Bhagavagd Gita - Session 30- Track 3009

Sri Aurobindo himself has written a very powerful chapter in the ‘Essays on the Gita’: The Divine Truth and Way. If you have time sometime you open this particular chapter from ‘Essays on the Gita’: The Divine Truth and Way, that is the title of the chapter, it is chapter n°5 of volume II of the Essays on The Gita. The Divine Truth and Way: this is one of the most difficult chapters of the whole book; evidently it is difficult because it is the heart, as it were you might say, it is the quintessence of the Bhagavad Gita is as it were summarised in these two verses.

Therefore they are leaden, so pregnant that when you want to explain so much is to be said. Sri Aurobindo has described here varieties of spiritual experiences. In the different religions, in the different systems of Yogas, among different mystics, among those who have realised the Divine, if you knock their doors and ask: what is the Divine? You will get different answers. Now, these different answers very often seem to collide against each other. But if you go behind the doctrine to the level of experience then you find that these experiences can be all synthesised.

This synthesis of spiritual experiences is the basis of the Bhagavad Gita. When Sri Krishna said to Arjuna in the second chapter that ‘you are not taking into account that which is immortal, that which never dies, that which is Real’, what He wanted to say was ‘this’, that there is a Reality which is ‘supra-cosmic’, which is ‘cosmic’, which is ‘individual’ and in respect of which, varieties of spiritual experiences are possible. It is only when you know the Divine integrally that you understand how the Divine works in the world. Very often we complain against the Divine: if divine were such and such, why is the world be such and such. These questions arise because we are not looking at the Divine in Its totality. The Divine Himself has varieties of relationship with the world: ‘All are equal to the Divine’ Sri Krishna says, ‘none are more favourite than the other’ and yet He says: mad bhaktaḥ māma priyaḥ, ‘My devotee is very dear to Me’.

The Divine Himself is spread in the world, but because of its complexity, although He is present everywhere, the way in which He is present is quite different. When I am ignorant, the Divine is present in me, present in the whole world. How does the Divine behave with me? When I am in a state of knowledge, how does the Divine deals with me? When I am ignorant I relate myself with God and the world through my ego, so I am myself developing a special kind of attitude to the world and with the Divine, (if such a Divine exists to the egoistic consciousness which very often does not exists, because regards itself to be the Supreme). That egoistic consciousness cannot easily approach the Divine because his own doors are closed by himself. The Divine who is present everywhere through the egoistic consciousness, the individual closes the door on that divine. So even if the Divine is equal everywhere, how can you experience Him as a Bhakta would experience Him? The fire and the heat may be everywhere, equal, but if a put an air conditioner around me, then I may not experience heat, because air conditioner is around me: so, the Divine’s Love is present everywhere, but if I put on my body, on my being, a coat of coldness, how shall experience the warmth of the divine Love?

Therefore, Sri Krishna is quite right in saying: “My Bhakta is dear to Me” because between Bhakta and Myself there is no air conditioner: it is a direct connection. He is equal to all even to the egoistic, He is giving the same Love, but because the egoistic consciousness has got this over coating, he will not experience the warmth of the divine Love. There, Sri Krishna says that ‘Those who are egoistic they will experience Me or experience the world as if it is a huge machine’, the world is experienced as a huge machine on which ego finds itself to be a kind of a ‘clog’, or a convenience and the experience of egoism, when it really experience itself, it finds itself to be overridden all the time by this huge machine. If you are seated in a machine and if the machine is running on its own, even if you feel ‘I am running, I am running, I am running’, but you are all the time overrun, because you are seated in a machine which is moving on its own. I may be running on this earth, but the earth is itself moving which I cannot overrun. Therefore, whatever I do here is overrun all the time. Therefore, relationship between God and ego is of such a nature that ego always finds itself to be overrun. In the ultimate analysis all egoistic consciousness finds it becomes overrun.