The Gita (contd.)

  The Gita is proclaimed by the Bhagavan as the secret knowledge of brahmn, the brahma vidya, and a means to attain to brahmn, the yoga shastra. This is the spiritual essence of the Gita. The source of this scripture is unknown and it is extremely difficult to understand the Verse 1 of Chapter IV where the Lord says that, “He imparted this Knowledge to Vivasvan, the Sun God (who is supposed to be 4.56 billion years old!)”. Further, it much intriguing to note that He proclaims that He is unborn and eternal!

  The spiritual essence of the Gita is god-visioning- vishvaroop darshan, visioning His virat svaroop and knowing His diverse manifest forms! It is a mysterious experience to the one who is attained siddhi purusha. There is no other way of experiencing this divine bliss than to take to spiritual practice as advised by the Lord here. Gita anushthana marga is the best way to realize the supreme! Even contemplation, meditation on one or two verses a day will ultimately lead the spiritual sadhaka to attainemnt! Hence, it is intended to give selected verses in the following with a brief explanation.The method of gita upasana is given by the Lord Himself as a yogacharya! There is nothing one can add, advise, or instruct besides what the Blessed Lord says (Bhagavan uvacha).

    Meditation on the spoken words of the Bhagavan is enough to experience supreme bliss. It is better to keep always a copy of the Gita in the pocket and read a verse or two and contemplate on it whenever one is free from the botheration of the worldly affairs. The effect of this spiritual practice is there to see within a year or even much earlier. In the last verse of the last chapter of the Gita, Sanjaya says, “Success is assured where the Bhagavan Himslef leads the one who is daring and acts!”  

     The Gita is said to be an unheard divine song (anahata dhvani), rather, heard within as antardhvani and, as such, an unwritten scripture. It speaks of ‘Self-Realization’ (Atmabodha)asrevealed by Bhagavan Shree Krishna. It has come down to us from almost beginning of the Creation when Bhagavan revealed it to the Sun, Vivasvan, 4.56 billion years ago! Even the Planet Earth came into existence after a lapse of 0.3 million years from out of the condensation of the solar flares! Today we are living almost at the close of the seventh manvantara, called the Vaivasvata manvantara. Each manvantara has four yugas, viz kruta or satya, treta, dwapara and the kali with four quarters (charana) each, together lasting 4 320 000 years. Six manvantaras have already gone by and seven more are to come after the close of our kaliyuga running now! Hence, we are in the first charana of the Kali yuga, the last quarter of the vaivasvata manvantara, and, three yugas- krita, treta, and the dvapara have already gone! With the close of this Kaliyuga, the vaivasvata manvantara will come to an end and a new manvantara and its first yuga will start. At the end of each yuga will apear a divine person, mahapurusha, purushottama, an avatara purusha like Shree Hari Narayana, Sri Ram, Shree Krishna, the Buddha or a Kalki as stated in the Vishnu purana. There are already twenty-five avataras of Vishnu Bhagavan of which ten are very popular! Thus, the entire creation and dissolution will go on till the last, the fourteenth manvantara, after which there will be total dissolution of Creation and the Creator Brahma will go to sleep! (See Vishnu Purana). 

   The Gita begins with words, “Bhagavan Uvacha”,  meaning, “the Blessed Lord said”, and, as such, these are the words of the supreme Lord. Hence, there is no question of an author or a publisher to this  “Autobiography of Lord, Bhagavan Shree Krishna”. He, the Bhagavan is the script writer, director, producer of the Universe, and the ultimate destroyer!  In a sense it is as though the scripture does not exist at all! Who will write what even when the Sun is yet to be born and where is the earth or its creatures? These are only spoken words sung in a melodious tone, rather, a divine song, that’s all! The authorship of this divine song, ‘Bhagavad-Gita’ attributed to Bhagavan is quite intriguing! However, this portion of the scripture is believed to be taken out of the Shanti Parva of the famous epic Mahabharata by Sri Shankaracharya and placed before us as Srimad Bhagavad-Gita. As a part of the epic, supposed to be authored by Sage Vedavyasa, that too, with the help of a scribe believed to be none other than the Deity of Learning and the Lord of all Ganas, Lord Ganapti. Thus, Sage Veda Vyasa is dictating the text to a divine person Ganapati. ‘Veda Vyasa’ is in fact the pen name of Shree Krishna Dvaipayana for having classified the voluminous Veda of a lakh verses into four divsions! However, there are no such persons, either a Vedavyasa, or a Ganapti is the mystery!! The mystery deepens when Bhagavan Shree Krishna says in Chapter X vibhuti yoga that sage Veda Vyasa is none other than Himself! Shree Krishna Bhagavan, also known as unique, advitiyam, second to none, the dvaipayana, like an island!  Further, who is the scribe? Is there any person like Ganapti? It is well known from the epic Shiva Purana which describe Lord Ganapati as one who was made in clay, like a doll and life-force breathed unto Him by Parvati, the Mother Earth! Hence, there is no such person as Ganapati at all!. In that sense of the term, all living beings are made of clay like Ganapati ans sustained by the food obtained from soil! Even Lord Shiva, supposed to be the Father of Ganapati is also our Father, Pashupati natha. Neither there is a Veda Vyasa, nor a Ganapti, and whence and where comes a Mahabharata or the Bhagavad-Gita? It is all in the Mind! Utmost, it is the ingenuity of an intellectual to indulge in these metaphysical aspects and present these spiritual texts like these!   

 As the mythological account goes, the Bhagavad-Gita comes as an interjection in the Bhishma parva of the great epic Mahabharata due to the condition laid down by Lord Ganapati who was taking the dictation of the epic Mahabharata from Vyasa Deva. The condition was that Vyasa should go on dictating the text while Ganapati, the scribe, goes on writing. However, the omniscient Lord Ganapati was faster and Vyasa got stuck at some stage for want of suitable matter for dictation and thought about Arjuna’s reluctance to fight was surging! He had to speak something and he blurted out the Gita which he remembered, quickly without waste of time, lest the scribe should leave! So Vyasa, Sri Krishna Dvaipayana narrated the Gitopadesha that was first imparted to Vivasvan, Surya deva, at the beginning of creation!

  Thus, here comes this short ‘adhyatma bodha’ in the form of “Sri Krishna’s advice to Arjuna”. Later on we will find that this is not even a dialogue or a conversation between two persons, but a monologue that appears like a dialogue between the embedded ‘Soul’ (jivatman) lamenting for its sad state, in confused mind (personified here as Arjuna, born as result of the Indra mantra uttered by Kunti), and the latter seeks guidance from the supreme Lord, Poorna-prajnya, (pure consciousness), personified here as Shree Krishna paramatman (seated within as the Self!).

   In fact, this entire episode is totally unconnected with the main text of the Mahabharata war and the battle field ‘Kurukshetra’ is a field, ‘kshetra’, known to only the ‘kshetrajnya’. Finally, the ‘kshetra’ and ‘kshetrajnya’ (jnyata and jnyeya) become one- Shree Krishna as the Field as well as the Knower of the Field. Whether it is Shree Krishna, Vyasa, or Ganapati, the ‘knower’ and the ‘known’, the preceptor and the perceived, are one. Jnyan, chit, consciousness, or the “sat” is the ultimate reality; all else is its manifest forms. Hence, the Lord proclaims, “I only exist and nothing exists besides Me!”

  It may surprise the sadhaka if it is stated that “there is neither a vyasa who is dictating the Gita, nor is there a Ganapati taking down the dictation!” It is, at best, a dialogue between ‘paramatman’, the pure Consciousness (chit) and the blemished soul, a vibrant mind (chittavrutti), full of attachment, ego, anger, etc. The distressed mind Arjuna is seeking guidance from ‘purna-prajnya’, Shree Krishna. All the characters depicted here (in the epic Mahabharata) are just characters with blemished souls, may be, that seek emancipation form their embodied states. In fact these characters are not like us, the human beings on earth, since the earth is yet to be born at the time when the Lord is imparting the gitopadesha to Vivasvan (Ch. IV. verse 1). Vivasvan is Surya deva stated to be 4.56 billion years old. There are lots of secret codes, symbolism, metaphors, similes, and words that hold many secrets in the Gita.

इदं तु ते गुह्यतमं प्रवक्श्याम्यनसूयवे। ज्नानं विज्नानसहितं यज्ज्नात्वा मोक्श्यसे शुभात्॥ (९. १)

 The Lord says, “Arjuna, I shall reveal the utmost secrets to you”. If this knowledge revealed by the Lord is the most secret of the ‘vidyas’ how can the mortals understand it? Moreover, what is that most ‘secret vidya’? He, the Lord, reveals that this knowledge is the supreme, ‘brahma vidya’, and a ‘yoga shastra that redeems the embedded jiva’! Hence, here are the secrets of creation, sustenance, and dissolution revealed to vivasvan, the Sun God, 4.56 billion years ago, even before the earth and all its living beings appeared! Hence it must be construed that the supreme Lord, Parabrahmn was contemplating upon creation in his meditative trance, yoganidra, about creation. Since Lord Krishna transcends time, rather, He being omnipotent and ‘kaal’ (Time) by Himself, nothing prevents Him from this. The secrets are known to Him only, He is imparting this to Vivasvan, who in turn imparted it to the first manu and then it came to King Ikshvaku a descendant of Vivasvan (suryavamshi). This has been repeated time and again as and when it was lost due to dissolution, adharma, floods and devastations, and other reasons. This is the secret yoga of creation; it is the lila; srushti, sthiti, laya, vilaya, anugraha, and mukti patha, the path of renunciation and emancipation of the embedded souls.

  The fundamental principle (mahat tattva) is “‘I am”’ (so’ ham); the term I refers to the Lord. The term ‘am’ is His manifest forms, the principle of ‘sat’, existence. The one Supreme Soul paramatman is reflected in the myriads of individual souls as the one sun or moon is reflected in myriads of glass pieces!

 The Soul Atman is ‘cit-shakti’. It is ‘Energy’ particle, a photon- the eternal, unborn, immutable brahmn. As it is Energy, it goes without saying that it is the support of all that exists, as paramatman. Paramatman is “the Supreme Soul, supreme energy”. The soul is thus a charged particle of an ‘ion’ of this ocean of consciousness, ‘chit-shakti; it is a particle of radiant energy, a particle of star dust; stellar dust, full of knowledge, intellect, creative power. This ‘Consciousness’- an individualized unit as ‘Jivatman’, has come within the limitations, ‘niyati’, of time, space, and causality, as in contrast to the ‘supreme soul’ – the unlimited, vast, immutable, unchanging, and eternal ‘paramatman’. Shiva, the unlimited, is thus reducing Himself to jiva, a limited entity. This is ‘kanchuki’, limitation.