Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Apareyam itas tv anyam prakritim viddhi me param, jiva-bhutam maha-baho yayedam dharyate jagat (7.5): “What I have mentioned to you up to this time as the eightfold constituents of the cosmos are lower categories; but there is something which is higher – through which, by which, I sustain the cosmos.” It is not enough if we have only these categories, just as building material does not make the building. It has to be synthesised, organised, given a living touch by a mason or an architect; only then the building material becomes a house to live in. So, all these that have been mentioned as the eight constituents are the building bricks of the cosmos. They are the material; but who will build the house? “I myself build it by entering into it as the mason, as it were, and giving life to it.” Unless there is a cohesive force, there cannot be the coming together of the discrete items which are prakriti’s constituents.

As cement is necessary to bring together all the bricks into a coherent structure, something is necessary to bring all these eight things into a state of harmony and unity of purpose, as they themselves cannot achieve it. Here there is earth, here there is water, here there is fire, but it does not make a cosmos – just as here we have a bone, here we have flesh, here we have blood, but it does not make a human being. There is something else in man, other than his anatomy or physiology, which makes him a man, a human being. Man is not anatomy and physiology. There is something else in him which is called humanity. That is the life principle which gives value to the physical structure of the body. In the same way, there is something which gives value to the elements of the cosmos. Jivabhutam mahabaho yaydem dharyate jagat: “I become the cosmic jiva.” As cement holds the bricks together and the building does not crumble, “I as the jiva tattva of the cosmos, the vitality of the cosmos, keep all these elements in unison so that you see a universe rather than chaos.” We do not see building material spread out everywhere; we see a structure beautifully placed before us as this wondrous creation – grand, very systematic, working as methodically and precisely as mathematics.

We see how science is able to predict certain consequences of present contingencies in nature on account of there being a mathematical precision and positivity in the working of nature. ‘If we do this now, tomorrow this will happen to us’ – and this also applies morally, ethically, socially and medically because there is a connection between the present condition and the future condition of the body and the mind. As there cannot be a connection unless there is a vital principle, Lord Krishna says, “I myself act as the cosmic vitality.” Here jivabhuta does not mean ordinary, individual jiva; it means cosmic jiva. This cosmic jiva tattva has been given various names in the different schools of thought. Vedanta generally calls these stages of the entry of God into the materials of creation as Isvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat. God enters through these gradations. The Atman enters this body and gives it life through the karana sarira, sukshma sarira, etc. In the same way, the cosmos becomes a living organic entity, beautiful to look at and meaningful in every way, when the Universal Consciousness enters into it. Hence, that higher principle is a greater prakriti than the eight lower ones mentioned earlier.

Etad yonini bhutani sarvanity upadharaya, aham kritsnasya jagatah prabhavah pralayas tatha (7.6). We may consider all these things to be instrumental in the production of the cosmos. They are everything. Whatever we touch, whatever we feel, whatever we see in this universe is just these eight principles operating “with the help of Me who invisibly animates the whole cosmos. But, finally, I shall tell you I am everything. I can dismantle this universe if I wish, and if I withdraw Myself from the universal structure, it will crumble and fall like an old house whose cement has deteriorated. But I am very active and do not allow the universe to disintegrate into bits of matter. I shall tell you the truth.” Aham kritsnasya jagatah prabhavah pralayastatha: “I am the origin and the sustenance of the whole universe. I not only created this and brought it into being, but I also maintain it. I created the universe with My will, and I sustain it as My own soul.”

This body is sustained by the entry of the soul into the mind, intellect, etc. We are physically alive because of the Atman inside. That Atman does not directly interfere with the bodily structure. It works incidentally, successively through its permeation in the three kosas – the mind, intellect, and prana – in the same way as the cosmic structure is also maintained through certain gradations and subtleties of the descent of the one God.

In the Panchadasi and other Vedantic scriptures, much is told to us about the way in which Brahman becomes Isvara, Isvara becomes Hiranyagarbha, Hiranyagarbha becomes Virat. The illustration given in the Sixth Chapter of the Panchadasi is that Brahman is like a clean cloth. Isvara is like the very same cloth stiffened with starch. The painter cannot paint directly on the cloth. The cloth must first be stiffened. Starch is applied to the cloth – that is, the cloth assumes a concretised form, as it were. It is not the pure cloth that it was, but cloth is still there as the base. Without the cloth, there cannot be the starchiness; but without the starch, the cloth cannot be a good background for any painting. Similarly, there cannot be a movie in a cinema without the screen. Though we are not going to the cinema to see the screen, we know very well how important the screen is. The painting on the canvas is very attractive indeed and we go on looking at it, but we never think of the background on which the painting has been made. We never recognise its existence, just as we do not think of the building’s foundation when we look at it.

This foundation is the cloth, and it gradually stiffens itself into a will to create, just as the cloth is stiffened by the application of starch. That stiffened form, which is the will of Brahman, as they call it, is Isvara tattva. Then what does the painter do? After the cloth is stiffened with starch, he draws an outline of the picture that he will paint; with a pencil or a slight touch of ink, he draws an outline. This outline of the universe which is not yet fully manifest is Hiranyagarbha. We have a faint idea as to what will be the character of the universe that is going to be created, even as by seeing the pencil drawing, we can know what the painter is actually going to paint. The full painting is the Virat. The drawing on the canvas is filled with ink of various colours, and then we have the beautiful picture of the painting. This is the Virat – the whole cosmos looking so beautiful, the finest and the most complete manifestation of that which was only an outline in Hiranyagarbha, and which was only the will to create in Isvara, with Brahman as the background. Aham kritsnasya jagatah prabhavah pralayas tatha.

The cloth can say that it is the entire painting because without it there would be no painting at all. Though we see only the painting and do not appreciate or even think of the cloth on which it is made, where would the painting be without the cloth? In the same way, Isvara, Hiranyagarbha and Virat – this beautiful creation that we see – cannot exist if there is no universal background which is Brahman. Brahman is totally invisible, as is the cloth behind the painting, but it is very, very substantial; and without it, nothing can be. Therefore, Lord Krishna says, “I am everything. I am the origin and the sustenance of this cosmos.”

Mattah parataram nanyat kinchid asti dhananjaya (7.7). Very emphatically the Lord says, “Nothing outside Me can exist, not even this universe.” He becomes very bold now and even transcends the universe by saying, “Even this universe that I have been describing to you cannot be there without Me; and higher than Me, nothing can be.” Parataram can mean ‘external to Me’ or ‘higher than Me’. “Beyond Me, there is nothing. Outside Me, there is nothing. There is nothing either as the fourteen worlds, or the gods in heaven, or what is called prakriti; nothing of that kind can be outside Me.”

Now the Sankhya has been transcended. The Purusha Supreme is speaking: “Prakriti cannot be outside Me.” But the Sankhya says that prakriti is immortal, that it is as indestructible as purusha itself. If that is the case, there is a predicament regarding the relationship between consciousness and matter, purusha and prakriti, which is transcended here in the Vedanta of the Bhagavadgita. “I transcend everything, even prakriti, and it cannot exist without Me. It cannot even be outside Me, let alone without Me.” If that is the case, if the whole cosmos is not outside God, then it is permeated by God, by the immanence of God, and every atom in the cosmos dances with the power of the Soul which it assumes from the Almighty Himself: mattah parataram nanyat kinchid asti dhananjaya.

Mayi sarvam idam protam sutre mani-gana iva: “As beads are strung on a thread, the whole universe is strung on Me.” The beads cannot become a garland or a mala unless there is a thread. “There would be no cohesion, no principle, no meaning, no future, and no sense in anything if there was no thread underneath to connect the little bits of creation. I am that thread – the Supreme Soul – and, therefore, I am everything.”