Bhagavagd Gita - Session 41- Track 4107

Now, in contrast, we now come to the 15th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita.

The 15th chapter that we have already seen can be understood more properly and more significantly now in this background: Sankhya is not satisfactory; Shankara’s position is not satisfactory.

Question: What is the position of the Bhagavad Gita?

Now, according to the Bhagavad Gita, the position is complex, Reality is complex: this has been the real position of Veda, Upanishad and the Gita. When it is said: ekaṁ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti (Rig Veda 1, 164, 46), this is the Vedic statement: ‘Reality is one, but it can be spoken of variously’. So it is ‘one’ that is ‘various’, this is the complexity. If Reality were ‘one’ and could be described only in that ‘one form’ and in no other form, then, Reality would not be ‘complex’. It is “one” that is “various”: that is the complexity.

Question: This statement is from?

This is from the Rig Veda: ekaṁ sad viprā bahudhā vadanti.

It is also the other statements which are often quoted: it is adbhutam, ‘the Reality is wonderful’; this is also a Vedic statement. Why is it so very wonderful? “Because although it is itself, Reality is itself, it has its motion in another”, (this is a statement of the Rig Veda), “Being itself, it has motion in another”.

Now, imagine anything: ‘I have motion in another’, I am moving not in myself but moving in another. Being myself, if I have motion in another, what does it mean? But this is exactly the statement of the Rig Veda: anyasya cittam abhi sancancerenyam, these are the words in Sanskrit; anya means another, citta means consciousness, abhi sancanrenyam movable: “I am movable in another’s consciousness”: that means “I am Myself, yet I am another”; ekaṁ sad, the reality is only one. It is capable of being variously described because “Even tough I am one, I am still another”: this is the complexity: being Myself, still I am another and if I can have movement in the consciousness of another, then the Reality is very complex, in fact unintelligible to us, therefore it says very clearly: uttādhitaṁ vinaśyate, “When it is contemplated upon, when you think about It, It vanishes”, you cannot hold it, you cannot grasp it. Therefore you call it adbhutam.

The strangeness and wonder of anything is only when you can’t grasp it. The element of wonder arises only when you can’t understand; if you understand it’s not wonderful: because it is not understandable it is not wonderful; therefore it describes: cas tad veda yad adbhutam: who understands it, who knows it that which is wonderful.

Now, this is the statement of the Rig Veda. Now, this statement has three aspects: Reality is itself. Secondly it is another than itself. Thirdly that it has motion in the consciousness. “It is itself”: that means it is existent by itself. “It is”: means it is existing. It is another than itself. That other itself is consciousness.

It is itself existence; it is another in the sense it has a consciousness; and its motion is connected with consciousness. So, the distinction between Existence and Consciousness of such a nature that there is a difference between Existence and Consciousness and yet this difference should not exist because Consciousness must be Existence and Existence must be Consciousness and motion must be also rooted in Consciousness.

These words indicate it is anya: there is existence and yet there is something else than existence: that something else is called Consciousness and motion is connected with this Consciousness. In other words we have now here the first formulation of what we can call “sat-cit”: Reality is Sat-Chit. Sat is ‘Existent’, is that which exists; Sat is that which is Chit. And Chit is not only Consciousness; it is also capable of motion: Chit- Shakti, it is that which is motion.

Now, the complexity therefore is brought out also very clearly in the Isha Upanishad, it says: Reality is one but it is of such a nature…tadejati tannaijati, “It moves, It moves not”. So, Reality which moves and which does not move at the same time is the very nature of Reality. So, that which moves is not illusion according to this theory: all motion is a motion not towards that which is not, (that was the argument of Shankara that ‘all motion is a motion towards that which is not’), all motion according to this theory, according to this Reality is a motion ‘in that which exists’. Existence is something which can’t be rubbed out: “It is that which exists”. His motion is not outside that existence: there is nothing outside because Existence is the only thing that is there. The motion therefore, our idea of motion is that it always moves from what ‘is’ to what ‘is not’ is a wrong understanding of motion: the nature of motion is not of that kind. It does not move from ‘that which is’ to ‘that which is not’: it is simply “a partial self limitation unfolding itself”.

Comment: Partial?

It is partial because all movement is a result of self limitation: this is the speciality of the nature of Reality. All capacities of the Divine, (of the Infinite), include the capacity of self limitation.

Comment: So all movement…

All movement is a result of self limitation returning back again in its enfoldment, not outside Reality, not outside Existence: such is the nature of motion in the world.

That is why…if you examine the nature of self limitation, you will find: ‘when I limit myself I do not become incomplete’, when I limit myself I do not cease to be complete.

When a mother talks to the child in the language of the child, the mother’s adult consciousness is not abolished: it’s a self limitation. I limited myself to be correspondent to the child’s language: so, self limitation does not cancel out the fullness of existence and my self limitation when it unfolds itself, it does not unfold into something which does not exist; it unfolds itself into something which already existed.

So, motion is not motion towards that which is not, motion is towards that which already exists; such is the nature of motion in the world. Motion is then understood in the Veda and the Upanishad as “That which is within Itself”.

…That which is very far is not outside Itself, it is at the same time…It is near: it is simply a result of self limitation.