Bhagavagd Gita - Session 25- Track 2508

puṇyo gandhaḥ pṛthivyāṁ ca tejaś cāsmi vibhāvasau |
jīvanaṁ sarvabhūteṣu tapaś cāsmi tapasviṣu ||9|| (VII)

“The smell, the fragrant smell, the puṇyo gandhaḥ, the sacred smell in the pṛthivi, in the earth, (earth is Apara Prakriti), but its puṇyo gandhaḥ is Myself.”

tejaś cāsmi vibhāvasau: “In the agni is tejas, the real light in the fire is Myself.”

sarvabhūteṣu: “All the creatures belong to the Apara Prakriti, but what they live for by is jīvana, that jīvana is Myself.”

jīvanaṁ sarvabhūteṣu tapaś cāsmi tapasviṣu: “All Tapaswis at present they belong to Apara Prakriti, but even then they are striving towards Para Prakriti by power of Tapas: that Tapas is Myself.”

bījaṁ māṁ sarvabhūtānāṁ viddhi pārtha sanātanam |

“I am the eternal seed of all the beings; these beings they belong to Apara Prakriti, but all of them arise out of seed, that seed is Myself.”

buddhir buddhimatām asmi: “Those who are intelligent they belong to Apara Prakriti, but their essence is buddhi, that Buddhi I am.”

tejas tejasvinām aham ||: “Those who are luminous, their light I am”. (VII, 10)

balaṁ balavatāṁ: “I am the strength of the strong.”

cāhaṁ kāma-rāga-vivarjitam: “I am even the kāma, but rāga-vivarjitam, I am even the passion, but in which all attachment is devoid of it, that kāma…”

Very often there is a big question mark: how can the divine Himself be kāma, when it is said earlier that these kāma and krodha are the two enemies and they have to be killed; that is why here Sri Krishna says: kāma-rāga-vivarjitam; kāma not as it is understood in our ordinary consciousness, but rāga-vivarjitam, that, kāma, which is devoid, which is free from all attachment, ‘that’ kāma.

In other words, there is a distinction, which is made between ‘desire’, ‘will’, and ‘aspiration’. The desire is a movement in which you try to grasp what you don’t possess, that is desire. Will is a condition in which you manifest what you have; there is no grasping at what you don’t have, you manifest what you have. Now, when you manifest what you have, there is a will to manifest, but in doing so, you are perfect when you manifest, you are perfect even when you don’t manifest, because you are manifesting what you already have. When you already have and you manifest it, then whether you manifest or you don’t manifest makes no difference because you already have it.

Now, this kāma refers to ‘this’ condition of will. In Sanskrit there is a difficulty because kāma is used both for ‘desire’ and for ‘will’. That is why to distinguish the word ‘desire’ in Sanskrit, Sri Krishna uses this word: kāma-rāga-vivarjitam: kāma, ‘that’ will in which attachment and desire is avoided, is destroyed, in which it does not exist. Aspiration is a third movement, in which you try to rise from ‘desire’ to ‘will’: that is aspiration. When we have desire, but I want to rise into a condition of will, then this upward movement is called aspiration. So, the distinction between the three words is very important; otherwise we mix up the three together, and you say: “well, I desire God”, even that you should not have; in a sense you should not have it, but you should have aspiration, because it is by going to God that all desires are lost. The real will arise only when you reach God. Therefore, your movement from desire to the will is ‘aspiration’ and that is perfectly justified. What is not justified is the desire to possess what you don’t have.

balaṁ balavatāṁ cāhaṁ kāmarāgavivarjitam |

dharmāviruddho bhūteṣu kāmo ’smi bharatarṣabha ||11|| (VII)

Now, Sri Krishna further explains that, ‘that’ kāma, what kāma is Me? dharmāviruddho, that which is not opposed to dharmā: that means the real divine will. The divine will is the only will which is dharmāviruddho, which is not opposed to the Divine’s consciousness.

ye caiva sāttvikā bhāvā rājasās tāmasāś ca ye |
matta eveti tān viddhi na tv ahaṁ teṣu te mayi ||12|| (VII)

Now, He says that “All that is Tamasic, all that is Rajasic, all that is Sattwic, all that is Apara Prakriti; that Apara Prakriti is in Me, but I am not in them.” Up till now He describes where ‘I am’ in all the movements of Apara Prakriti, all the rest Tamas, and Rajas and Sattwa, ‘in none of them’, He says, ‘I am present’. Wherever He is present, He has described, even in Apara Prakriti. But there is in Apara Prakriti: Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas. He says: “These are in Me, but I am not in them”.

This is a very difficult sentence to understand the first side. In a certain sense, if Divine is all, if Divine is present everywhere, if Divine is omnipresent, how can you say that: ‘He is not in them’, or ‘these only are in Him but He is not in them’?

These sentences have to be understood in two senses: one is that the Divine is transcendental; Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas do not reach the transcendental, because the moment they reach, they are destroyed; they are no more Sattwa, Rajas, and Tamas. Like ego: egoistic consciousness when it tries to reach the Divine, ego is destroyed. So, ego cannot exist…the Divine cannot exist in the ego. The moment ego becomes one with the Supreme, that ego is destroyed: that is one sense.

Another sense is…we very often say: a small glass can be contained in a bigger glass. So smaller glass is in the bigger glass; but can we say the bigger glass is in the smaller glass? Although there is a point of conjunction of the two somewhere because the lower is in the higher; similarly, the Supreme is greater than the Apara Prakriti, therefore, it can be said that the Supreme is not in the Apara Prakriti: you cannot put the bigger into the smaller. It is in that sense He says: na tv ahaṁ teṣu te mayi, “They are in Me, but I am not in them”.