Bg 10.8
ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate
iti matvā bhajante māṁ budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ
Bg 10.9
mac-cittā mad-gata-prāṇā bodhayantaḥ parasparam
kathayantaś ca māṁ nityaṁ tuṣyanti ca ramanti ca
Translation
8. I am the Source of All; from Me everything evolves; understanding thus, the "wise, " endowed with 'loving consciousness' worship Me.
9. With their minds wholly resting in Me, with their senses absorbed in Me, enlightening one another, and ever speaking of Me, they are satisfied and delighted.
Commentary
The difference between the microcosm and the macrocosm is the difference in the equipments through which the same Truth, the Eternal and the All-perfect, expresses. When life surges through the Cosmic-Mind, It (Ishwara) comes to project out the entire Universe-of-plurality; and when the same Infinite expresses through an individual-mind, it (Jiva) projects out the individual-world. In both these manifestations --- the God-principle (Ishwara) and the individual ego (Jiva) --- the Essence is one and the same, just as, for the manifestation of light-in-the-bulb and heat-in-the-heater, the energy is one and the same, i. e., electricity. In electricity, considered as pure energy, there is neither light nor heat. In the same way, in the Pure Self, in its Essential Nature, there is neither the God nor the ego. He who realises this "IN REALITY," we are told, will become established in the Supreme Awareness through the "TREMORLESS-YOGA."
We prepare a ball of mud of the required plasticity from a sample of mud after kneading it properly with water. The ball of mud is next put on the potter's wheel and roughly shaped. In the third stage, the pot is finished, dried and polished. And in the fourth stage, the pots so made are baked and painted. The mud can certainly insist that it is the 'origin and essence' of the pot, and that it is only in the mud that the four stages of the pot's evolution had taken place and are never divorced from it. This is true for all mud-pots at all times; none of them has any existence, growth, or development, without the mud which is the sustaining material in all of them. So too, the same Principle in its different manifestations becomes Ishwara and Jiva.
An individual, whose intellect is soaked with discriminative awareness --- of the subtle difference between the cosmic and the individual --- is alone capable of turning his mind away from the created world-of-objects, and towards the one and the same Subjective Reality, both in the Creator and in himself. The attitude of a mind successfully employing itself in this inward quest is being indicated here by the pregnant term "with loving consciousness" (Bhaava samanvitah).
Love, or devotion, is measured by the capacity of the lover to identify himself with the beloved. In short, love is fulfilled when identification is complete, and when the devotee is capable of experiencing in himself that he is none other than the Infinite Self which, functioning through the Cosmic-mind, plays the part of the Ishwara, the Creator, and, which, when functioning through an individual-mind-intellect equipment, behaves as though It is the Jiva, the limited ego.
What has been asserted courageously in the previous stanza has been systematically developed here into a technique by which the above-mentioned experience can be brought within the intimate personal comprehension of every student.
WITH A MIND WHOLLY TURNED TO ME (Mat-chittah) --- Only with a kind completely integrated into steady single-pointedness can the seeker meditate efficiently upon the Supreme. Single-pointedness is lost if the mind is entertaining more than one idea. To remember electricity in all the bulbs, fans and heaters involves no deliberate effort; it is the very nature of our knowledge about it. To remember that all mud-pots are made of mud, we need not strain ourselves. Similarly, once the intellect is soaked with a convincing realisation that the Essence behind the God-principle (Ishwara) and the individual ego (Jiva) is one and the same, whatever feelings may arise in the mind or whatever thoughts may arise in the intellect, it is not very difficult for the Truth-seeker to remain constantly aware of the Conscious Principle behind them all and this constant "awareness of the Self" is indicated here by the term 'Mat-chittah.'
WITH THEIR SENSES ABSORBED IN ME (Mat-gata-pranah) --- The term Prana is not to be translated merely as "Vital-air"; it constitutes the five different manifestations of life available for recognition in any living body. Here, however, the term Prana is used mainly to indicate the five sense organs. These organs of perception are the only peep-windows through which the mind wanders out and the world-of-objects enters the mind on its return to the bosom. Vedanta never asks the seekers to retire, or to run away as fugitives, from the fields of sense objects --- which can never be possible as long as we are alive. The path of intellectual pursuit is the path of discrimination, a process through which we can so regulate and train our thoughts that, at the impact of any object of the world, it is immediately reminded of the Eternal Consciousness, without which the object would not have been illumined for the mind's experience.
DISCUSSING WITH ONE ANOTHER --- When students with a common intellectual interest come together and discuss among themselves their pet subject, they not only crystallise their knowledge, but often achieve a reassuring degree of confident knowledge in place of what was till then some stray information gathered from silent books. This technique of common discussion has been tirelessly emphasised in Vedanta in its very definition of Brahma-Vidya where it upholds it as one of its most important limbs of sadhana.
A true seeker is he who maintains in himself a constant remembrance of the Conscious Principle in him --- whatever be the activities of the mind, or of the sense organs. He maintains this channel of thinking steadily through mutual discussions on, and a constant seeking of, the Atman. Such seekers ultimately experience a scintillating joy lubricating life's wheels as they roll along their stony path. In the Upanishads the same idea has been beautifully put by using a similar pair of words, 'sports' (kreedami) and 'revels' (ramanti). Here, however, the former word is replaced by an equally efficient term to indicate the meaning (tushyanti).
Even while walking the path-of-perfection, Lord Krishna asserts that the seekers on the "path-of-discrimination" will come to experience and live a sense of "CONTENTMENT AND DELIGHT." These two provide the healthy mental attitude, generating the required inward atmosphere in which spiritual progress can be guaranteed. The discontented, ever-mourning seekers, painting a miserable picture of mental stagnation and intellectual destitution, are not the blessed ones who will gain easy entry into the portals of joyless joy and silent laughter, the Eternal Goal to be realised.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate
iti matvā bhajante māṁ budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ
Bg 10.9
mac-cittā mad-gata-prāṇā bodhayantaḥ parasparam
kathayantaś ca māṁ nityaṁ tuṣyanti ca ramanti ca
Translation
8. I am the Source of All; from Me everything evolves; understanding thus, the "wise, " endowed with 'loving consciousness' worship Me.
9. With their minds wholly resting in Me, with their senses absorbed in Me, enlightening one another, and ever speaking of Me, they are satisfied and delighted.
Commentary
The difference between the microcosm and the macrocosm is the difference in the equipments through which the same Truth, the Eternal and the All-perfect, expresses. When life surges through the Cosmic-Mind, It (Ishwara) comes to project out the entire Universe-of-plurality; and when the same Infinite expresses through an individual-mind, it (Jiva) projects out the individual-world. In both these manifestations --- the God-principle (Ishwara) and the individual ego (Jiva) --- the Essence is one and the same, just as, for the manifestation of light-in-the-bulb and heat-in-the-heater, the energy is one and the same, i. e., electricity. In electricity, considered as pure energy, there is neither light nor heat. In the same way, in the Pure Self, in its Essential Nature, there is neither the God nor the ego. He who realises this "IN REALITY," we are told, will become established in the Supreme Awareness through the "TREMORLESS-YOGA."
We prepare a ball of mud of the required plasticity from a sample of mud after kneading it properly with water. The ball of mud is next put on the potter's wheel and roughly shaped. In the third stage, the pot is finished, dried and polished. And in the fourth stage, the pots so made are baked and painted. The mud can certainly insist that it is the 'origin and essence' of the pot, and that it is only in the mud that the four stages of the pot's evolution had taken place and are never divorced from it. This is true for all mud-pots at all times; none of them has any existence, growth, or development, without the mud which is the sustaining material in all of them. So too, the same Principle in its different manifestations becomes Ishwara and Jiva.
An individual, whose intellect is soaked with discriminative awareness --- of the subtle difference between the cosmic and the individual --- is alone capable of turning his mind away from the created world-of-objects, and towards the one and the same Subjective Reality, both in the Creator and in himself. The attitude of a mind successfully employing itself in this inward quest is being indicated here by the pregnant term "with loving consciousness" (Bhaava samanvitah).
Love, or devotion, is measured by the capacity of the lover to identify himself with the beloved. In short, love is fulfilled when identification is complete, and when the devotee is capable of experiencing in himself that he is none other than the Infinite Self which, functioning through the Cosmic-mind, plays the part of the Ishwara, the Creator, and, which, when functioning through an individual-mind-intellect equipment, behaves as though It is the Jiva, the limited ego.
What has been asserted courageously in the previous stanza has been systematically developed here into a technique by which the above-mentioned experience can be brought within the intimate personal comprehension of every student.
WITH A MIND WHOLLY TURNED TO ME (Mat-chittah) --- Only with a kind completely integrated into steady single-pointedness can the seeker meditate efficiently upon the Supreme. Single-pointedness is lost if the mind is entertaining more than one idea. To remember electricity in all the bulbs, fans and heaters involves no deliberate effort; it is the very nature of our knowledge about it. To remember that all mud-pots are made of mud, we need not strain ourselves. Similarly, once the intellect is soaked with a convincing realisation that the Essence behind the God-principle (Ishwara) and the individual ego (Jiva) is one and the same, whatever feelings may arise in the mind or whatever thoughts may arise in the intellect, it is not very difficult for the Truth-seeker to remain constantly aware of the Conscious Principle behind them all and this constant "awareness of the Self" is indicated here by the term 'Mat-chittah.'
WITH THEIR SENSES ABSORBED IN ME (Mat-gata-pranah) --- The term Prana is not to be translated merely as "Vital-air"; it constitutes the five different manifestations of life available for recognition in any living body. Here, however, the term Prana is used mainly to indicate the five sense organs. These organs of perception are the only peep-windows through which the mind wanders out and the world-of-objects enters the mind on its return to the bosom. Vedanta never asks the seekers to retire, or to run away as fugitives, from the fields of sense objects --- which can never be possible as long as we are alive. The path of intellectual pursuit is the path of discrimination, a process through which we can so regulate and train our thoughts that, at the impact of any object of the world, it is immediately reminded of the Eternal Consciousness, without which the object would not have been illumined for the mind's experience.
DISCUSSING WITH ONE ANOTHER --- When students with a common intellectual interest come together and discuss among themselves their pet subject, they not only crystallise their knowledge, but often achieve a reassuring degree of confident knowledge in place of what was till then some stray information gathered from silent books. This technique of common discussion has been tirelessly emphasised in Vedanta in its very definition of Brahma-Vidya where it upholds it as one of its most important limbs of sadhana.
A true seeker is he who maintains in himself a constant remembrance of the Conscious Principle in him --- whatever be the activities of the mind, or of the sense organs. He maintains this channel of thinking steadily through mutual discussions on, and a constant seeking of, the Atman. Such seekers ultimately experience a scintillating joy lubricating life's wheels as they roll along their stony path. In the Upanishads the same idea has been beautifully put by using a similar pair of words, 'sports' (kreedami) and 'revels' (ramanti). Here, however, the former word is replaced by an equally efficient term to indicate the meaning (tushyanti).
Even while walking the path-of-perfection, Lord Krishna asserts that the seekers on the "path-of-discrimination" will come to experience and live a sense of "CONTENTMENT AND DELIGHT." These two provide the healthy mental attitude, generating the required inward atmosphere in which spiritual progress can be guaranteed. The discontented, ever-mourning seekers, painting a miserable picture of mental stagnation and intellectual destitution, are not the blessed ones who will gain easy entry into the portals of joyless joy and silent laughter, the Eternal Goal to be realised.
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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