’s plane. And those who can not conceptualise the One Atman as filling all beings here might say the Nirguna Brahman is divided. If that were true there must be as many Atman(s) as there are beings. And elsewhere in the Gita the Lord of Gita proclaims that He fills all the beings and non-beings here on the earth and the heavenly bodies in the sky! Then the ignorant ones will be forced to think that there are as many Atman(s) as there are beings and non-beings!
Nothing can be far from the Truth.
Truth is but one. And it seems to be having many faces.
All the humanity and the animals and all the heavenly bodies in this mighty Universe are filled by One Atman only. And that is called the Universal Soul. And there is no division between the Universal Soul and the Brahman! Both is one and the same. One comes into being as embodied, the Universal Soul. And the other ever remains without Name and Form. One is called the Saguna Brahman and the other is called the Nirguna Brahman. Though it appears to be divided, there indeed is no division in Brahman.
From Brahman issues forth all the Universe which includes all the beings and non-beings. And after the Creation of the Universe, the remainder is still FULL. Occupying this Universe pervasively, which seems to be divided and can only be thought of in terms of names and forms, the other Soul, which is nothing but the Spirit seems different from the One with the names and forms. Sri Shankarar says it is the case of the rope appearing as the serpent.
One Brahman which is pure Spirit also appears as the Universe and all the beings and non-beings.
So what should be understood by this?
All the beings share but one and Only Atman or Brahman! There can never be as many Atman(s) as there are beings. And even the animals are filled with the very same Atman! When this point is meditated upon by a Sadhaka or the Practitioner, there will be a great inner revolution in the way we look at the fellow human beings. All are our brothers and sisters. Just nobody, even the lowest of the low economically, socially and in spiritual culture, can be different from us. The horrendous rapists of Nirbhaya in Delhi share the same Atman as we do share with the teeming millions of beings in this wide world! The begger in Ethiopia or the abject sinner in some other country are our brothers and sisters! This Cosmic Culture must be thought and pondered over repeatedly so that this realisation sinks into the Sub-conscious. When this realisation enters the subconscious, we cannot afford to differentiate between us and other beings. So we are all one and the same inasmuch as we share One Atman universally and this realisation will surely alter the way we look upon not just our neighbours but all in this world. And that would be the starting point of the inner or spiritual culture.
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