Gita Satsangh Chaper 11 : Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Introduction

[Guest guest]

Namaste:

 

PujyaSwami Dayananda Saraswati in " Gita Home-study notes " provides a

detailed introduction to chapter 11. As always, he is logical and

very thorough in explaining the essential nature of the Isvara

svarupam. Several years back, I have got the Home-study notes from

Arsha Vidya Gurukulam to use it for the Gita Satsangh. I have got

the permission from the Gurukulam to use excerpts from the notes for

the Satsangh. Since many members do not have access to these notes,

I am posting these excerpts for the benefit of all. I want to once

again thank Swami Dayananda Saraswati and Arsha Vidya Gurukulam to

permit me to post these excerpts.

 

Harih Om!

 

Ram Chandran

 

Excerpts from Swami Dayananda Saraswati's Gita Home-study Notes on

Chapter 11:

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In the last verse of the tenth chapter Bhagavan said, " I remain with

one part of me pervading the entire universe, ekamsena aham stithah " .

On the basis of this there is a new request by Arjuna. When Bhagavan

says, " I remain in the form of this entire world, " naturally Arjuna

wonders whether this is literally so. He has heard about what

happened when Yasoda asked Krishna to open his mouth upon finding him

eating mud. She saw within the mouth of Krishna the child, the entire

jagat. Now Arjuna wants to know if he can see the entire cosmic form,

visvarupa, within the form of Krishna who is standing in front of him.

 

To understand this cosmic form properly we should understand Isvara's

form. As we have seen, Isvara can be viewed from different

standpoints. The essential nature is caitanyam brahma, the truth of

Isvara and of the jiva. The jiva's essential svarupa is saccidanandam

advayam brahma and the svarupa of Isvara is the same Brahman. This is

one level of appreciation of Isvara. Then there is another, lsvara as

the same Brahman conditioned by maya, the one who is the jagat

karanam. Definitely pure limitless awareness, Brahman, cannot be

jagat karanam unless there is some other power available for that

Brahman. As a jiva looking at this universe, I naturally seek the

cause. Sruti reveals that the cause is Brahman, not pure Brahman but

Brahman with a certain power.

 

In order for Brahman as Isvara to have the status of creator of

everything, omniscience and appropriate power are necessary.

Appropriate power means a power in keeping with the nature of the

jagat. Whatever is the order of reality of the world that is the

reality of the power that creates it? When we analyze this creation,

we find it is mithya and therefore, there must be a mithya power

which has created it. That power is called maya. As the mithya

creation by definition has no independent existence, adhisthana

ananyatvam, its cause, maya also fulfills this definition, being not

independent of Brahman. Since I see a jagat here, Brahman seemingly

conditioned by maya is looked upon as jagat karanam. How do we know?

The pramana for it is only sruti. That Brahman is the cause of

creation is revealed by the Sastra. And it also reveals that you are

that satyam jnanam anantam brahma. I can have an immediate

appreciation, aparoksa-jnanam, of this. Then the problem is to

account for the world. For the creation of this world, there must be

an inherent power which has the same degree of reality as the jagat.

That Brahman gains the status of jagat-karanam through an inherent

power maya, is also known for certain only through sastra though the

existence of a maya power can also be accepted by a supporting

inference. Therefore, the same caitanyam which is the common basis

for Isvara and the jiva must have maya to make it the cause for the

creation. In so many words the sruti says " May one know that maya is

the material cause. " mayam tu prakrtim vidyat mayinam tu mahesvaram

(Shvetshvatara Upanishad). I find this jagat is mithya and for that,

there must be a mithya-karanam. This is anumanam, inference. It helps

us to assimilate what sruti says.

 

Thus we have two forms of Isvara; one is suddha-caitanyam pure,

limitless awareness, the second, maya-avacclnna-caitanyam. Is there a

third? If caitanya is the svarupa of Isvara, that svarupa is also

available here as a jiva. Awareness obtaining in your antahkarana,

in other words conditioned by your antahkarana, is called jiva.

Therefore antahkarana-avaccinna-caitanyam is another form of isvara.

Caitanya conditioned by the antahkarana is an individual knower,

pramata etc. This is another rupam. We also have avataras like Rama,

Krishna, etc. Whether they existed or not, the concept of Isvara

assuming a particular form is what we call avatara. Krishna, Rama etc

are all Isvara. Without the form of Krishna being a jiva. It is a

special form assumed by Isvara as a result of the prayers of many

people asking for action to be taken in a particular situation. We

saw in the fourth chapter that in response to this, Isvara himself,

through his own maya assumes a form suitable for the occasion. That

is the avatara, another form of Isvara.

Then we have visvarupam, Isvara from the standpoint of the physical

universe. If you look upon this entire creation as the form, the body

of Isvara, we have what we call Virat caitanya in the form of cosmos,

called the cosmic person.

 

How do you know that Isvara is in the form of Virat? You see the

jagat directly. It is known to you immediately, pratyaksa. But that

it is Isvara is not known because though the jagat is pratyaksa,

Isvara is not. So that the jagat is Isvara has to be understood only

from the Sastra. Because of the appreciation of the cause, karanam,

being both efficient and material, nimitta and upadana with maya, you

understand that this jagat, which is pratyaksa, is the form of Isvara.

 

Here Arjuna wants to see the cosmic form. Because Bhagavan said at

the end of the last chapter, " Pervading the entire universe with one

pada I remain, " Arjuna wants to see that form of Isvara, the cosmic

from. When the cosmos is right there in front of him, why should he

want to see the cosmic form? What he means is that he wants to see

Isvara in the form of all that is at one time. Normally you see one

thing at one place and time. That is not the cosmic form. You are

limited by your own capacities for perception so all you see are

limited entities. Some of them are seen wrongly like the blue sky

which is an illusion. And anything that is seen is seen only

partially. " When you see the front of it, you do not see the back.

And what is out of sight is out of mind. That means you only see one

thing at a time. Where is the possibility of seeing the cosmos?

Arjuna, like a child, now wants to know the entire cosmic form. He

wants to know whether in one form he can see what is behind, what is

in front, what is on the left, what is on the right, and what is

beyond the sky, all that is in heaven. It is the desire of a child,

really speaking. Arjuna thought, " Why not see this? " For which, of

course, Arjuna's eyes are not adequate. Since it is visual

perception, he must be given a different type of eye, divya-caksus.

Perhaps it is some sort of inner eye but whatever it is, it is

through Isvara's maya alone. And Krishna reveals this cosmic form to

him. We can take it as something that happened or simply as a

presentation of the subject matter showing that nothing is away from

Isvara.

 

Virat means vivid ham rajate, the one who appears in varieties of

forms. That single form which includes all forms is called the cosmic

form, visvarupa. It establishes that nothing is outside Isvara and

upon appreciating that, you discover in yourself a devotion to

Isvara, the topic of the next chapter, bhakti-yoga. Because of the

appreciation of this cosmic form you can understand that Bhagavan is

in charge of everything. This does not mean you do not take

responsibility for what you do, what you are. In fact the law of

karma helps you take responsibility for your lot, your parentage etc.

and happily accept it not passing blame to anybody. You accept

responsibility for what you are because of past deeds. Other forces

might have contributed to what you are, but at the same time you

understand that you have a free will. You can add to or reorganize

yourself, be an emotionally fragile person or a person who refuses to

be fragile. All this is in your hands. At the same time, as an

individual jiva, you are not in total control.

 

This appreciation of the cosmic form does create a reverence for

Isvara. It is described very beautifully and poetically here creating

a word picture that brings all the heavens down within your

perception. All the heavens and the people therein in one huge - huge

is not the word - one cosmic form. It includes everything. In spite

of that, Arjuna somehow misunderstood and saw himself as an

individual separate from the whole. This we understand because he was

frightened.

 

Seeing the form, he found the wheel of time destroying everybody. In

the description there is a continuous dissolution, samhara, and

evolution, srsti, going on. If you see all this it is something like

seeing the microscopic changes that take place in your own body as it

ages. You will be frightened at all that takes place. This is what

happened to Arjuna. When he saw this cosmic form, he found all the

people within the jaws of death because Death itself is Bhagavan.

They were all being masticated in the jaws of death, the process of

change. He found them sticking within the grip of this big mouth.

There he saw the battlefield, his own people and all the people he

thought were outside of him. All of them he found within one form.

Nothing was outside. But somehow Ajuna managed to see himself

separate from the cosmic form and got frightened. To say, " I am this

cosmic form, " you have to come from the standpoint of

saccidanandatma. Otherwise it becomes purely magic as it was for

Arjuna. This magical vision of the cosmic person was created purely

by the grace of Krishna. After seeing this he said, " Bhagavan, I am

really frightened so please assume your old form. " As he requested,

Krishna comes back to the smiling, easily manageable form that he

was. Otherwise how will you manage this Krishna? Whom will you

address? What will you call him? So he came back to the particular

form that Arjuna and others were used to.

 

 

This is the sum and substance of the eleventh chapter. Sankara

introduces it saying the glories of Bhagavan have been told. Though

only a few of them were mentioned, the list was complete enough to

appreciate the magnitude of Bhagavan's glory. Arjuna's attention was

caught by Krishna saying, " One quarter of me pervades the entire

world. " If the whole world is nothing but a quarter of Isvara three

quarters remain hidden. This has to be understood. As only the tip of

an ice-berg is visible while the rest is under water, so too here,

only this much is visible; the part that is not visible is the

infinite nature of alma which is in the buddhi as aham. You have to

understand that Arjuna wanted to visually see the cosmic form. You

can see through words but Arjuna wanted to see with his own eyes.

Desiring to see Bhagavan in the form of this jagat, since he had said

that he exists in the form of jagat.

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