Bhagavagd Gita - Session 23- Track 2309

There is another Prakriti, which is a higher Prakriti: parām prakṛti, higher Prakriti, (aparā means lower). “This Prakriti of which I have spoken is aparā prakṛti, but other than that there is a higher Prakriti, which you now know, which now I am explaining to you…jīvabhūtām, it is that Prakriti, (only one word is given), it is that Prakriti, which has become the Jiva”. Now, Sri Krishna does not explain what is the Jiva; it is understood! We shall come to that afterwards. parām prakṛtiṁ is jīvabhūtām; it is that, which has become the Jiva:

“O mahābāho, O Arjuna, it is jīvabhūtām parām prakṛtiṁ. This Para Prakriti is that which is jīvabhūtā, which has become the Jiva.”

Now, there is another sentence: yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat, this is another description: “it is that by which the world is born”, dhāryate, upheld. It is that by which the whole world is upheld. That is to say: aparā prakṛti is not a Prakriti by which the world is upheld; all that may be the world, all that may be all phenomena, but this aparā prakṛti is not by which the whole world is upheld; there is something like an upholding power. That upholding power is something different: it is a higher Prakriti. That higher Prakriti is to be known as jīvabhūtām. If you know the Jiva, then you will understand parām prakṛti. If you understand parām prakṛti, you will understand jīva.

We shall stop here today, because this is another very big subject and we shall have to go into the depths of this. But you will now experience that in every word of this chapter, the knowledge savejnanam savijnanam is all the time oozing out, from every word. Every word of this chapter is full of knowledge: it is as if every word is composed of lot of knowledge, which is contained in it, so that the moment you touch the word, so much oozes out of it. It is jnanam savijnanam. The very chapter itself is all jnanavijnana yoga, this is the regarding knowledge in detail, with detailed knowledge. And having known which nothing more remain to be known. So we shall see next time what is the jīvabhūtā, what is this parā prakṛti, what is this yayedaṁ dhāryate jagat, what is it by which the world is upheld.