Chapter IV (VERSE 6) & CHAPTER X (VERSE 20)
Jnana Karma Sanyasa Yoga – The Yoga of Renunciation of Action with Knowledge
CHAPTER IV
(Verse 6)
अजोऽपि सन्नव्ययात्मा भूतानामीश्वरोऽपि सन् ।
प्रकृतिं स्वामधिष्ठाय सम्भवाम्यात्ममायया ॥ ४-६॥
Though I am unborn and am of imperishable nature, and though I am the Lord of all beings, yet, ruling over My own Nature, I take birth by My own MAYA.
Here is the most daring and original thought of Vyasa, we may say, throughout the entire Geeta. The Supreme, on account of His unquestioned freedom, by His own perfectly free will, takes upon Himself the conditioning of matter, and manifests Himself in a particular embodiment in the world, for serving the deluded generation of that time. To the Lord, His ‘ignorance’ is but a pose assumed, not a fact lived. A mortal becomes victimised by his Avidya, while the Lord is Master of His Maya. A driver is bound by his duty to the vehicle, while the owner of the vehicle is Lord of it. He uses the vehicle for his purposes,and whenever he reaches his immediate destination, he leaves the vehicle with all freedom, and enjoys his own independent activities. But, the poor driver, bound to the vehicle, will have to guard it against intruders and serve the vehicle as its servant. The Lord uses the matter envelopments and their limitations as a convenience and as a set of necessary tools in His game of protecting the creation.
Thus, though the Lord is Unborn and Changeless in His Nature, and ever a Lord of matter, yet, keeping His Maya perfectly under His own control, He comes into the world, through His own free will. All the time He is fully conscious of His own Divine status and unchallenged prerogative. He does not come into being as others do, compelled by His past Karma, to live here in the world under the thraldom of Nature. He is not bound by His mental temperaments but He is ever free from the mischiefs of His own Maya.
You ask your servant to take your heavy motor-cycle to the nearby garage for refilling it. If you watch him doing it you will have some idea of what the Lord is trying to express here. To that poor man, the unwieldy machine is a calamity, a suffering. To push it across the road is a risky adventure for him, because the machine, by its own weight, guides him, he being powerless to assert his mastery over it. On the other hand, if you yourself were to ride, or push, the motor-cycle, you can joyously, and easily, do so. The vehicle remaining the same, in your hands it becomes a slave to carry you, while the poor servant was being dragged by the clumsy weight of the heavy machine!
To an ordinary man who is ignorant of the working of his vehicle, it becomes a painful agony and a difficult responsibility to make use of these instruments. To the Lord, the world is no problem, and His personal equipments and their appetites are always perfectly under His own control. He comes to lord over every situation.
This perfect freedom of a God-man could not have been more beautifully brought out in so few words as in these incomparable lines.
WHAT IS GOD’S NATURE ?
Vibhooti Yoga – The Yoga of Divine Manifestation
CHAPTER X
(Verse 20)
अहमात्मा गुडाकेश सर्वभूताशयस्थितः ।
अहमादिश्च मध्यं च भूतानामन्त एव च ॥ १०-२०॥
I am the Self, O Gudakesha, seated in the hearts of all beings; I am the Beginning, the Middle and also the End of all beings.
I AM THE SELF THAT EXISTS IN THE HEART OF ALL BEINGS — This is a general statement with which Krishna opens his entire discourse. A real master of research who is trained well to be a scientific thinker, starts a discussion upon his pet subject of study and experience by summarising his entire talk in a general statement. Later on, he will work at the warp and the woof of his descriptions, and at the logical reasoning for the elaboration of his theme, and will, of necessity, come back to the same statement at the conclusion of his talks. Here also we find, in the last stanza of this chapter, how Krishna concludes with the same thought, more powerfully expressed, “I EXIST SUPPORTING THIS WHOLE BY A PORTION OF MYSELF.”
If, in the first half of the verse it is declared that Krishna, as the Self in all, is the essence in the world of multiplicity, the same idea is expressed in other words, in the second line of the verse, “I AM THE BEGINNING, THE MIDDLE, AND ALSO THE END OF ALL BEINGS.” The world of things and beings is essentially a projection of the mind; the world outside is only the Infinite, misinterpreted by
the finite mind. Therefore, this idea can be understood subjectively, as referring to the world-of-thoughts also. Every thought rises from the Consciousness, and when it dies away, it merges back to leave behind nothing but Consciousness. There can be no thought where there is no Consciousness. Later on also we shall find the same idea forcefully repeated (X-32) and Krishna never seems to tire of repeating this great Truth.