Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Balam balavatam chaham (7.11): Whoever has got tremendous strength, that strength comes from the permeation of the cosmic energy through the body by the permutation and combination of physical particles or cells of the person. The more we are free from kama and raga, the stronger will we be. The more are we infested with desire or kama and raga – attachment and desire – the weaker will we be in our memory, in our mind, in our understanding, in our intellect, and in our body. Strength, even physical strength, can be seen to be superior in its manifestation in tapasvins than in bhogis, or indulgent persons. When people indulge too much through the sense organs, the mind and the sentiments become weak. Only the self-controlled are really strong. They are indefatigable. There is a divine sakti operating in strong people, the strength coming from tapas, or the freedom that one has from raga, dvesha, kama, raga. The greater the desire to indulge in the sense organs, in the objects of sense and in the attachment to things, the weaker we become. The less the attachment and the desire of the senses to plunge into activity and contact with things, the less is the sense activity. The greater the energy inside, the stronger we become, and we will never be tired.

Kama-raga-vivarjitam, dhamaviruddho bhuteshu kamo’smi bharatarshabha (7.11). We desire always That; and there are varieties of desires within That. A desire which is not opposed to dharma is an evocation from God Himself. If God were not present in some form in our desires, we would not have even the desire to attain God. When the desire gets diversified and split into fragments, as it were, when it passes through the sense organs, it becomes contaminated by the vicious forces of centrifugality; and that becomes a binding medium for the individual manifesting such a desire in an externalised form. If the desire is integrating – if there is a desire to unselfishly serve people in the world, if there is a desire to study scriptures, if there is a desire to sit alone and meditate, if there is a desire to be alone to oneself and not be in the midst of people, if there is a desire to unite oneself with the Cosmic Being – these also are desires, but they are in consonance with the dharma, or the unifying principle, of the cosmos. “Such desires are Myself manifesting through you.” This is not the type of desire that is mentioned in the previous line as depleting our energy and decreasing our strength. Dharmaviruddho bhuteshu kamo’smi bharatarshabha. Dharma, artha, kama and moksha are the four objectives of life; and when they are blended in the proper proportion, they become the energy that is necessary for us to rocket forth to the Supreme Absolute.

Ye chaiva sattvika bhava rajasas tamasas cha ye, matta eveti tan viddhi na tvaham teshu te mayi (7.12): “Even the good things and the bad things seem to be really there due to My presence in them in some positive or negative manner.” People say that the world is unreal, that it does not exist. There cannot be a consciousness of the non-existence of the world unless it exists in some form, because if the world is not there at all, there is no necessity for us to say it does not exist. We have a suspicion that it exists and, therefore, we say it does not exist. If it is really not there, why should we go on saying it does not exist? Even appearance cannot appear to us unless there is a reality behind it, as a snake cannot appear unless there is a rope on which it appears. The world may be an appearance, but how do we know that it is an appearance unless there is a reality behind it? Appearance per se cannot be known at all as an appearance. The knowledge of there being such a thing as an appearance implies that the appearance contacts the reality, and it shines in borrowed feathers.

The qualities of sattva, rajas and tamas are the activities of prakriti – which correspond to light or radiance, desire, and torpidity of nature – and are various degrees of the manifestation of the Supreme Absolute. For instance, the Absolute exists in stone. Stone exists. It is. This is-ness, or the existence of stone, is due to the existence of something behind it – the be-ness, as we call it. Stone exists, but it cannot think. There is no consciousness in it. It cannot even know that it exists. The existence aspect of the Absolute is manifest in inanimate things like stone. The life principle, which is vitality, is manifest in plants and trees, which breathe and feel hunger and thirst. The consciousness aspect in a translucent – not transparent – form manifests itself in animals in the form of instinct; and in a more perspicuous way, consciousness – chit – manifests itself in the intelligence of the human being.

Thus, in the process of evolution, existence gradually becomes consciousness. But bliss is not fully manifest in the human individual. We have existence, we have consciousness, but we are not happy people. That is because our consciousness is mixed with a little of rajas and tamas. We are over-active in an externalised sense, taking the world as a total reality that is external to us. This causes distraction of the mind and senses to such an extent that the integral bliss of the Absolute cannot manifest itself in us. Thus the human being, though called the image of God, is only an image to some extent in the existence and the consciousness aspects. The consciousness in the human being is distracted. Full insight is not available. But the bliss is completely obliterated. The bliss aspect of the Absolute is manifest in some way in the deep sleep state, where the mind and the sense organs do not operate. How can we be so happy in the condition of deep sleep, which is uncontaminated by the powers of the senses and the mind, and where we have no food to eat, no friends to talk to, no world to think, and nothing whatsoever? In that state we are practically annihilated; and the bliss of that self-annihilation far supersedes all the best conceivable happiness of even an emperor. All these things can be found in great detail in the Panchadasi.

Therefore, whether these manifestations are sattvika, rajasa or tamasa, or even the so-called evil things in the world, they can exist only if there is an existent aspect to them. Evil cannot exist unless God’s existence permeates it. The distortion that is the characteristic of the outer form of it makes it evil or a sin, but it cannot be unless the be-ness of God is at the back of it. Ye chaiva sattvika bhava rajas as tamasas cha ye api chedasi papebhyah sarvebhyah papa-krittamah (4.36): “Whatever is sattvika, whatever is rajasa, and whatever is the worst of things conceivable, it manifests from Me. I am at the back of it. I am the destructive power also.”

Matta eveti tan viddhi: “Know that everything – sattva, rajas, tamas, and all their permutations and combinations – manifests from Me. They are in Me, but I am not in them.” Natvaham teshu te mayi. Existence-consciousness is present in name and form, but name and form is not in existence. The variety is in the unity, but the unity is not in the variety. The integrality is present in the diversity, but the diversity is not in the integrality. God is in all things, but things are not in God. This is a peculiarity which we have to note when God says, “Everything is in Me, but I am not in anything.” This is because all particulars hang on the Universal. The particulars cannot exist unless the Universal is there, but the Universal can exist without the particulars. The Universal can exist without the particulars, but the particulars cannot be without the Universal. Hence, “Everything is in Me, but I am not in them”: na tvaham teshu te mayi.

Tribhir gunamayair bhavair ebhih sarvam idam jagat, mohitam nabhijanati mam ebhyah param avyayam (7.13): “I am above the three gunas. Deluded and confounded by the dominance of sattva, rajas and tamas, which characterise the fourteen realms of existence, the entire creation is confounded because of the preponderance of the three gunas; but they do not know Me, and even the gods in heaven cannot know Me.” Devairatrapi vichikitsitam pura na hi suvijneyamanuresha dharmah (Ka. Up. 1.1.21): Yama, the great Lord, speaks to Nachiketas, “The gods in heaven cannot understand what you are expecting from me, and you want it to be given to you so easily.” Aham adir hi devanam (10.2): “The gods cannot know. I am prior to even the gods. I am the origin of even the gods and, therefore, how can the gods know? How can people who came much later know Me? Because of My transcendence, the divisions of the world, which are the particulars or the individuals, cannot know Me.” That which is the transcendent cannot be known by that which is subsumed under this transcendence. The higher can know the lower. The lower cannot know the higher. God knows all things, but things cannot know God.

Daivi hy esha gunamayi mama maya duratyaya (7.14): Divine is this power of delusion which we generally call maya. It is nothing but the operation of the three gunas. The trigunas are the so-called maya. The power of the action of the gunas of prakriti – sattva, rajas and tamas – blinds our vision completely. The gunas blind us completely, and it is not easy for anyone to overcome them – duratyaya. We cannot overcome them because our very personality is constituted of the three gunas. Who are we to overcome them? The body, the mind and the sense organs, which are our property and our asset and our very existence, so-called, as we are constituted of them – how could we overcome them unless there was a power that is above what we are constituted of? Mam eva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te (7.14): “You cannot overcome these three gunas until you resort to Me.”

Harisarananandaji Maharaj used to illustrate this point by way of the action of a fishing net. The fisherman throws the net far away from him, and fish which are far away are caught by net; but those fish near the feet of the fisherman are not caught. The nearer is the fish to the feet of the fisherman, the less is the chance of it being caught. The farther it is, the greater the chance of it being caught. So, don’t go away from God. Catch hold of His feet. Once we take resort at the feet of the Almighty, maya vanishes like mist before the sun. But if we try to overcome these three gunas with our own personal effort minus the grace of the Almighty, it will not work.

In a sense, we may say there is a power that is more than what we can conceive in this world, and only that power is the final resting place for us. It is the resort of all people. We must surrender ourselves completely and abolish our egos, and not project our intellectual, physical or mental powers too much – because, after all, these powers that we manifest through our individuality are the compositions of sattva, rajas and tamas. We must abolish the individuality itself in our self-surrender to God. “Those who come to Me in that way transcend maya and the three gunas.” Mameva ye prapadyante mayam etam taranti te: Unless we resort to God’s feet, there is no way of escape from the clutches of the three gunas. Human effort alone is not sufficient.