Bg 8.21
avyakto ’kṣara ity uktas tam āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim
yaṁ prāpya na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama
Bg 8.22
puruṣaḥ sa paraḥ pārtha bhaktyā labhyas tv ananyayā
yasyāntaḥ-sthāni bhūtāni yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
Translation
21. That which is called the Unmanifest and the Imperishable, that, they say is the Highest Goal (path) . They who reach It never again return. That is My highest abode (state).
22. That Highest 'PURUSHA' , O Partha, is attainable by unswerving devotion to Him alone, within whom all beings dwell, by whom all this is pervaded.
Commentary
What has been indicated in the previous stanza as "THE OTHER UNMANIFEST --- WHICH IS THE ETERNAL EXISTENCE --- WHICH KNOWS NO DESTRUCTION," is explained here as the Imperishable mentioned earlier in this chapter. The Imperishable was defined as the Brahman, the substratum for the entire universe, and we were also advised that we must meditate upon OM as the symbol of this Imperishable. The Self which is of the nature of Pure Awareness is that which lends existence and dynamism to the unmanifested vasanas, and makes them capable of projecting out to form the manifested world of activities and behaviours. This Eternal Unmanifested Factor, the Imperishable Self, is the highest goal for man to achieve.
In all other states of existence, there is again and again the experience of return. Just as sleep is not the end of life, but only a refreshing pause between two spans of activity, so too death is not an end, but often, only a restful pause in the unmanifested condition, that comes between two successive manifested existences in different embodiments. It was already indicated that even from higher levels of Consciousness, the ego-centres will have to return to exhaust their unmanifested cravings, the vasanas. Birth, we have already been told, is "A HOUSE OF PAIN AND FINITUDE," and therefore, complete satisfaction can be reached only when there is no rebirth --- no return.
Often, educated students of the present generation ask: "Why, after realising the Self, should there be no-return?" The question, though natural, cannot stand even a moment's scrutiny. Generally, cause-hunting is for things that happen and not for things that do not happen! Nobody anxiously enquires why I am not in a hospital but an intelligent enquirer has every right to enquire why I have gone to the hospital. We may enquire why the Infinite has become the finite; but the question does not arise at all why the Infinite should not fall again into the finite. This question is as absurd as my enquiring as to why you are not yet in jail. For not going to jail, no cause-hunting is necessary. And if you have actually gone to jail, there is certainly a justification to ask and enquire what is the exact crime for which you have been sent to jail.
We can never explain to a little girl and make that child understand what are the physical and emotional thrills of married life; in her childhood she has not the vehicle for comprehending the biological thrills of sex-life. But, as the same girl grows in her maturity, she develops in herself the biological antennae to feel and mentally comprehend the very same thrills which were to her but empty suggestions in early childhood --- when all she wanted was that her mother should marry her off! In the same fashion, a seeker who lies burrowed in the dung-heap of his mind and intellect, cannot, in its filthy atmosphere, know the vast embrace of the horizon and the glorious fragrance of the fresh breeze. As he detaches himself from his false identifications, through the process of meditation advised, (VIII-12, 13 and 14) he, as it were, hatches out of his limiting adjuncts, and enters the vaster fields of subtler experiences. On waking up alone can one realise the falsehood of one's dreams; the dreamer can never, so long as he dreams, realise the delusion from which he is suffering. Having awakened from a dream, the waker cannot be persecuted by his dream sorrows and his dream-happenings.
The Self, or Pure Consciousness, is poetically described here by Vyasa as the dwelling place of Krishna, "THAT IS MY HIGHEST DWELLING-PLACE." In the Geeta, the Singer of the Song Divine, is THE Self, and as such the Highest Goal is to reach the State of Pure Consciousness, the Imperishable, which is available for the experiencer of the Self. This was described at length while the teacher was indicating the nature of Knowledge gained by one who attains the State of the Divine Purusha.
THE DIRECT PATH BY WHICH THIS CONSUMMATE GOAL CAN BE REACHED IS EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING:
Here Krishna, the Prophet of the Hindus, vividly chalks out the technique and the path by which "WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED THE UNMANIFEST, THE IMPERISHABLE --- THAT SUPREME PURUSHA IS ATTAINABLE." Single-pointed devotion is the way and the means. Devotion --- total selfless identification --- with the Supreme Purusha can be achieved only when the devotee has learnt to dissociate himself from all his preoccupations with his world of body, mind, and intellect. This detachment from the false is gained in a growing attachment with the Real, the Permanent. An act of inspired seeking, of identifying oneself totally with the experience of 'SELF I AM' is the "WHOLE-SOULED DEVOTION TO HIM ALONE,' that is mentioned in this verse.
The Self, thus identified by the seeker in his meditation as himself, should not be conceived of as merely the Divine Spark that presides over his own individual matter-envelopments. Though the seeking is subjective, in identifying with the Self, in the final experience, It is to be realised as the very Substratum of the entire universe. Implying this oneness of the Self with the Truth behind the entire world of phenomena, Bhagawan says, as an indication of the nature of the Purusha, "IN WHOM ALL BEINGS ABIDE AND BY WHOM ALL THIS IS PERVADED."
All mud-pots exist in the mud, and the mud pervades all mud-pots irrespective of their shape, size, or colour. Whether it be a breaker, or a wave, or a wavelet, all are nothing but the ocean, and the ocean pervades all of them. Within and without, the substance of all pots is the substance with which they are made; the Essential Nature of all the waves, big, small, or tiny is nothing other than the ocean from which they are born.
Pure awareness is the Eternal Truth in which the unmanifest comes to be projected forth as the manifest. But for the cotton, the weaver's unmanifested conception of beauty and proportion cannot be projected and spread out through his creative art of weaving a design on the cloth he is making. At all points in that design of cloth, the one factor without which the design cannot stand is the substance of the threads in the cloth --- the cotton.
Pure Awareness, poured into the moulds of vasanas, when frozen with "ignorance," becomes the multiple world of names and forms --- recognised, craved for, and fought over to acquire and to possess --- everywhere by everyone. Therefore, one who has identified oneself with the Self, in that vivid experience, comes to understand the very Essence out of which the confusing multiplicity has risen up into manifestation, to confound the stupid ego and to torment it with the delusory dream of its samsara!
After enumerating the two distinct ways of procedure to go back from the manifest to the unmanifest, in the following, Krishna devotes an entire section to explain the different routes taken by seekers to reach the two different destinations. Some reach a destination from where there is a return and others attain a level of experience from which there is no return.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
avyakto ’kṣara ity uktas tam āhuḥ paramāṁ gatim
yaṁ prāpya na nivartante tad dhāma paramaṁ mama
Bg 8.22
puruṣaḥ sa paraḥ pārtha bhaktyā labhyas tv ananyayā
yasyāntaḥ-sthāni bhūtāni yena sarvam idaṁ tatam
Translation
21. That which is called the Unmanifest and the Imperishable, that, they say is the Highest Goal (path) . They who reach It never again return. That is My highest abode (state).
22. That Highest 'PURUSHA' , O Partha, is attainable by unswerving devotion to Him alone, within whom all beings dwell, by whom all this is pervaded.
Commentary
What has been indicated in the previous stanza as "THE OTHER UNMANIFEST --- WHICH IS THE ETERNAL EXISTENCE --- WHICH KNOWS NO DESTRUCTION," is explained here as the Imperishable mentioned earlier in this chapter. The Imperishable was defined as the Brahman, the substratum for the entire universe, and we were also advised that we must meditate upon OM as the symbol of this Imperishable. The Self which is of the nature of Pure Awareness is that which lends existence and dynamism to the unmanifested vasanas, and makes them capable of projecting out to form the manifested world of activities and behaviours. This Eternal Unmanifested Factor, the Imperishable Self, is the highest goal for man to achieve.
In all other states of existence, there is again and again the experience of return. Just as sleep is not the end of life, but only a refreshing pause between two spans of activity, so too death is not an end, but often, only a restful pause in the unmanifested condition, that comes between two successive manifested existences in different embodiments. It was already indicated that even from higher levels of Consciousness, the ego-centres will have to return to exhaust their unmanifested cravings, the vasanas. Birth, we have already been told, is "A HOUSE OF PAIN AND FINITUDE," and therefore, complete satisfaction can be reached only when there is no rebirth --- no return.
Often, educated students of the present generation ask: "Why, after realising the Self, should there be no-return?" The question, though natural, cannot stand even a moment's scrutiny. Generally, cause-hunting is for things that happen and not for things that do not happen! Nobody anxiously enquires why I am not in a hospital but an intelligent enquirer has every right to enquire why I have gone to the hospital. We may enquire why the Infinite has become the finite; but the question does not arise at all why the Infinite should not fall again into the finite. This question is as absurd as my enquiring as to why you are not yet in jail. For not going to jail, no cause-hunting is necessary. And if you have actually gone to jail, there is certainly a justification to ask and enquire what is the exact crime for which you have been sent to jail.
We can never explain to a little girl and make that child understand what are the physical and emotional thrills of married life; in her childhood she has not the vehicle for comprehending the biological thrills of sex-life. But, as the same girl grows in her maturity, she develops in herself the biological antennae to feel and mentally comprehend the very same thrills which were to her but empty suggestions in early childhood --- when all she wanted was that her mother should marry her off! In the same fashion, a seeker who lies burrowed in the dung-heap of his mind and intellect, cannot, in its filthy atmosphere, know the vast embrace of the horizon and the glorious fragrance of the fresh breeze. As he detaches himself from his false identifications, through the process of meditation advised, (VIII-12, 13 and 14) he, as it were, hatches out of his limiting adjuncts, and enters the vaster fields of subtler experiences. On waking up alone can one realise the falsehood of one's dreams; the dreamer can never, so long as he dreams, realise the delusion from which he is suffering. Having awakened from a dream, the waker cannot be persecuted by his dream sorrows and his dream-happenings.
The Self, or Pure Consciousness, is poetically described here by Vyasa as the dwelling place of Krishna, "THAT IS MY HIGHEST DWELLING-PLACE." In the Geeta, the Singer of the Song Divine, is THE Self, and as such the Highest Goal is to reach the State of Pure Consciousness, the Imperishable, which is available for the experiencer of the Self. This was described at length while the teacher was indicating the nature of Knowledge gained by one who attains the State of the Divine Purusha.
THE DIRECT PATH BY WHICH THIS CONSUMMATE GOAL CAN BE REACHED IS EXPLAINED IN THE FOLLOWING:
Here Krishna, the Prophet of the Hindus, vividly chalks out the technique and the path by which "WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED THE UNMANIFEST, THE IMPERISHABLE --- THAT SUPREME PURUSHA IS ATTAINABLE." Single-pointed devotion is the way and the means. Devotion --- total selfless identification --- with the Supreme Purusha can be achieved only when the devotee has learnt to dissociate himself from all his preoccupations with his world of body, mind, and intellect. This detachment from the false is gained in a growing attachment with the Real, the Permanent. An act of inspired seeking, of identifying oneself totally with the experience of 'SELF I AM' is the "WHOLE-SOULED DEVOTION TO HIM ALONE,' that is mentioned in this verse.
The Self, thus identified by the seeker in his meditation as himself, should not be conceived of as merely the Divine Spark that presides over his own individual matter-envelopments. Though the seeking is subjective, in identifying with the Self, in the final experience, It is to be realised as the very Substratum of the entire universe. Implying this oneness of the Self with the Truth behind the entire world of phenomena, Bhagawan says, as an indication of the nature of the Purusha, "IN WHOM ALL BEINGS ABIDE AND BY WHOM ALL THIS IS PERVADED."
All mud-pots exist in the mud, and the mud pervades all mud-pots irrespective of their shape, size, or colour. Whether it be a breaker, or a wave, or a wavelet, all are nothing but the ocean, and the ocean pervades all of them. Within and without, the substance of all pots is the substance with which they are made; the Essential Nature of all the waves, big, small, or tiny is nothing other than the ocean from which they are born.
Pure awareness is the Eternal Truth in which the unmanifest comes to be projected forth as the manifest. But for the cotton, the weaver's unmanifested conception of beauty and proportion cannot be projected and spread out through his creative art of weaving a design on the cloth he is making. At all points in that design of cloth, the one factor without which the design cannot stand is the substance of the threads in the cloth --- the cotton.
Pure Awareness, poured into the moulds of vasanas, when frozen with "ignorance," becomes the multiple world of names and forms --- recognised, craved for, and fought over to acquire and to possess --- everywhere by everyone. Therefore, one who has identified oneself with the Self, in that vivid experience, comes to understand the very Essence out of which the confusing multiplicity has risen up into manifestation, to confound the stupid ego and to torment it with the delusory dream of its samsara!
After enumerating the two distinct ways of procedure to go back from the manifest to the unmanifest, in the following, Krishna devotes an entire section to explain the different routes taken by seekers to reach the two different destinations. Some reach a destination from where there is a return and others attain a level of experience from which there is no return.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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