Bhagavad-gita As It Is - Macmillan 1972 Edition -- Prabhupada Books (4 page)

We shall find, therefore, in this
Bhagavad-gītā
that the complete whole is comprised of the supreme controller, the controlled living entities, the cosmic manifestation, eternal time, and
karma
, or activities, and all of these are explained in this text. All of these taken completely form the complete whole, and the complete whole is called the Supreme Absolute Truth. The complete whole and the complete Absolute Truth are the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Śrī Kṛṣṇa. All manifestations are due to His different energies. He
is
the complete whole.

It is also explained in the
Gītā
that impersonal Brahman is also subordinate to the complete. Brahman is more explicitly explained in the
Brahma-sūtra
to be like the rays of the sunshine. The impersonal Brahman is the shining rays of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Impersonal Brahman is incomplete realization of the absolute whole, and so also is the conception of Paramātmā in the Twelfth Chapter. There it shall be seen that the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Puruṣottama, is above both impersonal Brahman and the partial realization of Paramātmā. The Supreme Personality of Godhead is called
sac-cid-ānanda-vigraha
. The
Brahma-saṁhitā
begins in this way:
īśvaraḥ paramaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ sac-cid-ānanda-vigrahaḥ/anādir ādir govindaḥ sarva-kāraṇa-kāraṇam.
"Kṛṣṇa is the cause of all causes. He is the primal cause, and He is the very form of eternal being, knowledge and bliss." Impersonal Brahman realization is the realization of His
sat
(being) feature. Paramātmā realization is the realization of the
cit
(eternal knowledge) feature. But realization of the Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, is realization of all the transcendental features:
sat, cit
and
ānanda
(being, knowledge, bliss) in complete
vigraha
(form).

People with less intelligence consider the Supreme Truth to be impersonal, but He is a transcendental person, and this is confirmed in all Vedic literatures.
Nityo nityānām cetanaś cetanānām. As
we are all individual living beings and have our individuality, the Supreme Absolute Truth is also, in the ultimate issue, a person, and realization of the Personality of Godhead is realization of all of the transcendental features. The complete whole is not formless. If He is formless, or if He is less than any other thing, then He cannot be the complete whole. The complete whole must have everything within our experience and beyond our experience, otherwise it cannot be complete. The complete whole, Personality of Godhead, has immense potencies.

How Kṛṣṇa is acting in different potencies is also explained in
Bhagavad-gītā.
This phenomenal world or material world in which we are placed is also complete in itself because the twenty-four elements of which this material universe is a temporary manifestation, according to Sāṅkhya philosophy, are completely adjusted to produce complete resources which are necessary for the maintenance and subsistence of this universe. There is nothing extraneous; nor is there anything needed. This manifestation has its own time fixed by the energy of the supreme whole, and when its time is complete, these temporary manifestations will be annihilated by the complete arrangement of the complete. There is complete facility for the small complete units, namely the living entities, to realize the complete, and all sorts of incompleteness are experienced due to incomplete knowledge of the complete. So
Bhagavad-gītā
contains the complete knowledge of Vedic wisdom.

All Vedic knowledge is infallible, and Hindus accept Vedic knowledge to be complete and infallible. For example, cow dung is the stool of an animal, and according to
smṛti
or Vedic injunction, if one touches the stool of an animal he has to take a bath to purify himself. But in the Vedic scriptures cow dung is considered to be a purifying agent. One might consider this to be contradictory, but it is accepted because it is Vedic injunction, and indeed by accepting this, one will not commit a mistake; subsequently it has been proved by modern science that cow dung contains all antiseptic properties. So Vedic knowledge is complete because it is above all doubts and mistakes, and
Bhagavad-gītā
is the essence of all Vedic knowledge.

Vedic knowledge is not a question of research. Our research work is imperfect because we are researching things with imperfect senses. We have to accept perfect knowledge which comes down, as is stated in
Bhagavad-gītā,
by the
paramparā
disciplic succession. We have to receive knowledge from the proper source in disciplic succession beginning with the supreme spiritual master, the Lord Himself, and handed down to a succession of spiritual masters. Arjuna, the student who took lessons from Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, accepts everything that He says without contradicting Him. One is not allowed to accept one portion of
Bhagavad-gītā
and not another. No. We must accept
Bhagavad-gītā
without interpretation, without deletion and without our own whimsical participation in the matter. The
Gītā
should he taken as the most perfect presentation of Vedic knowledge. Vedic knowledge is received from transcendental sources, and the first words were spoken by the Lord Himself. The words spoken by the Lord are different from words spoken by a person of the mundane world who is infected with four defects. A mundaner 1) is sure to commit mistakes, 2) is invariably illusioned, 3) has the tendency to cheat others and 4) is limited by imperfect senses. With these four imperfections, one cannot deliver perfect information of all-pervading knowledge.

Vedic knowledge is not imparted by such defective living entities. It was imparted unto the heart of Brahmā, the first created living being, and Brahmā in his turn disseminated this knowledge to his sons and disciples, as he originally received it from the Lord. The Lord is
pūrṇam,
all-perfect, and there is no possibility of His becoming subjected to the laws of material nature. One should therefore be intelligent enough to know that the Lord is the only proprietor of everything in the universe and that He is the original creator, the creator of Brahmā. In the Eleventh Chapter the Lord is addressed as
prapitāmaha
because Brahmā is addressed as
pitāmaha,
the grandfather, and He is the creator of the grandfather. So no one should claim to be the proprietor of anything; one should accept only things which are set aside for him by the Lord as his quota for his maintenance.

There are many examples given of how we are to utilize those things which are set aside for us by the Lord. This is also explained in
Bhagavad-gītā.
In the beginning, Arjuna decided that he should not fight in the Battle of Kurukṣetra. This was his own decision. Arjuna told the Lord that it was not possible for him to enjoy the kingdom after killing his own kinsmen. This decision was based on the body because he was thinking that the body was himself and that his bodily relations or expansions were his brothers, nephews, brothers-in-law, grandfathers and so on. He was thinking in this way to satisfy his bodily demands.
Bhagavad-gītā
was spoken by the Lord just to change this view, and at the end Arjuna decides to fight under the directions of the Lord when he says, "
kariṣye vacanaṁ tava
." "I shall act according to Thy word."

In this world man is not meant to toil like hogs. He must be intelligent to realize the importance of human life and refuse to act like an ordinary animal. A human being should realize the aim of his life, and this direction is given in all Vedic literatures, and the essence is given in
Bhagavad-gītā.
Vedic literature is meant for human beings, not for animals. Animals can kill other living animals, and there is no question of sin on their part, but if a man kills an animal for the satisfaction of his uncontrolled taste, he must be responsible for breaking the laws of nature. In the
Bhagavad-gītā
it is clearly explained that there are three kinds of activities according to the different modes of nature: the activities of goodness, of passion and of ignorance. Similarly, there are three kinds of eatables also: eatables in goodness, passion and ignorance. All of this is clearly described, and if we properly utilize the instructions of
Bhagavad-gītā,
then our whole life will become purified, and ultimately we will be able to reach the destination which is beyond this material sky.

That destination is called the
sanātana
sky, the eternal spiritual sky. In this material world we find that everything is temporary. It comes into being, stays for some time, produces some by-products, dwindles and then vanishes. That is the law of the material world, whether we use as an example this body, or a piece of fruit or anything. But beyond this temporary world there is another world of which we have information. This world consists of another nature which is
sanātana,
eternal.
Jīva
is also described as
sanātana,
eternal, and the Lord is also described as
sanātana
in the Eleventh Chapter. We have an intimate relationship with the Lord, and because we are all qualitatively one-the
sanātana-dhāma
, or sky, the
sanātana
Supreme Personality and the
sanātana
living entities-the whole purpose of
Bhagavad-gītā
is to revive our
sanātana
occupation, or
sanātana-dharma
, which is the eternal occupation of the living entity. We are temporarily engaged in different activities, but all of these activities can be purified when we give up all these temporary activities and take up the activities which are prescribed by the Supreme Lord. That is called our pure life.

The Supreme Lord and His transcendental abode are both
sanātana
, as are the living entities, and the combined association of the Supreme Lord and the living entities in the
sanātana
abode is the perfection of human life. The Lord is very kind to the living entities because they are His sons. Lord Kṛṣṇa declares in
Bhagavad-gītā,
"
sarva-yoniṣu...ahaṁ bīja-pradaḥ pitā
." "I am the father of all." Of course there are all types of living entities according to their various
karmas,
but here the Lord claims that He is the father of all of them. Therefore the Lord descends to reclaim all of these fallen, conditioned souls to call them back to the
sanātana
eternal sky so that the
sanātana
living entities may regain their eternal
sanātana
positions in eternal association with the Lord. The Lord comes Himself in different incarnations, or He sends His confidential servants as sons or His associates or
ācāryas
to reclaim the conditioned souls.

Therefore,
sanātana-dharma
does not refer to any sectarian process of religion. It is the eternal function of the eternal living entities in relationship with the eternal Supreme Lord.
Sanātana-dharma
refers, as stated previously, to the eternal occupation of the living entity. Rāmānujācārya has explained the word
sanātana
as "that which has neither beginning nor end," so when we speak of
sanātana-dharma,
we must take it for granted on the authority of Śrī Rāmānujācārya that it has neither beginning nor end.

The English word "religion" is a little different from
sanātana-dharma.
Religion conveys the idea of faith, and faith may change. One may have faith in a particular process, and he may change this faith and adopt another, but
sanātana-dharma
refers to that activity which cannot be changed. For instance, liquidity cannot be taken from water, nor can heat be taken from fire. Similarly, the eternal function of the eternal living entity cannot be taken from the living entity.
Sanātana-dharma
is eternally integral with the living entity. When we speak of
sanātana-dharma,
therefore, we must take it for granted on the authority of Śrī Rāmānujācārya that it has neither beginning nor end. That which has neither end nor beginning must not be sectarian, for it cannot be limited by any boundaries. Yet those belonging to some sectarian faith will wrongly consider that
sanātana-dharma
is also sectarian, but if we go deeply into the matter and consider it in the light of modern science, it is possible for us to see that
sanātana-dharma
is the business of all the people of the world-nay, of all the living entities of the universe.

Non-
sanātana
religious faith may have some beginning in the annals of human history, but there is no beginning to the history of
sanātana-dharma
because it remains eternally with the living entities. Insofar as the living entities are concerned, the authoritative
śāstras
state that the living entity has neither birth nor death. In the
Gītā
it is stated that the living entity is never born, and he never dies. He is eternal and indestructible, and he continues to live after the destruction of his temporary material body. In reference to the concept of
sanātana-dharma,
we must try to understand the concept of religion from the Sanskrit root meaning of the word.
Dharma
refers to that which is constantly existing with the particular object. We conclude that there is heat and light along with the fire; without heat and light, there is no meaning to the word fire. Similarly, we must discover the essential part of the living being, that part which is his constant companion. That constant companion is his eternal quality, and that eternal quality is his eternal religion.

When Sanātana Gosvāmī asked Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu about the
svarūpa
of every living being, the Lord replied that the
svarūpa
or constitutional position of the living being is the rendering of service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If we analyze this statement of Lord Caitanya, we can easily see that every living being is constantly engaged in rendering service to another living being. A living being serves other living beings in two capacities. By doing so, the living entity enjoys life. The lower animals serve human beings as servants serve their master. A serves B master, B serves C master and C serves D master and so on. Under these circumstances, we can see that one friend serves another friend, the mother serves the son, the wife serves the husband, the husband serves the wife and so on. If we go on searching in this spirit, it will be seen that there is no exception in the society of living beings to the activity of service. The politician presents his manifesto for the public to convince them of his capacity for service. The voters therefore give the politician their valuable votes, thinking that he will render valuable service to society. The shopkeeper serves the customer, and the artisan serves the capitalist. The capitalist serves the family, and the family serves the state in the terms of the eternal capacity of the eternal living being. In this way we can see that no living being is exempt from rendering service to other living beings, and therefore we can safely conclude that service is the constant companion of the living being and that the rendering of service is the eternal religion of the living being.