THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER 09, VERSE 19, RAJAVIDYA RAJAGUHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF SOVEREIGN SCIENCE AND SOVEREIGN SECRET

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 09

RAJAVIDYA RAJAGUHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF SOVEREIGN SCIENCE AND SOVEREIGN SECRET:

VERSE NUMBER 19

Text in Transliteration:

tapaamy aham aham varsham nigrhnaamy utsrjaami cha

amrtam chai va mrtyus cha sad asach chaa ‘ham arjuna

Text in English:

I give heat, I withhold and send forth the rain; I am immortality and death; I am being as well as non-being, O Arjuna.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

As the Immanent Reality, the working of Iswara in and through the Cosmos has its glory. As the sun, the Lord gives heat and as sun-rays He is the cause of the rain commencing and ceasing. Based on the fruits of karma, the Lord is the seeming immortality of the Devas and the death of the human beings; the former is in fact, as evanescent as the latter. Both of these transitory states are helpful to train the Jivatman (human being) and make him fit for enlightenment. In His manifested state the Lord is the being of the Cosmos and in His unmanifested state He is the non-being. The non-being should not be construed as nihility.

The effect of the fruit-motivated action is depicted in the next stanza.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Cp. Rig Veda: yasyachaayaa amrtam yasya mrtyuh:

Sat is the absolute reality and asat is the cosmic existence and the Supreme is both. He is being when manifested and non-being when the world is unmanifested.

Ramanuja explains sat as present existence and asat as past and future existence.

The main idea is that the Supreme Lord grants our prayers in whatever form we worship Him.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

I radiate heat in the form of the sun. I send forth the rain in the form of Indra in the rainy season and I take it back during the rest of the year.

Sat: Existence, the manifested world (the effect)

Asat: Non-existence, the unmanifested (the cause)

Non-existence does not mean nothingness. The subtle, unmanifested cause is spoken of as non-existence. The Self or Brahman or the Eternal can never be altogether non-existence. It always exists. It is Existence absolute. If you say that the subtle unmaifested cause is nothing, it is impossible to conceive existence coming out of nothing. The Chandogya Upanishad asks, “How can existence come out of non-existence?” It is simply absurd to conceive that existence has arisen out of non-existence (nothing).

For a Vedantin (student or follower of Vedanta) Brahman (the Absolute) is Sat (existence) because It always exists and because It is unchanging. This manifested world is Asat or unreal. For the worldly-minded people who have neither understanding nor knowledge of Brahman, who are endowed with gross and impure mind, who do not have a sharp and subtle intellect, and who can perceive the gross form only, this manifested world is the Sat and the subtle unmanifested Mula-Prakriti (the primordial Nature), the cause of this manifested world, is Asat. For them Brahman also is Asat. The unmanifested refers to Mula-Prakriti and Para Brahman also because both are hidden.

Every object has three states, viz., the gross (Sthula), the subtle (Sukshma) and the causal (Karana). Mahakarana (the great causeless cause) is Para Brahman. The gross and the subtle states are the effects of Karana. What you see outside is the physical body. This physical body is moved by the astral (the subtle) body made up of the mind, life-force and the senses. The causal body is the seed-body. From this seed-body have sprung the subtle and the gross bodies. Take the case of an orange. The outer skin is its physical body; the inner pulp or essence is the subtle body; the innermost causal body which gives rise to the pulp and the outer skin is the seed. This is only a gross illustration. The orange has got another kind of subtle and causal bodies. The worldly-minded man beholds the physical body only and takes this as the Truth. For him, the astral and the causal bodies are unreal.