Bhagavagd Gita - Session 27- Track 2706

Of these different ways of mobility, the determining force is Tapas. It is the force, the way by which this energy is guided, is monitored, you might say, is what is called tapas. Tapas is nothing but ‘force of concentration’. Even in our own ordinary mental consciousness, you will find that when you gather your energy on a particular point, which you call concentration, then that energy becomes more powerful. It becomes less powerful when it is dispersed: each energy which is a dispersal is less effective; but when the energy is focused, brought together, then it is very powerful. So, original movement of the divine energy is tāpasi, is very concentrated.

Now, whenever there is a concentration, it can give correct shapes, formations. All formations are results of Tapas: you concentrate one way, it gives one result, concentrate another way, you do another result. All shapes, all shaping is done by the power of Tapas.

One big force moving by itself without restriction and limitation is what is called ‘universal’. I am now introducing a new term. So far I have spoken only one, which is complex; one that is two that is Purusha and Prakriti, or Ishwara or Shakti, or ardhanārīśvara, in images, to indicate that there is a reality which is complex and there is an inherent duality in it, duality which is more than duality, a duality which is in itself an identity. Now, I am introducing a new term: the term ‘universal’. ‘Universal’ is also a shape, a formation. The Supreme in Himself is more than the ‘universal’. When we speak of Purushottama, we speak of Him as ‘Transcendental’. ‘Transcendental’ means that which is more than ‘cosmos’, more than ‘universal’; it transcends the universe. Therefore it is Purushottama, supra-cosmic. Cosmic is only a ‘term’: term means that which is a terminal, ‘boundary’. So, universal is a term, it is a very peculiar term. Again, there is a contradiction when you use a term to describe it, but there is no other way of describing it. It is ‘boundless finite’: universal is ‘boundless finite’. This is the term that we can use for the universal.

Why is it ‘boundless’? It is boundless because there is no end of the universe. Today we speak of the ‘expanding universe’; this is the new concept of physics: ‘expanding universe’. The universe is constantly expanding. Where? In what? These are the mysterious questions which physics is not able to answer. If it is expanding, it should be expanding somewhere. But Indian thought had already a concept that ‘universe’ is ‘by-itself’…its very nature is ‘boundless finite’: it is a finite which is constantly expanding. There is no end of it, it is called anādi ananta. These two terms which are used very often in our Indian thought: the universe is anādi, and ananta. It has no beginning and no end. Therefore it is boundless, and yet at any given moment there is a boundary. It expands only when there is a boundary otherwise how can it expand? Expansion means that there is a boundary which is not expanding. So the only way by which the universe can be described is that it is ‘boundless finite’.

Now, in this boundless finite, there are millions of finites, each one having a boundary all around. Universe by itself has no boundary; it has a boundary which is constantly expanding. But in this boundless finite, there are millions of finite boundaries; so many bounded things which are called ‘forms’.

The universe is nothing but a huge manifestation of force, of Tapas, in which millions and billions of forms are released as it were, and they go forth. This is what is called in Sanskrit nāma rūpa. Millions and billions of nāma rūpa, everything having a name and everything having a rūpa, a form, are released. Now, in this manifestation, apart of nāma rūpa, this Tapas is also capable of forming something very peculiar. That peculiar manifestation is called Jiva, ‘the individual’. There is a difference between ‘particular’ and ‘individual’.