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Chapter
Seven: Knowledge and Realization
Listen thou now, O
Partha, your mind is attached to me. Practicing yoga and taking shelter in me,
you shall have no doubt in knowing me completely.
7.2: I will explain to you fully Jnāna and
Vijnāna, by knowing which, there is nothing further that remains to be
known in this world.
Jnāna
and Vijnāna: Self-knowledge and realized knowledge. Jnāna is
Sabda-Brahman and Vijnāna is Param-Brahman. Another way of putting is to
say that Jnāna is the narrow and straight path to God without any detours
or diversions, and Vijnāna is the destination itself. Here Jnāna is
an acquired knowledge of the self from all sources, but Vijnāna is direct
experience of God. Jnāna is to come under the magnetic influence of God,
and Vijnāna is magnetic attachment to God. Jnāna is to know that God
exists by one's inner experience; Vijnāna is to communicate and relate to
God as a slave, a servant, a child, a friend, a spouse, and a devotee.
Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maha Rishi had such communications with God.
Supplement section carries a descriptive piece on Jnāna and Vijnāna,
and Sabda-Brahman and Param-Brahman
Jnāna is
self-knowledge and according to Chāndogya Upanishad 8.4.1 to 3, knowledge
of the Self is liberating. Self is a bridge over which neither day, nor night,
nor old age, nor death, nor sorrow, nor well-being, nor ill-being crosses. The
one-way bridge separates the night of miseries of existence at the entry point
from the day of effulgent bliss at the exit point: it is the Brahma-world, a
world of illumination free from evil; all the maladies of the world such as
“blindness and wounds” stay behind. Those who know this sacred knowledge of the
self enter the Brahma-world and are forever free from all miseries of
existence. This one-way bridge on the
7.3: Out of thousands of men, someone strives for
perfection. Of those striving for and attaining to perfection, hardly one knows
Me in truth.
Out
of many thousands who strive for perfection, a few attain to perfection; out of
those few, scarcely one knows Me in truth. “Know Me in Truth” is different from
knowing: The former means the yogi has achieved Jnāna already and is close
to achieving Vijnāna.
7.4: Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind,
intelligence, certainly ego, all together are the eightfold division of my
nature (Prakriti).
The Purusa offers Himself as sacrifice and from that emanate all objects, animate and inanimate. Then the moon comes from his mind. The sun comes forth from the eyes, Indra from his mouth, fire from his breath, air from his navel, the sky from his head, the earth from his feet, and the compass or the four directions from his ears. Our physical body is made of earth (minerals), water, fire (body heat), air, and ether. From the sole of the foot to the knee is the seat of earth, from knee to navel is the seat of water, from navel to throat is the seat of air, from throat to forehead is air, and from forehead to Brahma Randhra (top of the head, Brahma's aperture, anterior fontanel) is the seat of ether. Kundalini yogis say that controlling these elements is possible with Dharana (concentration). Here it does not mean that you can walk on water or some such thing. It simply means that all these elements present in the body can be brought to work for you and keep you in good health by Kundalini Yoga. One such example is, you can control Prana (air) by Pranayama (breath-exercises) and obtain benefits from such practice.
(A note: For balance and orientation, we need the inner ear.) From Prakriti comes Mahat or buddhi; from buddhi comes ahankāra or ego; from ahankāra come the indriyas, manas, and tanmātras; from tanmātras, come gross elements (Maha Bhutas) ether, air, fire, water, and earth. As you may notice, these gross elements starting from ether becomes progressively more and more gross until it becomes earth, which is made possible when mass is zapped with energy, according to the ancient thinking. You may notice that from ether to earth (sequence of evolution of Tattvas) matter acquires solidity-- from gas to liquid to solid and from subtle to gross form. The Maha Bhutas are assigned the following colors.
| Akasa (Ether) | Vayu (Air) | Agni (Fire) | Ap (Water) | Prithvi (Earth) |
| Transparent (svaccha) | Black (Krsna) | Red (Rakta) | White (Sveta) | Yellow (pita) |
Indra's
birthplace is the uvula of Purusa. (Uvula is the mass of tissue, the punching
bag-like pendant, which hangs off the soft palate in the midline, back in the
oral cavity.)
Bhagavatam
(Book three, Chapter ten) gives details of the creation of matter starting from
Mahat. Mahat was the first product made from the agitation of the gunas. Mahat,
Ahankara, Tanmatras with the potential for the creation of gross elements, the
organs of senses, the presiding deities of the senses, and the ignorance
(Tamas) are the first six creations collectively called Prakrti. The seventh is
the creation of the immovable of six kinds: vanaspatis, trees; osadhis,
fruit-bearing plants; latas, creepers; tvaksara, trees with thick or sound skin
like bamboo; Virudhs, strong-stem creepers; drumas, fruit-bearing trees. Since
they draw nourishment from below, they are tamasic with latent feelings. The
eighth is the creation of animals and birds
of twenty-eight kinds. They eat and mate, and are ignorant of knowledge of the future. They have sense of smell,
touch, vision, movement, hearing, and instinct but have no reasoning or
capacity for long-term retentive mind or knowledge. The ninth is the creation
of man with rajas. The tenth are the gods and other celestial beings.
Mundaka Upanishad (Chapter two) describes Brahman in detail. Beings of many kinds issue forth from Brahman, as the sparks fly off the raging fire. He is divine and formless, inside and outside, without prana (breath) and mind, pure and higher than the highest. Mind, breath, all sense organs (sarvendriyani), ether, air, light, water and earth come forth from Brahman who is caretaker of all. Fire, whose fuel is the sun, issues forth from him.
7.5: Besides this lower
prakriti, understand My other higher nature, O Mighty-armed one, the Life-Being
(Jīva-Bhūta or Purusa) which sustains this universe (jagat).
Jīva-Bhūta means Living Being, who
is a cluster of all living beings.
Prakriti is matter, and Purusa is the Command and Control Authority.
Purusa or Jiva Bhuta orchestrates this universe of disparate elements and all
living beings. That is the higher mode of Lord Krishna. Who is the creator of
gods, men, and beings, and matter? To whom do we owe this existence, this
reverence, this adoration, this worship, this oblation, and this sacrifice?
That is Purusa the creator, yet He is uncreated. From Purusa emerged men, Gods,
and all living creatures.
Lower prakrti is Aparaprakrti (lower [not supreme] nature), which is the origin of material universe. Para Prakrti is His higher (Supreme) nature and is the origin of all living beings including Brahma and gods.
Agni (Fire) is the god of Fire and is
cognate with Latin, ignis.
7.6: All living beings have
their source (Yoni or womb) in these two natures. Know it that I am the source
of the universe and its dissolution.
In the beginning, there were no gods; they
came later. Who was THAT ONE– tad ekam? Who was THAT ONE who gave breath to the
breathless, life to the lifeless, form to the formless, and name to the
nameless? There was one Being with self-consciousness, who was that determinate
Self with no limit imposed on Him. The manifestations belong to Him. Through
the power of Tapas, he creates; it is austerity, and specifies heat. There was
darkness; there was void; there was water: All this is “not-self,” prakriti.
Since he created the waters, his name is
7.7: There is nothing higher
than Me, O Arjuna. All that is here (universe) is strung on Me, as a row of
gems on a thread.
Brahman consists of Isvara and prakāra.
Isvara, the manifest form of Brahman, is supreme; and prakāra is cit and
acit: Cit is life and sentient and acit is inanimate and insentient. Isvara is
the inner controller of Prakāra and is antaryāmin. Cit is life, the
sentient world of organisms from ameba to man, and plants. Acit is the world of
matter and insentient. Ref. to BG C9V10:
“Under My supervision, prakriti gives birth to both moving and unmoving
(objects).” Cit is individual soul. With Brahman or Isvara as the Supreme
Controller, creation comes into effect by His sheer will. Brahman wills the
contact of his intelligent principle to Prakriti, the non-intelligent matter, by
bringing spirit and matter together in the soul-body of a living being and
infusing vibhu (omnipresence) in all. From this contact, gods to insentient objects
come forth. Therefore, Ramanuja's Brahman is a diverse entity of souls and
plurality of the universe. The Upanishads address Brahman as Param-Jyotis, the
Supreme Light. Ramanuja calls Atman or Jiva as Brahman also. When jiva sheds
its ignorance and the original karma, experiences self-awareness, and becomes
cognizant of awareness of other Jivas and Isvara, the Jiva is no other than
Brahman. Ramanuja equates Isvara as the knower of the Field (Ksetranjana) and
the field as the teeming Jivas and the insentient universe (Ksetra). Remember
Isvara, Cit, and Acit. In the microcosmic Jiva, the Jiva is the knower of the
Field and the body is the field.
7.8: I am the taste in the
water, O Son of Kunti; I am the light in the moon and the sun; the prānava
(AUM) in the Vedas; sound in the ether; and the virility (manhood) in men.
Refer to Verses chapter 10.20-42
I am the fraud of the gambler; of the splendid, I am the splendor; I am
victory; I am the resolve (of the resolute); I am the absolute virtue of the
virtuous. (10.36)
There is no life, as we know it, without
water. Our body is 60 to 80% water, depending on the age. We came from earth
and water; we are minerals and water. We came from earth and so we return to
earth. We came from fire (body heat and digestion are two examples of fire in
the human body) and so we return to fire. We came from water and so we return
to water. That is the reason why the grieving relatives throw the dead bodies
into
7.9: I am the pure fragrance of
the earth; I am the brightness in the fire; I am the life in all the living
entities; I am the tapa(s) in ascetics.
Tapas: austerity
Here is the story on the origin of Tapas. In
the beginning, if there was such a period, which I doubt, there was nothing. It
was a void; it was neither a Being nor a NonBeing. He created the mind and then
water came into existence from worship. Fire or heat is in the water. (If fire
[heat] comes out of water, ice comes into existence.) It was feeling the
loneliness and there was no form, no name, and no breath. It was throbbing and
propulsive; it looked on itself; it was awareness itself. What am I? Who am I?
Let me be something; let me breathe life into my own self; let me be a person
or entity. Prajapati was born out of His own will; but He was still lonely.
Since He created the waters, His name is
7.11: I am strength in the
strong without passion and desire. I am carnal desire in all within the
principles of dharma (duty, virtue and righteousness), O Arjuna.
7.12: Know that all states of
being, such as Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas proceed thus from Me. I am not in them,
but they are in Me.
The pluripotential prakriti results in gunas: Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas. These three constituents of gunas are inseparable and form a complex: Sattva-Rajas-Tamas complex, which is inert, if it is in equilibrium. Only one of the three constituents is dominant in a person or entity at a time. Sattva is knowledge, intellect, light and balanced emotion; Rajas is the motor behind Sattva and Tamas. (Without Rajas, Sattva and Tamas are inert.) Dominance of Rajas naturally means revved-up emotions; Tamas is darkness, passivity, or negativity. One should remember that these three gunas, strands and complex condition all manifest worlds, both animate and inanimate. The force behind this complex or strands is Purusa (the Spirit) who agitates these strands or gunas and causes disequilibrium and subsequently heterogeneity and polymorphism. Lord Krishna does not succumb to these three gunas, which are like the poison sac in the snake (or the acid in the car battery). “They are in Me and I am not in them.” The poison in the poison sac does not affect the snake and the acid does not corrode the container of the battery, so also the gunas do not affect the Lord. These three gunas have modulating influence on one another. When a person uses his Rajas to suppress Tamas, he becomes Vira (hero). This is sublimation. This is what you see in soldiers, policemen, firefighters. When the Tamas content of one's character increases at the expense of the other two, he becomes a Pasu (an animal). This 'Brute Substance' becomes dominant as the nature descends from sattvic man. The object of human race is perfection (Siddhi) and the highly sattvic man is divine (Divyabhava). The word Diva (Diva: a distinguished female singer; prima donna.) is derived from the Sanskrit word Diva. (Diva = heaven; Divya = heaven; Deva = god.)
Buddhi, the individual equivalent of cosmic
Mahat, is intelligence, which with Ahankāra and Manas (ego and mind) form
Chitta, which interacts with and modulates the gunas.
7.13: Deluded by the threefold
nature of the gunas, the whole universe of beings does not know Me because I am
above all these, supreme and imperishable (and incomprehensible).
These three gunas come from the Lord, but
they do not affect the Lord. He is beyond these three qualities, but gods, men,
animals, and objects are subject to these gunas, which delude the living
beings. The qualities of each entity are according to the dominant guna:
Sattva, Rajas, or Tamas. Buddhi (Chitta), the modulator of these gunas is
inadequate in man for him to understand the Supreme and the Imperishable. Let
me explain what the Supreme and the Imperishable mean. From the beginningless
time, the first entity is the Supreme, and then comes the Imperishable and then
other evolutes come forth from the imperishable. The Supreme and the
Imperishable are beyond human intelligence and understanding and therefore
incomprehensible in this context of the three gunas.
7.14: This divine māyā
of the three gunas is an impediment; certainly, those who take refuge in me can
cross over this māyā.
Māyā (Maya)= Mā + Yā = Yā +Mā = That + which is not.
Māyā is avidya (nescience); and is
veiling, revealing, relative, differential, and projecting. The three gunas are
qualities through which we experience this phenomenal world. To that extent
this world is real, but this phenomenal world is only (a veil) a projection of
Brahman, the Lord or the Self and so veils or hides the real Brahman. It
blocks the vision of Brahman.
Brahman is like the ocean and the phenomenal
world is like the waves, which rise and fall. For the duration of the wave, it
has a form, a name, and a life (time). The waves are there because the ocean is
there, and this transitoriness, the projection, or the formation of the wave is
an expression of māyā.
The experience of Brahman is real; experience of the phenomenal world
is less real because of avidya or ignorance. Māyā
is unmanifest but manifests nonexistent objects, according Bhagavata Purana,
11.9.33. The Lord created māyā to help the individual soul, while
enjoying this world, look beyond and reach Brahman, the Real. Māyā
is the rite of passage for the soul, before it attains to Brahman. Brahman and
māyā participate in the creation of this world. The enzymatic,
inductive, and regulatory Māyā is not Sat or Asat, (being or
non-being), and acts on Brahman to project this phenomenal world. That is why
Brahman is the manifest cause (Vivarta) and māyā is the
transformational cause (Parināma.) Māyā has regulatory control
on this phenomenal world as far as the qualities (gunas), functions and
interrelationships are concerned. Since māyā is the transformational
cause, the transformed material (from substrate to substance) has different
qualities, functions, and relationships. Examples of different qualities,
functions, and relationships are in nature: Kerosene poured over fire results
in conflagration and water poured over fire causes extinguishment. That is one
example of Māyā and the creator of Māyā is Mayin.
His name is also Amaya, because he transcends Māyā, is devoid of Māyā, and projects Māyā. Māyā is an external potency and acts like the heat of the sun, which evaporates the water, but neither the water nor the water vapor affects the sun. Māyā is enamored by and fixed on relative reality of the world and projects the illusion of the phenomenal world. Māyā is the cataract between you and the Real, that is Brahman; and it is a hurdle for the attainment of Brahman because it is an impediment in the jivatma's onward journey towards Brahman.
Jiva is
described as the mirror image (Pratibimba) of
Brahman in Avidya or ne
7.15: The evildoers, the
ignorant, and the lowest among men, who are robbed of their knowledge by
māyā, are of demonic nature and do not seek refuge in me.
Māyā, as said before is avidya
(ignorance or nescience). Māyā is veiling; it veils the Real. The
māyāvins (the fraudulent) are the shortsighted; māyā
undermines them; they do not even know that. What is common among these
māyāvins is that they have an ego not under the control of Sattva,
but under the control of Rajas and Tamas; their Chitta (buddhi, manas and ego)
is out of order and is not synchronous with the Self. Ahimsa, truth, honesty,
continence, and rejection of gifts are the needed sattvic moral qualities,
before this jivatma can even reflect on the Supreme. The māyāvins
lack those qualities listed above, do not believe that we are His creation and
that we are His instruments, move in the darkness of nescience, and avoid the
light of divine wisdom. The māyāvins deny the existence of the Lord,
His manifestations and His Supremacy, commit evil acts, and consider they are
independent of the Lord. The lowest among men are those, who recognize the
Supremacy of God, but do not follow the path towards Him. The foolish and the
ignorant are people who enjoy the bounties of this world, as if they are
entitled to them. The demonic people are those who know God's supremacy, but
hate Him.
7.16: Four kinds of virtuous
people worship me, O Arjuna. They are the distressed, the seeker of knowledge,
the seeker of wealth, and the Jnāni (seeker of wisdom), O the best of
Bharatas.
Sukrtinah: doing good actions, virtuous,
prosperous, fortunate, cultivated, wise
There are many kinds of devotees: Relief
seeker, Atman Seeker, Wealth Seeker, and Knowledge Seeker. The Lord loves them
all; but He likes the Jnāni, the knowledge seeker, most; next comes the
Atman Seeker. Both of them are not after material wealth or seeking relief from
wants or suffering. “The Sage asketh nothing and refuseth nothing from God.” He
worships God for His own sake. Broadly speaking, the worshippers seek either
prakriti (material) or the Self. The one who puts the Self before Prakriti is
very dear to the Lord.
7.17: Of these, the Jnāni
(the wise one), who is always in union with Me and whose devotion is single-minded
is the best. I am very dear to that Jnāni, and he is very dear to Me.
7.18: All (these four people)
are noble, but the Jnāni, I consider, as truly My Self. In my opinion, he
who is in union with My Self certainly attains to the Highest (Supreme.)
Udāra: noble, exalted, distinguished
Jnāna and Vijnāna are “Self”
knowledge, and realized divine intuitive knowledge. Jnāna is Sabda-Brahman
and Vijnāna is Param-Brahman. Another way of putting it is to say that
Jnāna is the narrow and straight path to God without any detours or
diversions, and Vijnāna is the destination itself. Here Jnāna is an
acquired knowledge of the self from all sources, while Vijnāna is direct
experience of God. Jnāna is to come under the magnetic influence of God
and Vijnāna is magnetic attachment to God. Jnāna is to know that God
exists by one's inner experience and Vijnāna is to communicate and relate
to God as a slave, a servant, a child, a friend, a spouse, and a devotee. A few
attaining that status were Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maha Rishi. Please
read Supplement section on Jnāna and Vijnāna, and Sabda-Brahman and
Param-Brahman.
7.19: After many births and at
the end (of the last birth), the man of wisdom takes refuge in me, in his
knowledge that Vasudeva is all there is to know). Such a great soul is very
difficult to find.
It may take a person a lifetime or many life
times, before he can attain to the Lord. He, who knows that Vasudeva is all
there is to know, is certain to attain moksa. Taking refuge in Vasudeva entails
bhakti, Prapatti and Saranāgati. Bhakti is devotion; Prapatti is complete
resignation; and Saranāgati is total surrender to Vasudeva. The
relationship here goes by the name Sesi-Sesa, meaning Master-servant relationship
between God and man. When Lord accepts the devotee, it is like the cow licking
the newborn calf clean: forgiveness of sins. It is also like the devotee
playing the role of Yasoda (mother) to Baby Krishna. This, known as Vatsalya,
speaks of the closeness between parent and child, and God and man. When the
Lord, seeing and knowing the utter helplessness, extreme devotion and
vulnerability of the devotee, confers His Divine Grace on the devotee, by
taking him to moksa like a cat would take the kitten by the nape of its neck.
The devotee clings to God as a helpless baby monkey would cling to its mother.
The cat and monkey allegories are popular among the Vaisnava sects.
Yasoda and Baby Krishna
The Supreme soul and the individual soul are
magnetic to each other, but ignorance, karma, and māyā are
impediments for the closeness to the Lord. Saranāgati, self surrender;
Prapatti, resignation; and bhakti on the part of the individual; the knowledge
that Self is Real; and God’s compassion, love and grace for the devotee get the
individual soul in closeness to God. This magnetic systemic resonance between
God and man is the goal of the individual soul of man.
7.20: Those, whose wisdom
succumbed to desires, surrender to other gods and perform various rites,
compelled by their own natures.
The unwise offer various sacrifices, rites,
and rituals to lesser gods with the idea receiving material gains. Lord Krishna
states that their gunas are subject to the vāsanās (clinging subtle
impressions) from previous birth, which residing in the subtle bodies are like
the scent clinging to the clothes; and in this case, these subtle impressions
are the remainders of the past lives. These vāsanās are like the
smell of the smoke left behind on the baked clay pot. Their present behavior
comes under the influence of past impressions (Samskara) left from previous
births, like the clinging fragrance on the clothes and the clinging smell of
smoke in the pot.
These rituals can bring certain value to the
worshippers and find their way from the lesser gods to Lord Krishna Himself for
fulfillment. Lord Krishna doles out boons to the worshippers through the lesser
surrogate gods; according to Alvars, the lesser gods are not qualified to grant
moksa or liberation that has to come directly from Vishnu or Narāyana or
Krishna Himself. The Alvars recommend prayers offered directly to Vishnu
Himself and go to the extent of upbraiding the devotees for having wasted their
time by offering prayers to lesser gods and going through several births and
rebirths without getting the moksa, because they were praying to gods other
than Vishnu. Alvars also recommend change in behavior (truth, honesty,
compassion, ahimsa, charity, and cheerfulness) on the part of the devotees.
7.21: Whatever is the form of
deity, whom a devotee desires to worship with faith, I make sure that his faith
is steady (in that deity).
Narāyana is the Absolute Supreme or
Isvara. He created the gods, men, animals and the universe; and His Soul
resides in those gods too. Whoever is the god a devotee prays to, with faith,
7.22: Endowed with that faith,
he worships that god, and fulfills his desires, granted by Me alone.
All prayers, worships, and sacrifices go to
the Supreme and all the boons come from the Supreme. It is the faith that
matters and the gods are intermediaries between man and the Lord serving both.
7.23: Finite and limited is the
fruit gained by these men of small intelligence (small minds). The worshippers
of gods go to those gods, but my devotees come to Me.
Hindu religion
has shown this resilience in allowing man to worship a pantheon of forces and
gods, and the Lord. It could be as simple as nature worship: The object of
worship could range from elements of nature to tutelary gods. According to
Vivekananda, the worship ranging from the crude to the fine is not in error but
a journey from truth to truth, from lower truth to higher truth. It is relative
as in “darkness is less light, evil is less good, impurity is less pure.” The
Kali of a Yogi Ramakrishna Paramahamsa is different from the Kali of an
uninitiated and the unrealized. Ramana Maharishi's experience of Shiva
Consciousness is different from that of an ordinary devotee of Shiva. They come
from two different worlds. Nevertheless, the devotee's experience is important
for that devotee. We, the ordinary devotees of God, are not learned and
enlightened men in the knowledge of the Self; but we are on our way towards
that goal.
The Transcendent, the Unmanifest, the
Supreme, the Imperishable, and the ParaBrahman are the same. Because the human
mind can perceive and configure god only in human form and in human dimensions,
we give a human form and name to the Unmanifest. Human mind cannot grasp God in
any shape other than human form, because the human mind is the product of
Prakriti, which is unconscious. However, Lord Krishna can take any form by His
māyā. The unintelligent think the Supreme Unmanifest is afflicted with
a manifestation.
7.25: I do not manifest to
everyone, veiled by My Yoga-māyā. The foolish do not understand me as
unborn and unchanging.
Lord Krishna explains yogamāyā:
Yogamāyā is My veil; I assume human form that goes with the
jivātman and gunas; I am beyond all these. My human form fools the
ignoramus, who underestimates my powers. I am Unborn, Supreme, Imperishable,
Transcendent, and Immutable; yet in this form, I am resplendent with kalyana
gunas. This is a divine sport to me, and I willed this human form, so my
devotees can surrender and take refuge in me.
Yogamāyā has two operating
principles:
Kalyana gunas:
auspicious qualities.
7.26: I know, O Arjuna, all
beings in the past, the present, and the future (those yet to come in the
future). But no one knows me.
7.27: Desire and hate arise from
the dual nature of delusion, O Bharata. All living beings surge forth into
delusion, O Parantapa.
Sarga: discharge, surge, letting go
We are all born in delusion from previous
vāsanās clinging to our subtle bodies.
It is like a shadow that follows us
everywhere we go. Dualities of phenomenal world, such as love and hate,
pleasure and pain, likes and dislikes are the stuff of gunas, which originate
from prakriti. Because of delusion, gunas and prakriti hide the Supreme Self.
These gunas and Prakriti are like the opaque screen between the eyes of one's
own self and the panoramic view of the Greater Self. Māyā is the
opaque screen, which has to lift in order the jivātman and the Paramatman
have unhindered view of each other, ready to merge. You are the soul, not the
body, the mind, or the senses. Jivatma's natural home is Paramatman, but
delusion and māyā of gunas and prakriti derange the jivātman’s
homing device. Once māyā lifts, the soul is free to reach its
destination. This shadow of delusion that follows us everywhere disappears at
the high noon of realization of the soul. The Jnāna yogi, who rides the
sound waves of OM, concentrated ever in the Self, goes from sabda-Brahman to
Param-Brahman, which is silence and Bliss.
7.28: The people, who perform pious and virtuous
deeds, and whose sins ceased to exist, are free from deluding dualities and
worship Me firmly fixed in their vows.
The people, whose sins
kept them away from Brahman, had their sins erased by their pious and virtuous
deeds. Thus freed from the sins, they are free from deluding dualities. The
karmic bags are empty; karmic inflows into the subtle body stopped; their karma
reaches a zero-sum endpoint. With karma resolved, and the avidya and the
māyā shattered and swept off, they have moved close to Param-Brahman,
whom they see in everyone. He sees his self in all, and all selves in his own
self, for he has ascended the eight angas and is pure in spirit.
7.29: All those people, seeking liberation from old
age and death, take refuge in Me and know Brahman, the Supreme Self (Atman),
and karma in its entirety.
7.30: Those who know Me (associated) with
Adhibhūtam, Adhidaivam and Adhiyajnam, know Me at the time of death, with
their mind meditating on Me.
Adhibhūtam,
Adhidaivam, and Adhiyajnam: All-penetrating influence of the Supreme Spirit
over material entities, Supreme deity of all deities, and the Supreme principal
of Sacrifice.
Lord
Krishna is the Lord of the material world, the gods, and the sacrifices, and
the unitary confluence of all these three entities from beginningless time. He
created Gods, men and beings, and the Universe; He Himself offered the first
sacrifice.
End: Chapter Seven:
Knowledge and Realization
