July 1, 2025
A novel method for Self-realization is suggested by the Lord in the Bhagavad Gītā. Other methods had been suggested before him. There were those who wanted us to close our eyes to the world, go into seclusion and by a process of introverted mental gaze, perceive the light of the self within. Others insisted on our doing our duties and serving humanity with the sole intention of self-purification, but refused to discuss the next step.
Krishna is a genius. He discloses that the very duties and the service that we are compelled to perform daily contain in themselves not only agents to purify us, but to reveal (unveil) God for us to see! But how?
We should see the world, but not as the world; we should see it as the manifestation of God, his power, his glory. In other words, this is as if we were sitting in the cinema with wide open eyes and not only seeing the moving figures, but the screen on which they are projected. Try it!
The essence of this method is to be able to perceive the substratum (God) even though looking at the name and form. When you look at a wise man, you immediately remember that the wisdom in him is God. You learn to abstract that from the name and form (and other such factors), perceive that alone to the exclusion of everything else and realize that it is the manifestation of God.
This demands rigorous preliminary discipline and training; the training was prescribed and described in chapter six. Modern Zen Buddhism, too, leads its adherents along this royal road to self-realization. First you see the tree; then you see the void; and then again you see the tree! But the second time, though the tree is the same, you are quite different and your inner vision is enlightened. That is the difference between the layman and a sage – the latter is enlightened. May you shine as an enlightened sage!
Chapter Nine Continues:
yathā ’kāśasthito nityaṁ vāyuḥ sarvatrago mahān
tathā sarvāṇi bhūtāni matsthānī ’ty upadhāraya (IX-6)
IX/6. As the mighty wind, moving everywhere, rests
always in space, even so, know thou that all beings
rest in me.
Swamiji's Commentary
The reality is just like space and what is obvious is like the wind – the movement of air in space. This wind, existing and moving in space, enables all things to come into being, to flourish. In a manner of speaking it is the wind of life-force or prāṇa that manifests itself as all this. Vibrating somewhere it is called something; vibrating elsewhere it is called something else. Prāṇa or life-force is responsible for the manifestation of the diverse phenomena and diverse beings. Yet, space is totally unaffected by these beings arising, existing and dissolving. This is an important concept which must be clearly grasped. All things exist in space; they are part of space, as it were.
When a building is erected, space has not vanished or been destroyed. It is still there, not merely as the enclosed space within the building, but as the space that even the solid walls ‘occupy’. It is in the building – not confined to it, but really confining it! God exists in us in this sense only. By virtue of his omnipresence he is within us and all around us.
In quantum physics we are knocking at the door of this truth, having come close to the immateriality of matter. We are just dancing sub-atomic particles, which may also be waves. If all of us are mere waves of energy, we are not so solid after all!
So, the not-so-obvious is the reality in all that seems to be obvious. This is the distinction between material and immaterial beings. Water in a jar moves with the jar. The immaterial space in an empty jar, being omnipresent, does not move with it. Similarly, the omnipresent God is not subject to activity, birth and death. Despite the cyclonic activity in the universe, the self or Brahman or God is ever quiescent. Even the birth and death of beings are only apparent.
You are space, my friend, mere space. That space is filled with the divine presence whose nature is cit-śakti – not blind energy, but energy which is full of consciousness. This consciousness somehow becomes aware of a world and of an infinite variety of creatures. That awareness itself is the creator and that awareness itself you are.