Bhagavagd Gita - Session 16- Track 1602

There is a distinction between Brahman consciousness, and Purushottama consciousness: Brahman consciousness is the consciousness of oneness without complexity; Purushottama in one but with all the complexities.

Since there is only one Brahman, (there are not two Brahmans, there is only one Brahman), when all human limitations are dissolved, when the egoistic consciousness is dissolved, then the experience you have is of oneness, not even ‘you being one’, because even that is short of oneness: the sense of ‘you-ness’, ‘I-ness’ is dissolved. Very often therefore, you feel that there is only Divine everywhere: one Reality everywhere, the presence of the Divine everywhere. And your living experience: you feel the Divine, you yourself are Divine. That is also a kind of experience of Avatarhood.

But it is simply the human ascension, which brings about this experience of oneness with the Divine; it is again not a direct descent of the Divine, Divine Himself taking charge of a human form, right from birth; such is not the phenomenon. But many Yogis can justify, as they call themselves Avatars in this special sense, when there is oneness with the Brahman, when there is dissolution of all identity of your individuality, all your egoism.

Then, there is another phenomenon, which also takes place, again in the sense of human ascent: when you rise from lower levels to the higher levels of consciousness, then you feel that there is not only oneness with the Divine, but something of Purushottama also manifest through you, enters into your human parts.

In the Divine Consciousness there are three important elements: the oneness of the Brahman, the dynamic power of the Divine, and the Supreme Divine Himself who encompasses all the powers, as Sri Krishna will say later on: who combines himself both akṣara and kṣara, the Immobile and the Mobile. He is neither immobile alone, nor mobile alone, but who combines both mobility and immobility. Purushottama as both Immobile and Mobile: the immobile oneness and the mobile omnipotence. These three elements go together whenever you speak of Divine Consciousness.

The Divine Power is also called in our mystic language: the Divine Mother. In the Vedic language it is called: aditi. Supreme Purushottama, then there is Aditi and then there is the Brahmic Consciousness of Oneness. Aditi has a farther complexity: Aditi is the power of the Divine, and manifest the power of the Divine in the individuality. Aditi Herself is cosmic; the Purushottama is transcendental in every sense, transcends everything to such an extent that Sri Krishna says that, “In my transcendental aspect, they are in Me, but I am not in them”, the whole world is in Him, but He cannot be exhausted in all that is there, He is so transcendental that in the atharva veda it is called ucchiṣṭa: He is the remainder. When everything that you can conceive is exhausted, there is still something that remains, ‘the remainder’: that is Purushottama the transcendental, but again it is not only transcendental, He is ‘all’ also at the same time.

There is the Purushottama, there is the Divine Mother who is cosmic, but the Divine has also the power of individuality. This power of individuality is called ‘the Son’: either the individual or Jiva, or the Son. This is in the Christian theory of incarnation. There is the ‘Son of God’ incarnated on the earth. The Supreme Divine is both here in this world as well as above the world; it is said that the supreme Divine is in the heart of man: by the heart is meant the inner heart, the cave of the Yogin; it is not the external, physical heart, but the inner heart, in which the Divine is located along with our own true soul. But there is also the Divine above; in the mystic language it is called: ‘the heaven’. That is why in the Christian doctrine: ‘Father who is in Heaven’; the Father who is in Heaven is always with the Son. The Supreme Divine and the Jiva, they are always together. We have in India a corresponding idea of Nara-Narayana: the Nara is the Son; Narayana is the Supreme.

If you make an ascent into the Divine, then there is a response from above. You meet the Divine, Divine descends, and He may descend basically in the aspect of the ‘Son of God’; not the totality of the Divine, but the Son of God, the Jiva aspect becomes more manifest, more at work. That is why in the Christian doctrine there is the idea of trinity. If you want to have the corresponding words of trinity in Indian language, in Indian terminology: you have the Purushottama, the Father; you have the Jiva and the Aditi, and then you have the Brahmic consciousness. Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost: Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is the Brahmic consciousness.

There is a description of Jesus who feels the descent of the Holy Ghost and with that comes down so many powers of the Divine, and they manifest even in His disciples, the apostles. It is a true description of the descent of the Divine consciousness, and the descent of the Son of God, and therefore when He claims that He is the Son of God, it is the true claim of an experience of a realisation; and then His claim that the Father and the Son are one…