THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 07, JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION, VERSE NUMBER 07

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 07

JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:

VERSE NUMBER 07

Text in Transliteration:

mattah parataram naa ‘nyat kimchid asti dhanamjaya

mayi sarvam idam protam sootre maniganaa iva

Text in English:

There is nothing whatsoever higher than Me, O Dhananjaya. All this is strung on Me, as rows of gems on a string.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

The producer, the sustainer and the withdrawer of the universe is Iswara. There is no power, extraneous to Him, to interfere with His work, great or small. The gems strung together may vary in colour and species. But the supporting string is the same all through. The universes sustained by the Lord, may, in that fashion, vary in their appearances; but the Sustainer of all of them is the same. Sootra is the Samskrit word for string. The Lord is therefore called the Sootratman, the string-like supporter of the manifested worlds. The Pure Consciousness, which is the substratum of all beings sentient and insentient, is the same.

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

What Brahman is like cannot be grasped by the ordinary mind. He therefore became Arddhanariswara—half-man, half-woman—in order to make Himself knowable to beings. This form of His indicates that Purusha and Prakriti are but two different readings of the same Reality. He has further materialized into the sentient and the insentient. Therefore nothing is alien to Him.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

There is no other higher principle than Isvara who effects everything and is everything. The existences of the world are held together by the Supreme Spirit even as the gems are by the string.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

There is no other cause of the universe but Me. I alone am the cause of the universe. This illustration of gems and thread illustrates only the idea that all beings and the whole world are threaded on the Lord. The thread is not the cause of the gems. As Brahman is all in all there is nothing whatever higher that It.

Comments by the blogger:

There is nothing higher than Me. Both sentient and insentient issue forth from me. Everything here is stringed around me as the gems are stringed around the thread.

It is a crystal clear statement. There is no other power than the Lord. And every one and every thing here is stringed around Him.

This is the difference between Hinduism and other two principal religions, namely Christianity and Mohammedanism. For they contemplate the Satun as giving battle to the Lord. This is because of their half-way understanding of the prakriti or Nature of the Lord. The Lord of Bhagavat Gita says elsewhere that the prakriti or Nature and beings are in Him and He is not contained by them.

This illusory world was the Eden Garden for those other two religions. God created Adam and Eve and gave them the garden, with one stipulation that while they may enjoy the whole garden as they pleased, the forbidden tree(allegory for the sexual parts) in the middle of the Garden should not be used and they should not use the fruits of that tree. But the Satun came in the form of a Serpent and corrupted Eve’s mind. God does not want you two to become as great like him, it says. Eve corrupts Adam’s mind and senses and they both eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden(Garden standing for the human body). When Eve and Adam make sexual intercourse there comes forth the original sin. And etc, etc.

But in Hinduism, the Lord says categorically that there is no other being greater than Him. He is all in all. And His prakriti or Nature sways the beings’ senses. There is no idea of Satun. But there is an idea of illusion. And those who worship God and indulge in Karma Yoga or other form of Yoga enumerated in Gita can overcome the illusion of this gross world.

Not only that. Such a liberated being can become one with God. Here also the Hiduism diametrically differs from the two other principal religions.