SOME THOUGHTS ON THE BHAGAWAD GITA--13

[Guest guest]

Hari OMIn the previous submission we saw that Self is the substratum for a given Purusha and Prakriti. A question can be asked as to where the Soul is lodged. Is it in the head or in the region of the heart or somewhere else? The answer is it is all-pervading and is not confined to any particular part or organ of the body. Lord Krishna declares in the Gita, "As the all-pervading ether (Akasa) is not tainted or affected by anything because of its subtlety, so too the Self,seated everywhere in the body,is not tainted"(Verse 32, chapter 13) . Space is an example one can take to explain the relation of Spirit with Matter. That which gives accommodation to things is called 'Akasa' in Samskrit language. Pure Space is subtlest of all gross elements. Greater the subtlety, greater is the pervasiveness. Space pervades everything that is grosser than it. A subtler

thing can not be conditioned by a grosser factor. It is said that stone walls do not make a prison,nor iron bars a cage. The thoughts of the prisoner are subtler than the stone walls and iron bars and can penetrate them. Since space is subtlest of all, it allows everything to remain in it,yet , nothing that it contains can contaminate it. The Supreme Self,which is the very cause of the Akasa itself, and therefore, subtler than it,"pervades all;nothing pervades it". It can not be contaminated by anything that exists or happens in the world-of -plurality. The Self. though it permeates and pervades the whole of the body, is not soiled, just as space can not be dirtied by all the amount of filth that it may accommodate in itself. Then what exactly is the function of the Spirit in the body? We will discuss in the next submission.

(to be continued)

G.Balasubramanian