Chapter
9: The Yoga of great knowledge and great
secrets
Sri Krishna
now tells Arjuna, “Now I impart to
you here the most mysterious knowledge. This special knowledge will help you in
getting liberated from the vicissitudes of life. This is also called king of all
knowledge because of its inherent grandness. Also this is the most regal of all
mysteries in the world. This knowledge is pure and holy and most auspicious.
This knowledge, which is blissful and eternal, can be realized or directly
perceived.
Those who are not true to this knowledge and doctrine (that
is, are either unaware of the knowledge or do not take heed of it out of
ignorance), do not get Me and have to return to this world full of woes time and
again (i.e. they cannot get liberation).
I am the one who pervades this Universe in the form of Unmanifest.
All beings are in Me, however I am not in them. Nor even all beings are truly in
Me, just see the power of My yoga. I
am the preserver of all beings, and yet not in them. I am the solace and refuge
of all beings. Just as the air, residing in eternal space and yet unmingled with
it, is great and ever free to flow anywhere, so also all beings are in
Me.”
The great knowledge and great secret imparts a sense of the
true nature of the one who has been regarded as Imperishable and Unmanifest in
the previous chapter and who has been merely introduced in Chapter 7 as special
knowledge. The Lord asserts that all this knowledge is matter of realization.
This knowledge is therefore verifiable by those who are sincere and devoted to
know the Lord truly, without any hypocrisy. Unless one knows the Supreme Being
truly and effectively one is not free from the bonds of the world.
The Unmanifest encompasses this entire Universe. He is not
separate from the Universe and yet, He asserts, that He is separate from it as
He is not into it. Just as a spider casts its net from its womb and then rests
on it, He projects this Universe and stays on it, at the same time being
separate from His creation. He is His Universe as He is both the material and
efficient cause and He provides the material from within Himself, but He is
never involved. The Universe changes, modifies, goes through cycles of creation
and destruction, but He is unsullied and therefore He cannot be in the Universe.
At the same time the Universe and its beings cannot exist without Him. This is
His Yoga, the greatest and grandest
of all powers, to be, become and yet remain detached from everything.
Advaita Vedanta teaches us that from the
grand unity all differentiation has come up in the form of the manifest world of
names and forms. However this differentiation is only an illusion, just as the
reflection of the sun in ten different containers of water. Just as air moves
about freely quite unaware of the surrounding space which contains it, so also
the living beings go on with their worldly life, unconcerned about the Supreme
Being’s presence everywhere. He is in essence, everything that the Universe
constitutes of and He is not limited to the manifested
Universe.
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