Commentary on the Panchadasi

by Swami Krishnananda

Antaryamayatī tyuktyā’yame vārthaḥ śrutau śrutaḥ, pṛthivyā diṣu sarvatra nyāyo’yaṁ yojyatām dhiyā (175). The Internal Ruler is Ishvara, known as Antaryami. Internal to all things is His seat. He is seated within the intellect of people and regulates even the understanding of all jivas, individuals. This is what was mentioned in the earlier verse.

Now it is said in the light of the Antaryami Brahmana description of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that internal to everything is Ishvara – not merely the intellect of people, internal to all things conceivable – antaryamayatī. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad says that He who is within this earth and regulates the movement of the earth, who the earth does not know, but who regulates the earth and is the soul of the very earth – that is the Antaryamin.

Similar is the statement in respect of many other things also. He who is in the sun, but who the sun does not know, who being within the sun, regulates the sun, He is the Antaryamin, the Inner Controller of all beings. He who is within wind, He who is within fire, He who is within water, He who is within space, He who is within time, but whom no one knows, that is the Inner Controller of all, the Antaryamin, the Inner Regulator and the restrainer of all beings. This is from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

Jānāmi dharaṁ na ca me pravṛttiḥ jānāmya dharmaṁ na ca me nivṛttiḥ, kenāpi devena hṛdi sthitena yathā niyukto’smi tathā karomi (176). This verse is apparently quoted from the Mahabharata and is generally attributed to Duryodhana. Duryodhana said, it seems, "I know what is right, but I shall not pursue it; and I know what is not right, but I pursue it. Something inside me propels me to act in this particular manner. That is why I behave in this way." This is what Duryodhana is supposed to have said.

This something that propels a person to act in a particular manner is the Antaryamin. Now, the propulsion of the Antaryamin or Ishvara is neither in a good direction nor in a bad direction. The engine of the car has no direction to move; it is the wheels that determine which direction the car is to take. So the engine is something like the Inner Controller and regulates the movement of the vehicle, but the direction in which it has to move depends upon the structure of the wheels. In a similar manner, the Inner Controller, Ishvara, works in an impersonal, regulative, orderly manner, but the goodness or the badness of it, the direction in which the movement takes place, depends upon the medium through which the Lord operates.

The medium may be an individual human being; it may be a saint; it may be a god. And according to the individuality, the structure of the personality, the makeup of the thing concerned, the action will manifest itself. Electricity is like the inner controller of certain activities. It can burn, it can move, and it can freeze. In a refrigerator, electricity freezes. In a stove, electricity burns. In a railway train, it moves. Now, electricity itself does not perform any such operation of freezing, etc. The inner force that is necessary for these functions to take place is provided by the electrical current, but the manner in which the effect is produced depends upon the medium through which it passes. So God may work through Duryodhana or Arjuna, or it may be through anybody else. The matter is entirely dependent upon the medium of expression.

Nārthaḥ puruṣa kāreṇeti eva mā śaṅkyatāṁ yataḥ, īśaḥ puruṣa kārasya rūpeṇāpi vivartate (177). Does it mean then that human beings have no free will? All this that has been said up to this time in so many verses appears to drive us to a conclusion that everything is done by Ishvara and we have no free will. Is it so?

We should not say that there is no free will, because it is the will of Ishvara that works as free will in individuals. When the universal will of Ishvara passes through the human individuality, through the medium of the intellect of the individual, it becomes effort. The manner in which Ishvara's will works through you or me is called effort. So there is effort, and yet that effort is propelled by Ishvara's will. Unless He wills, even effort is not possible.

So effort is there, and yet it is not there. In two different ways we can conceive this proposition. The consciousness of agency in action is called effort, and this agency is attributable to the intellect of human beings. Egoism is associated with intellect. Wherever there is intellect there is also ego, and when the cover of understanding, intelligence which is really Ishvara's nature, passes through this intellect, it assumes agency by itself. The work of Ishvara is appropriated to itself by the ego and begins to feel that it is doing the action.

Action is done by Ishvara, but the ego feels that it is doing it. That feeling of the ego is the reason for there being such a thing called effort. Now, whether there is effort or not, it is up to anyone to decide. Ishvara Himself appears as human effort.

Īdṛg bodhe neśvarasya pravṛttir maiva vāryatām, tathāpī śasya bodhena svātmā saṅgatva dhījaniḥ (178). The effort of human individuals does not in any way limit the omnipotence of Ishvara. It does not mean that we have free will and we can do whatever we like, contradicting the original will of Ishvara. That is not possible. The original will is the final determining factor, and our free will is a concession given only to the extent of the ability exercised by our reason; beyond that the free will also is absent. It is a limited freedom.

The moment we realise the dependence of even human effort on Ishvara's will, we find ourselves detached completely from every kind of thing in the world. Our attachment arises on account of assuming a wholesale agency of action on our behalf and minding not there being anything that is universally operative everywhere. Once it is realised that even our agency, the spirit of agency or the sense of agency in action (or kartritva bhavana, as it is called) is only an appropriation by the ego of the personality of what actually is done by Ishvara Himself, detachment takes place immediately. When we know that whatever we are doing is actually done by Ishvara Himself, our egoism ceases, and attachment also goes with it.

The knowledge of this truth itself is freedom and liberation of the jiva. Liberation takes place the moment we realise that God does everything and there is no one doing anything else. No one at all exists except as participants in the cosmic body of Ishvara. The knowledge of this fact is the liberation of the individual.

Tāvatā mukti rityāhuḥ śrutayaḥ smṛtaya stathā, sruti smṛtī mamai vājñe ityapi śvara bhāṣitam (179). Srutis and Smritis, Vedas, Upanishads, and Dharma Shastras like Manu Smriti, Yajnavalkya Smriti, Mahabharata, Ramayana, Bhagavata all tell that Ishvara is All-in-All. And God has Himself stated that the word of the scripture is actually His word.

Ājñāyā bhīti hetutvaṁ bhīṣā’smā diti hi śrutam, sarve śvaratva metat syāt antaryāmitvataḥ pṛthak (180). The Taittiriya Upanishad has said, as has the Kathopanishad, that by the fear of this universal regulator, everything is functioning in a systematic manner. There is no confusion in the world. The work of nature is precise, mathematically perfect. It is so because of the regulating order that is issued from the internal substance of creation itself. Thus is the conclusion that He is Sarveshvara, All-in-all.

He is internally controlling all and also externally controlling everybody. Externally He controls the whole creation as its creator; internally, He controls everything as its Self, itself. The maker of all things appears to be operating, as it were, from outside the created object. But here, the maker of the object, being also the very material and the substance of the object, is also the soul and the very self of the object. So the control of Ishvara is both from inside as well as outside. It is a total control He is exercising on all things.

Etasya vā akṣarasya praśāsana iti śrutiḥ, antaḥ praviṣṭaḥ śāstā’yaṁ janānā miti ca śrutiḥ (181). In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Sage Yajnavalkya proclaims, "By the command of this great Being, rivers flow in given directions. By the command of this great Being, winds blow, the sun shines, and all nature performs its function in an appropriate manner. If this supreme order were not to be obeyed by nature as a whole, the whole world would crumble in one second.

Ishvara's order is not issued through any assistant or peon, or some official. There is no second to Ishvara. He does not issue orders by any kind of external medium. His very thought is enough to act directly upon every little thing in the world. And it immediately, personally, without any assistance from outside, determines the required functions. Outside, He is the emulator, controller of all the cosmos. Inside, He is the determining will of our very intellect, our mind, our very breath itself.

Jagadyonir bhave deṣa prabha vāpyaya kṛttvataḥ, āvirbhāva tirobhāvau utpatti pralayau matau (182). He is the source, the very womb of all creation. This is what the Mandukya Upanishad tells us. He is the source from which the universe has proceeded and He is the end of all things, into which the universe will one day return and merge.

The creation of the world and the dissolution of the world are the work of Ishvara and they correspond to the manifestation or the withdrawal of the form of any particular thing. Creation means the manifestation of what was already there. What was potentially there is revealed as objects of perception; that is creation. When the whole thing is rolled up as if a mat and nothing is visible, we call it involution, and that is dissolution of the universe.

Āvir bhāvayati svasmin vilīnaṁ sakalaṁ jagat, prāṇi karma vaśādeṣa paṭo yad vat prasāritaḥ (183). When the pralaya or the cosmic dissolution takes place, everybody is dissolved, as when a flood takes place everything is thrown hither and thither by the violent waters. And seeds of different plants and trees are also thrown in various ways. When the waters subside, the things that were earlier disturbed by the moving waters, settle in some place or the other, and gradually they will emerge from the earth as little tendrils, plants, vegetables, etc., according to the nature of the seed. This earth provides the field for the action of the seeds. The act itself does not produce vegetables. The seeds are the causes, but the propulsion, the power, the vitality, the energy, the sustenance that is necessary for the manifestation of the seed into a plant, etc., is provided by the earth.

In a similar manner, when the cosmic dissolution takes place, which is like a flood of the universe, everything is dissolved into these cosmic waters. Then what happens? All the seeds, or the potentials for future action of the jivas or individuals, also get submerged.