The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata
and the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

The ninth chapter of the Bhagavadgita gives us an idea of the universal religion, an approach to the God of all gods, standing above all human concepts of even religious ideals, and yet accessible to everything that is manifest in any form whatsoever. The Supreme Being is all things. Aham kratur aham yajnah svadhaham aham ausadham, mantro’ham aham evajyam aham agnir aham hutam. Pitaham asya jagato mata dhata pitamahah, vedyam pavitram omkara rksama yajur eva ca. Gatir bharta prabhuh saksi nivasah saranam suhrt, prabhavah pralayah sthanam nidhanam bijam avyayam. Tapamy aham aham varsam nigrhnamy utsrijami ca, amrtam caiva mrtyus ca sad asac caham arjuna. God is all things—this is the sum and substance of these immortal passages in the Bhagavadgita.

There is nothing that is not included in the Being of God. Conceivable or inconceivable, manifest or unmanifest, subtle or gross, holy or unholy, transcendent or immanent, imperishable or perishable, immortality or death—everything is within this tremendous completeness of God the Absolute, the Almighty. Amrtam caiva mrtyus ca sad asac caham arjuna: Even existence and non-existence are comprehended within God. The supremacy of the divine ideal is described in the magnificent, poetic images of these verses. It is hard for the human mind to understand how death, non-existence, negativity, darkness and the powers that we usually consider as belonging to the phenomenal world can be attributed to the Absolute. What we call non-existence is also comprehended there. What we call ugly, unholy and impure—even that is comprehended within the great love that God-being itself is. The great un-understandable mercy, compassion and love which are imbedded in the existence of God takes within its fold even that what we reject as undivine and unholy.

Anything that is conceivable must exist, and therefore to think of the non-existent is an anomaly and a misnomer. There is no such a thing as non-existence, because the moment we think it, it becomes existent. Therefore the so-called ‘non-existent’ is also included in this existence. The impure, ugly and what is usually considered as undesirable are not so in the eyes of God, because a relative judgment of things and a comparison and contrast of values is impossible in the all-inclusiveness of the indivisibility of Being. The standards of reference with which we judge things, considering one or the other as of this character or the other, are themselves relative, and that which is relative cannot pass an absolute judgment. Hence, our judgments are relative, and thus our ideas of even non-existence, ugliness and the like are not to be regarded as complete in themselves.

Having been given an outline of the idea of what God could be in His supra-essential, quintessential Being, we are admonished as to the path that leads to God. Usually the religious practicant worships and offers prayers with an ulterior motive. The religious enthusiasts look for the delights of heaven and an everlasting existence as happy individuals, for which sake they perform virtuous deeds in this world, accumulate punya, merit and the effect of righteousness. But all these meritorious acts—in fact every result that accrues to every act—have an end, and they have to go one day or the other, because nothing that we do in this relative world can touch the non-relative Absolute. The planes of existence that are above this mortal earth may be the regions of higher satisfaction and enjoyment by the denizens of that region, but all planes of existence are relative to one another. The seven planes above the earth plane mentioned in the Epics and the Puranas, reaching up even to the seventh plane known as satya-loka—all these are comprehended within the fold of creation. Even if we reach the highest plane, we may have to revert to the place from which we rose to it, because of the exhaustion of the momentum of the meritorious deeds that were performed for the sake of reaching those celestial delights.

Every finite cause produces a finite result. An infinite result cannot follow from a finite aspiration or action. Everything that we do in this world is infected with finitude and limitation of various types, and hence nothing that we do can produce an infinite result. Thus, infinite realisation or the experience of the Absolute is impossible through any performance of a relative character. Trai-vidya mam soma-pah puta-papa: Those people who worship the deities mentioned in the Vedas, for instance, go to heaven and drink nectar, the ambrosia of the immortals. But—ksine punye martya-lokam visanti—as a person who has exhausted his bank balance becomes a pauper, and he cannot be a rich man forever, so one cannot remain in the regions of heaven perpetually. When the results are exhausted, there is a reversal of values. Therefore religion, in the true sense of the term, is defined in a different manner altogether. In the verse that follows—ananyss cintayanto msm ye janah paryupasate, tesam nityabhiyuktanam yoga-ksemam vahamy aham—God, in His infinitude, protects the devotee when devotion becomes an undivided awareness of the glorious Being of God. To regard God as an object of the senses, to consider Him as an extra-cosmic Creator, to imagine any kind of distance, spatial or even temporal, between ourselves and Him would not be undivided devotion.

The undividedness or ananyas that is mentioned in the verse is the absorption of the consciousness of the devotee, a total saturation of the devout spirit in the magnitude and the immensity of God’s existence. The prayer that is offered to God and the worship that is performed here is not intended to receive any boons or benefactions from God. This is parabkakti or the supreme form of devotion to God, where offers of any kind, religiously or spiritually, do not become a means to an end. The prayer becomes an awareness rising within oneself of the presence of God everywhere. It is an offer of prayer by the lower self to the higher Self. It is a rise of the lower to the higher and not merely a movement of the individual finite to the so-called imagined distant Infinite. This particular verse is one single magnificent teaching. This particular sloka—ananyas cintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesam nityabhiyuktanam yoga-ksemam vahamy aham—may be regarded as the pinnacle of all scriptures on the path of devotion to God. As a child has no fears of any kind as long as it is under the protection of the parents, so the devotee of God has no fear from anywhere. There is no insecurity or dissatisfaction of any kind. There is a perpetual sense of protection coming from all sides due to the undivided consciousness of the presence of God.

How the grace of God works instantaneously in the case of such devotees, how God takes action in a timeless manner is dramatically displayed and demonstrated in the experiences of the great saints and sages of yore. These sages could speak to God more intimately then we speak with one another. Even the so-called inanimate idols could wake up into consciousness and speak to them due to the intensity of their feeling of the presence of God. If we study, with concentration of mind, the lives of such faiths as those who lived sometime back in Maharashtra, for instance, around the holy place of Pandarpur, the Shaivite saints known as the Nyanars and the Vaishnava saints known as the Alvars, we would simply be wonderstruck as to the sincerity of those saints in their devotion to God and the unimaginable miracles that God automatically worked around them, even without their knowing what was happening. These devotees never asked anything from God. As a matter of fact, one who asks anything from God is a merchant of devotion—he sells his devotion for merchandise of divine grace. The highest devotee seeks nothing temporal, material or visible from the Almighty, because what can be greater than the Almighty? Do we imagine that what He gives is greater than He Himself? The One who gives is greater than what is given, and hence wisdom-charged devotees ask nothing from God but seek God only.

That seeking of God as the ultimate goal of love, devotion and aspiration is the ananya bhakti that is mentioned in this verse of the Bhagavadgita. And in the case of those devotees, who are rare to find in this world, it is God’s responsibility to take care of them. The Yoga Vasishtha says that as the solar system is taken care of by powers that are not human, as the planets move in their orbits systematically by the ordinance of a force which is not man made, as the universe is maintaining its balance by a power we cannot think of in our mind, that power shall take care of us also. Why not? If the whole solar system can be sustained in mathematical precision and utter perfection, unthinkable to the human mind, how is it that that power cannot take care of a human being? It shall, and it always does. So the great promise that is divinely bestowed upon us here, in this majestic utterance, is that not only shall we be provided with everything that we need at any moment of time, but such is the grace and kindness of God that He shall also take care of those things with which He has provided us.

Can you imagine a greater loving parent than this mighty Being? He gives you what you need and also sees that it is taken care of on your behalf. Such a friend you cannot see in this world, and therefore you cannot have a friend of that type anywhere. There is only one friend who loves you—not because there is any reciprocal affection expected of you—but because there is an inseparable relationship between you and Him. This devotion is usually unimaginable, unthinkable, and not possible for the minds of human beings which are encrusted with material desires and infected with values that are wholly temporal. Those who love God as the All Being and as the Only Being are themselves rays of God. Their very presence is the presence of God. Their very existence is activity, their very thought is a universal service that they are rendering. Such great heroes are the blessedness of the earth. Their presence cannot be easily recognised, because of their unassuming character. They speak not much and ask not anything from anyone. They are the humblest of people, the last ones that could be recognised as of any importance whatsoever. The least of people, as they appear, are the greatest in the eyes of God. Several births one has to take even to attain this love that can encompass within its fold the Almighty God and nothing else.