THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 13
VERSE NUMBER 17
KSHETRA KSHETRAJNA VIBHAGA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE DISCRIMINATION OF THE KSHETRA AND THE KSHETRAJNA:
TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:
jyotishaam api taj jyotis tamasah param uchyate
jnaanam jneyam jnaanagamyam hrrdi sarvasya vishtthitam
SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:
jyotishaam = of lights: api = even: tat = that: jyotih = light: tamasah = from darkness: param = beyond: uchyate = is said (to be): jnaanam = knowledge: jneyam = that which is to be known: jnaanagamyam = the goal of knowledge: hrrdi = in the heart: sarvasya = of all: vishtthitam = seated.
TEXT IN ENGLISH:
The Light of all lights, He is said to be beyond darkness; knowledge, the knowable, the goal of knowledge, seated in the hearts of all.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Though the sun and the stars are self-luminous, they lose their luminosity while in Pralaya. Buddhi acquires its power of understanding from the Atman, but it also loses that borrowed faculty; whereas the Atman never loses Its Light. The physical light and darkness, characteristic of the inert matter, do not have any effect on or access to Atman. In pitch darkness, one is not able to see one’s own body and clothing. But that darkness is no hindrance to the self-cognizing its own presence. This self-cognizance is not improved upon by the presence of sunlight. Self-awareness is self-evident. The sunlight and the darkness are perceived by the physical eye because of the light it has acquired from the Atman enshrined in the heart. The senses perceive the mind feels and the intellect cogitates because of the light they get from the Atman.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA PARAMAHAMSA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
He who realizes Iswara in his heart is able to realize Him outside too. He who has not known Him within himself, cannot cognize Him elsewhere. Therefore, he who sees God in his heart sees Him everywhere.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
The Light dwells in the heart of every being. Many of these passages are quotations from the Upanishads. See Svetaasvatara Upanishad., III.8 and 16; Isa Upanishad., 5; Mundaka Upanishad., XIII. 1, 7; Brhadaaranyaka Upanishad IV. 4, 16.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The Supreme Self illumines the intellect, the mind, the sun, moon, stars, fire and lightning. It is self-luminous. “The sun does not shine there, nor do the moon and the stars, nor do these flashes of lightning shine and much less this fire. When It shines, everything shines after It; all these shine by Its Light.” (Kathopanishad 5.15; also Svetasvataropnishad 6.14)
Knowledge: Such as humility. (Cf. XIII.7 to 11)
The knowable: As described in verses 12 to 17.
The goal of knowledge, i.e., capable of being understood by wisdom.
These three are installed in the heart (Buddhi) of every living being. Though the light of the sun shines in all objects, yet the sun’s light shines more brilliantly in all bright and clean objects such as a mirror. Even so, though Brahman is present in all objects, the intellect shines with special effulgence received from Brahman. (Cf. X.20; XIII. 3; XVIII. 61)
Comments by the blogger
The Light of all lights:
Almost all religions describe the Turiya or the Nirguna Brahman as light!
And when we sit, in the beginning, in meditation we see flashes of light between the eyebrows.
Some 30 or 35 years ago, I read in an issue of Reader’s Digest, the monthly magazine, about the experience of those who were declared in various hospitals as clinically dead; many of them died. But some of them regained consciousness and miraculously cured. Such people who were literally at the Death’s door and even entered the passage and experienced God had said to the writer of the article that they saw the Being of Light. In the course of the interview, they all said that in front of such Light the highlights of their individual life on earth were shown to them each! There was a great understanding between them and God; they each had said they could have lived a better life. In some cases, there was humour in God after the highlights were seen by both. The reason why I relate this experience of those lucky souls is that in some cases God said they could go back to the earth and live a better life and thus sent them back! And this was how they after proclaimed as clinically dead, regained consciousness! They all had seen and described God as a great Being of Light!
Light is the property of the sun, and in the Upanishad, God is said to have gone into a meditational mode when He wanted to create the world and created the sky and prana. The unmoving Sky and the Prana, He believed would create the Universe for Him. And thus the whole Universe came into being! And it is also said the outward form of the Prana is the sun. So the sun sends forth Prana to all beings on the earth.
The sun is the cause of Time. The earth, revolving on its axis, also goes round the Sun and this is how there is day and night. And the day and night are divided into twelve hours each. But for the sun, which is the external form of the Prana, there would be no Time.
And the light’s speed is mind-boggling! In a second light travels more than one lakh and eighty thousand kilometres, if I am right. The speed of light contains eternity. How? Albert Einstein proved that to beat the process of ageing one should travel at the speed of the light! Just imagine, if we could travel at the speed of light and one is put on this vehicle and one travels at the speed of light for a hundred human years and then the person lands on the earth safely thanks to that kind of technology, the person would have started to age the moment he landed on the earth! We have created rockets and travelled to the moon some 50 years ago. But to invent a vehicle that could travel at the speed of the light might become possible in some hundred years’ time. And then Man shall have invented eternity of life or immortality on the earth’s plane, having beaten the process of ageing.
And if we magnified an atom to the size of a circus tent, the nucleus of the atom, containing the protons and electrons and other particles, such as the elusive God particles, could be seen at the size of a muster seed! Then what about the rest of the place inside the circus tent? VOID! This is a wonderful thing. So the preponderant portion of an atom is void or the Sky, according to the Upanishad! And the atom’s nucleus could be seen as points of light or a streak of light! This is how the sky and prana have created this Universe for God!
God says that the Light of all lights is seated in the hearts of all.
This heart is not the human heart. The Upanishads call this spectacular HEART AS THE CAVE OF THE HEART. And the cave of the heart is situated just right of the human heart and in the centre of our chest. This cave of heart is full of space and light. Countless Rishis of the Upanishadic period experienced this cave of heart and explained it as equal to the outer Universe! In other words, whatever is there in the Universe is there in the cave which is named as Hrdaya Kuhiya. This cave of the heart is also the seat of Atman or Soul!
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