Bg 9.4
mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtinā
mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni na cāhaṁ teṣv avasthitaḥ
Bg 9.5
na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni paśya me yogam aiśvaram
bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ
Bg 9.6
yathākāśa-sthito nityaṁ vāyuḥ sarvatra-go mahān
tathā sarvāṇi bhūtāni mat-sthānīty upadhāraya
Translation
4. All this world is pervaded by Me in My Unmanifest form (aspect) ; all beings exist in Me, but I do not dwell in them.
5. Nor do beings exist (in reality) in Me --- behold My Divine YOGA supporting all beings, but not dwelling in them, am I My Self, the 'efficient-cause' of all beings.
6. As the mighty wind, moving everywhere, rests always in space (the AKASHA ) , even so, know you, all beings rest in Me.
Commentary
ALL THIS WORLD IS PERVADED BY ME IN MY UNMANIFESTED FORM --- The subtlety of a thing is measured in terms of its pervasiveness and therefore, the Subtlest must necessarily be the All-pervasive. As all limited things must have forms, the All-pervasive alone can be Eternal and Infinite. All forms are perishable substances (Dravya). Thus the Self, in its essential Unmanifest nature, must be pervading everything, as the mud pervades all forms and shapes in all mud-pots.
If thus, the Infinite pervades the finite, what exactly is the relationship between them? Is it that the finite rose from the Infinite? Or is it that the Infinite PRODUCED the finite? Has the Infinite Itself become the finite, as a modification of Itself, or do they both, among themselves, keep a father-son, or a master-servant relationship? Various religions of the world abound in such questions. The dualists can afford to indulge in such a fancied picture of some relation or other between the finite and the Infinite. But the Adwaitins (Non-dualists) cannot accept this idea, since to them the Eternal Self alone is the ONE and the ONLY REALITY.
The second line of this stanza is a classical description of this "relationless-relationship" between the Real and unreal. "All beings exist in Me but I dwell not in them." To a hasty reader this would strike as an incomprehensible paradox expressed in a jumble of empty words. But to one who has understood well the theory of super-imposition, this is very simple. The ghost-vision can come only upon the post. And what exactly is the relationship between the ghost and the post from the standpoint of the post? The innocent post, in infinite love for the deluded fool, can only make a similar statement as the Lord has made here. "The ghost," the post would say, "is no doubt, in me, but I am not in the ghost; and therefore, I have never frightened any deluded traveller at any time." In the same fashion the Lord says here, "I, IN MY UNMANIFEST NATURE, AM THE SUBSTRATUM FOR ALL THE MANIFESTED" chaos of names and forms, but neither in their joys nor in their sorrows, neither in their births nor in their deaths, "AM I SHARING THEIR DESTINIES, BECAUSE I DO NOT DWELL IN THEM."
This line sounds a faithful echo of the same idea, perhaps more crisply expressed earlier (VII-12), where it was said "I AM NOT IN THEM, THEY ARE IN ME." In short, it is indicated here that the Self which, through Its identification with the matter-envelopments, has come to "DWELL IN THEM," is the pain-ridden mortal, while the same Self which has successfully withdrawn all Its false arrogations with the matter layers and has come to realise that, "I DO NOT DWELL IN THEM" is the Self, Immortal and Unmanifest.
THEN THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF AN EXISTENCE FOR THE FINITE IN THE INFINITE:
Continuing the strain of His arguments in the previous stanza here He says, "NOR DO THINGS EXIST IN ME," although "I DWELL NOT IN THEM." Now here he says that in the Infinite, never has the finite ever risen! Continuing our example of the post and the ghost this is equivalent to the post declaring that, "in me, the electric post, never has a ghost existed." In Pure Awareness, in Its Infinite Nature of sheer Knowledge, there never was, never is and can never be any world of pluralistic embodiment, just as, for the waker, the pleasures of the dream world ARE NEVER AVAILABLE. In short, at the time of the direct subjective experience of the Self there is no cognition of the pluralistic world, which is born out of the forgetfulness of the Infinite.
The Self "BRINGS FORTH AND SUPPORTS ALL BEINGS" just as the ocean gives birth to, supports and nourishes all the waves in it. "AND YET," says Krishna "I, MYSELF NEVER DWELL IN THEM." Just in the same way the ocean can cry that "I am never the waves." The mud is the womb of all pots, the sustainer of their shapes, the nourisher of their forms, and yet, none of the pots, nor all the pots put together, can ever define or give a total knowledge of the mud. Pure Consciousness, Divine and Eternal, is the Substratum that sustains and illumines the entire panorama of the everchanging plurality.
The objects of the world conveying their stimuli through the doors of the sense organs create mental waves which are illuminated by the Conscious Principle residing in all forms. If the Awareness is not there, the external world must necessarily fail in giving the mind-and-intellect the concept of its life as a series of unbroken experiences. Just as the cotton is in the cloth, or the gold in all ornaments, or the heat in the fire, so too, the Imperishable is in the perishable. The dreamer can function only in the waker; the waker pervades the dream-experiences, and at the same time, the waker is not in the dream nor in fact, when awakened fully, does the dream ever exist in the waker.
KRISHNA FEELS THAT THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX IS PROVING TOO MUCH OF A RIDDLE TO THE GROSS INTELLECT OF THE AVERAGE MAN IN ARJUNA, AND THEREFORE, IN HIS DIVINE KINDNESS, THE LORD PROVIDES FOR HIS DISCIPLE AN EXAMPLE:
The confused Prince, trying to solve the riddle, is helped here by the Kingly Teacher in Krishna who gives him a vivid example. To imagine a substance that exists everywhere, allowing everything to exist in it, but at the same time, it in itself not getting conditioned by the things that exist in it, is very difficult, and the ordinary intellect cannot easily soar to comprehend those heights of understanding and appreciation. As a prop for the ordinary intellect, to raise itself up so that it may peep over its own limitations and gain a vision of the unravelling expanse of the Infinite, here is a brilliant example.
The gross can never condition the subtle. As the poet sings, "Stone walls do not a prison make," for, even though we may imprison the body of the prisoner, his thoughts are ever free to reach his kith and kin at their hearth. The gross stone walls cannot limit the flight of the subtle thoughts. If once this principle is well understood the example becomes very expressive exhibiting all its secret suggestions.
KNOW YOU ARJUNA, that the winds curl, swirl and whirl around everywhere in space; the space supports and envelopes them everywhere, and yet, they do not ever limit the space. This beautiful example, when meditated upon by any seeker, if he has at least an average amount of intellectual comprehension, will enable him to define, in his own mind, the right relationship that exists between the Self and the non-Self. The Real supports the unreal; the unreal seemingly lives... through its history of misery and sorrows, fleeting joys and passing pleasures... in the Real and yet, the unreal can never condition the Real. When the wind is moving, the space need never move. None of the qualities of the wind is the quality of the space (Akasha). Compared with the outstretching Infinite space, in which the universes keep on revolving, at a speed measured in light years, the atmospheric disturbances are only upto the height of a few miles off the surface of the globe. In the infinite vastness of the Real, the arena of disturbances caused by Its flirtations with Its own assumed self-ignorance, is only a negligible area... and even there, the relationship between the false and the Real is the relationship between the fickle breeze and the Infinite space.
These two are stanzas not merely to be explained away by words, however true the commentator may be; they are to be meditated upon by the students, individually.
Sources: Vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
mayā tatam idaṁ sarvaṁ jagad avyakta-mūrtinā
mat-sthāni sarva-bhūtāni na cāhaṁ teṣv avasthitaḥ
Bg 9.5
na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni paśya me yogam aiśvaram
bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ
Bg 9.6
yathākāśa-sthito nityaṁ vāyuḥ sarvatra-go mahān
tathā sarvāṇi bhūtāni mat-sthānīty upadhāraya
Translation
4. All this world is pervaded by Me in My Unmanifest form (aspect) ; all beings exist in Me, but I do not dwell in them.
5. Nor do beings exist (in reality) in Me --- behold My Divine YOGA supporting all beings, but not dwelling in them, am I My Self, the 'efficient-cause' of all beings.
6. As the mighty wind, moving everywhere, rests always in space (the AKASHA ) , even so, know you, all beings rest in Me.
Commentary
ALL THIS WORLD IS PERVADED BY ME IN MY UNMANIFESTED FORM --- The subtlety of a thing is measured in terms of its pervasiveness and therefore, the Subtlest must necessarily be the All-pervasive. As all limited things must have forms, the All-pervasive alone can be Eternal and Infinite. All forms are perishable substances (Dravya). Thus the Self, in its essential Unmanifest nature, must be pervading everything, as the mud pervades all forms and shapes in all mud-pots.
If thus, the Infinite pervades the finite, what exactly is the relationship between them? Is it that the finite rose from the Infinite? Or is it that the Infinite PRODUCED the finite? Has the Infinite Itself become the finite, as a modification of Itself, or do they both, among themselves, keep a father-son, or a master-servant relationship? Various religions of the world abound in such questions. The dualists can afford to indulge in such a fancied picture of some relation or other between the finite and the Infinite. But the Adwaitins (Non-dualists) cannot accept this idea, since to them the Eternal Self alone is the ONE and the ONLY REALITY.
The second line of this stanza is a classical description of this "relationless-relationship" between the Real and unreal. "All beings exist in Me but I dwell not in them." To a hasty reader this would strike as an incomprehensible paradox expressed in a jumble of empty words. But to one who has understood well the theory of super-imposition, this is very simple. The ghost-vision can come only upon the post. And what exactly is the relationship between the ghost and the post from the standpoint of the post? The innocent post, in infinite love for the deluded fool, can only make a similar statement as the Lord has made here. "The ghost," the post would say, "is no doubt, in me, but I am not in the ghost; and therefore, I have never frightened any deluded traveller at any time." In the same fashion the Lord says here, "I, IN MY UNMANIFEST NATURE, AM THE SUBSTRATUM FOR ALL THE MANIFESTED" chaos of names and forms, but neither in their joys nor in their sorrows, neither in their births nor in their deaths, "AM I SHARING THEIR DESTINIES, BECAUSE I DO NOT DWELL IN THEM."
This line sounds a faithful echo of the same idea, perhaps more crisply expressed earlier (VII-12), where it was said "I AM NOT IN THEM, THEY ARE IN ME." In short, it is indicated here that the Self which, through Its identification with the matter-envelopments, has come to "DWELL IN THEM," is the pain-ridden mortal, while the same Self which has successfully withdrawn all Its false arrogations with the matter layers and has come to realise that, "I DO NOT DWELL IN THEM" is the Self, Immortal and Unmanifest.
THEN THERE MUST BE SOME SORT OF AN EXISTENCE FOR THE FINITE IN THE INFINITE:
Continuing the strain of His arguments in the previous stanza here He says, "NOR DO THINGS EXIST IN ME," although "I DWELL NOT IN THEM." Now here he says that in the Infinite, never has the finite ever risen! Continuing our example of the post and the ghost this is equivalent to the post declaring that, "in me, the electric post, never has a ghost existed." In Pure Awareness, in Its Infinite Nature of sheer Knowledge, there never was, never is and can never be any world of pluralistic embodiment, just as, for the waker, the pleasures of the dream world ARE NEVER AVAILABLE. In short, at the time of the direct subjective experience of the Self there is no cognition of the pluralistic world, which is born out of the forgetfulness of the Infinite.
The Self "BRINGS FORTH AND SUPPORTS ALL BEINGS" just as the ocean gives birth to, supports and nourishes all the waves in it. "AND YET," says Krishna "I, MYSELF NEVER DWELL IN THEM." Just in the same way the ocean can cry that "I am never the waves." The mud is the womb of all pots, the sustainer of their shapes, the nourisher of their forms, and yet, none of the pots, nor all the pots put together, can ever define or give a total knowledge of the mud. Pure Consciousness, Divine and Eternal, is the Substratum that sustains and illumines the entire panorama of the everchanging plurality.
The objects of the world conveying their stimuli through the doors of the sense organs create mental waves which are illuminated by the Conscious Principle residing in all forms. If the Awareness is not there, the external world must necessarily fail in giving the mind-and-intellect the concept of its life as a series of unbroken experiences. Just as the cotton is in the cloth, or the gold in all ornaments, or the heat in the fire, so too, the Imperishable is in the perishable. The dreamer can function only in the waker; the waker pervades the dream-experiences, and at the same time, the waker is not in the dream nor in fact, when awakened fully, does the dream ever exist in the waker.
KRISHNA FEELS THAT THE LANGUAGE OF PARADOX IS PROVING TOO MUCH OF A RIDDLE TO THE GROSS INTELLECT OF THE AVERAGE MAN IN ARJUNA, AND THEREFORE, IN HIS DIVINE KINDNESS, THE LORD PROVIDES FOR HIS DISCIPLE AN EXAMPLE:
The confused Prince, trying to solve the riddle, is helped here by the Kingly Teacher in Krishna who gives him a vivid example. To imagine a substance that exists everywhere, allowing everything to exist in it, but at the same time, it in itself not getting conditioned by the things that exist in it, is very difficult, and the ordinary intellect cannot easily soar to comprehend those heights of understanding and appreciation. As a prop for the ordinary intellect, to raise itself up so that it may peep over its own limitations and gain a vision of the unravelling expanse of the Infinite, here is a brilliant example.
The gross can never condition the subtle. As the poet sings, "Stone walls do not a prison make," for, even though we may imprison the body of the prisoner, his thoughts are ever free to reach his kith and kin at their hearth. The gross stone walls cannot limit the flight of the subtle thoughts. If once this principle is well understood the example becomes very expressive exhibiting all its secret suggestions.
KNOW YOU ARJUNA, that the winds curl, swirl and whirl around everywhere in space; the space supports and envelopes them everywhere, and yet, they do not ever limit the space. This beautiful example, when meditated upon by any seeker, if he has at least an average amount of intellectual comprehension, will enable him to define, in his own mind, the right relationship that exists between the Self and the non-Self. The Real supports the unreal; the unreal seemingly lives... through its history of misery and sorrows, fleeting joys and passing pleasures... in the Real and yet, the unreal can never condition the Real. When the wind is moving, the space need never move. None of the qualities of the wind is the quality of the space (Akasha). Compared with the outstretching Infinite space, in which the universes keep on revolving, at a speed measured in light years, the atmospheric disturbances are only upto the height of a few miles off the surface of the globe. In the infinite vastness of the Real, the arena of disturbances caused by Its flirtations with Its own assumed self-ignorance, is only a negligible area... and even there, the relationship between the false and the Real is the relationship between the fickle breeze and the Infinite space.
These two are stanzas not merely to be explained away by words, however true the commentator may be; they are to be meditated upon by the students, individually.
Sources: Vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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