THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 07
JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:
VERSE NUMBER 10
Text in Transliteration:
beejam maam sarvabhootaanaam viddhi paartha sanaatanam
buddhir buddhimataam asmi tejas tejasvinaam aham
Text in English:
Know Me, O Partha, as the eternal seed of all beings; I am the intelligence of the intelligent; the splendour of the splendid.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
The constant source is otherwise known as the eternal seed. The ocean is the eternal seed of the clouds that appear and disappear. The Lord is this wise the source of all beings. He being eternal, the varieties of beings coming into existence is inevitable and endless. Having a reverential attitude to all of them amounts to the adoration of their Source, the Lord.
Beings are classified as the high and the low in accordance with the intelligence evident in them. Clarification of the intelligence is one of the noble purposes of life. As it gets clarified the cognizance of the Atman becomes clear. He who fully understands Brahman becomes himself Brahman. In whomsoever there is intelligence, it has to be adored, even as the Lord is adored.
Tejas and Ojas are both splendours born of the ethical and spiritual excellence. While the latter is internal and invisible, the former is patent on the body, particularly the face. Being endowed with this splendour is no accident, fluke or oddity of nature. It is the outcome of the divine life that one lives. The spiritual splendour is itself the presence of the lord evoking adoration.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Seed means ‘cause’
Tejas also means ‘heroism’ or ‘bravery’.
Had Arjuna asked, “Who is the seed for Thee?”, the Lord would have replied, “There is no seed for Me. There is no cause for Me. I am the source of everything. I am the Causeless Cause. I am the primeval Being”.
VERSE NUMBER 11
Text in Transliteration:
Balam balavataam asmi kaama raaga vivarjitam
Dharmaaviruddho bhooteshu kaamo ‘smi bharata rshbha
Text in English:
I am the strength of the strong devoid of desire and passion. In beings I am desire, not contrary to dharma, O chief of the Bharatas.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Kaama or desire is the hankering of the mind for objects that are invisible and not yet obtained, while raaga or passion is the clinging and craving for the visible and obtained objects. That strength is abused which directed towards the fulfilment of desire and passion. On the other hand, the strength utilized on noble and holy causes gets sanctified. The doings of Ravana and Rama are examples of the abuse and proper use of strength.
Desire as such is not a vice. The desire to eat is a sanctioned one when it is prompted by hunger. The desire for self-emulation is a virtue; the desire to excel another in good conduct is laudable. The keen desire to obtain the grace of the Lord is a divine gift and a prelude to God-vision.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Why does the mind deviate when one sits in meditation? it is due to base desires. A fly sits now on sacramental food and next on filth. But the case of the bee is different. It sits on a blossom or in its hive and nowhere else. The worldly minded sadhakas or practitioners are like the house fly and the Paramahamsas like the bee. The former are occasionally devoted and the latter ever devoted to the Lord.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
kamaraga; desire and pain. Shankara distinguishes kama as desire for what is absent and raga as affection for what one has obtained. Desire as such is not evil. Selfish desire requires to be rooted out. The desire for union with the Divine is not wrong. Chandogya Upanishad refers to desires as essentially real (satya), though overlaid by what is inreal (anrta), VIII, 3. Our desires and activities, if they are expressive of the spirit in us and derive from the true spiritual personality, become a pure overflowing of the Divine will.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Kama: Desire for those objects that come in contact with the senses.
Raga: attachment for those objects that come in contact with the senses.
I am that strength which is necessary for the bare sustenance of the body. I am not the strength which generates desire and attachment for sensual objects as in the case of worldly-minded persons. I am the desire which is in accordance with the teachings of the scriptures or the code prescribing the duties of life. I am the desire for moderate eating and drinking, etc., which are necessary for the sustenance of the body and which help one in the practice of Yoga.
Comments by the blogger:
The Lord of Gita says He is the sapidity in water, and He is the radiance in moon and sun; in all Vedas He is the syllable OM. That He is sound in ether and manliness in man. That He is the sweet fragrance in earth and brilliance in the fire; that He is the life in all beings and the austerity in ascetics. He is the eternal seed of all beings; that He is the intelligence of the intelligent and the splendour of the splendid. That He is the strength of the strong devoid of desire and passion. In beings, He is desire, not contrary to dharma, O chief of the Bharatas.
What is the Lord doing in verses 8 to 11? Is He blowing His own trumpet?
Oh, No!
Then what?
We often tend to think God is in some antiseptic chamber far removed from the world and beings He created!
We should never forget the Great Sentence, Thou Art That.
He is the life in all beings, Man, and Beasts. He is very much here and available. One of the qualities of the Lord is His easy accessibility. He is neither removed or wants to be seen as removed from this world.
Then why is the Lord says He is the sapidity in water and so on and not he is the water in the ditch?
For example, in Chennai, there is a famous Temple that is known as Parthasarathi Temple. Another Temple is kabaleeshwarar Temple at Mylapore. Generally, in Hindu Temples they offer something to the Lord and the Presiding Deity and then distribute the same to the devotees after the offering is done and pooja is performed. And the devotees treat the consecrated food as the Bhagavan or God or the Presiding Deity Himself or Herself and partake of it very reverently. In the very same Chennai, there is an open gutter that goes by the name, Cooum River. Now, if the Lord is there in the consecrated food, who is in the Cooum River?
In both the only person fully present is the Lord Himself!
But we cannot even think of it this way. But it stands to the tatva darshan or philosophic attitude. Sri Krishna is fully present in the good and bad. If He is not in the Cooum River then He becomes extraneous to it. Then who or what is in it?
For even in the ditch water, there are millions of trillions of beings. As per the adumbrations of the Lord in these verses, He is very much there in all beings. Then it stands to reason and philosophy that he is present in everything here. Whether we see it as good or bad or nauseating or with good fragrance the Lord only fills up all here. Otherwise, we should argue that in the ditch God is not present but the Devil is present.
This kind of argument will lead to the conclusion that God is there in something and the Devil is there at some other thing. We see pigs eating the night soil. To it the thing is good food. If it has an articulation power, it will certainly say so.
Once I wondered that being God is not an easy and even enjoyable thing.
That thought occupied me for some days.
God is the Being most reverently worshipped and most passionately detested in the world.
While on one side He receives flowers on the other He receives brickbats. For every person who says there is God there is another person who argues He is not anywhere, but just a pigment of our imagination. I thought being God was not an easy thing.
Moreover, I thought He has to be present in everything here. Cooum River is a great open air gutter in Chennai. God has to be present in it! Gosh! Who wants to be God!
In good thing and bad thing, He has to be present. In beautiful ladies, He is there. But He has to be there in old ugly hags.
In Kolkota ghetto the Lord Has to be Present. In the night soil, He has to be present!
So not only in the consecrated food offered and distributed in Temples but everywhere He has to be present.
This thought occupied me well over a week and then one day I thought to myself the thing about the Serpent and the Rope.
For there are people who see all the material things as real and they work out their karmic effect taking the material world as real. And there are more refined people and philosophers who think about the world or the whole Universe as a beautiful THOUGHT by the Lord. And they have to work out their karmic effects accordingly. They don’t want to see the Serpent in a length of rope! Then it goes without saying that every individual thing here is an illusion. Nothing here is material except our Soul. Then I thought indeed being God was a jolly good thing.
But why then the Lord does not say, “I am in the Cooum water or ditch?
Or to come back to the beginning of this argument, which is more holy—the consecrated food distributed in Parthasarathi and Kabaleeshwar Temples or the water of nauseating quality like the cooum river? To a refined devotee, both are the manifestations of the Lord.
Then why the Lord does not make any claim as to his presence in the ditch water and fragrant flower?
It is for our good only.
How?
God is there in the consecrated food as well as the night soil. But it takes a lot to worship Him in the night soil and very very easy to discern Him in the flowers and food offered to the Lord. That is why the Lord lays claim to be present only in those things which can easily capture our mind.
Never forget: this world is a material one for those who claim to be so and a beautiful thought of the Lord for those discerning philosophers.
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