तपाम्यहमहं वर्षं निगृह्णम्युत्सृजामि च |
अमृतं चैव मृत्युश्च सदसच्चाहमर्जुन || 19||
tapāmyaham ahaṁ varṣhaṁ nigṛihṇāmyutsṛijāmi cha
amṛitaṁ chaiva mṛityuśh cha sad asach chāham arjuna
tapāmi—radiate heat; aham—I; aham—I; varṣham—rain; nigṛihṇāmi—withhold; utsṛijāmi—send forth; cha—and; amṛitam—immortality; cha—and; eva—also; mṛityuḥ—death; cha—and; sat—eternal spirit; asat—temporary matter; cha—and; aham—I; arjuna—Arjun
Translation:
O I give heat; I hold back and send forth rain. I am immortality, O Arjuna, and also death. I am being and I am non-being.
Commentary:
The Lord is the cause for the origin of the world and all the activities taking place in it. As an illustration, the phenomena of rain is explained here. The Sun causes heat and absorbs water and then again releases it in the form of rain. The whole of the natural phenomena as we understand is the work of the Lord Himself. If we extend the analogy, we will find that every force, small or great, is nothing but the manifestation of the Lord.
When the rope is mistaken for the snake, the rope, as the foundation, has not in any way changed. So also, what appears as the universe is in reality Brahman. So everything in the world like death and immortality, like being and non-being relatively is nothing but Brahman.
The words “being” and “non-being” are used in the sense of the manifested and the unmanifested. The unmanifested, or “non-being,” is the cause of the manifested, or “being.” The word “non-being” is not used in the text in the sense of “non-existence.”
Swami Vivekananda Says —
The thinker of this philosophy has been struck by the idea that one power is behind all phenomena. In our thought of God, there is human limitation, personality: with Shakti comes the idea of One Universal Power. “I stretch the bow of Rudra when He desires to kill”, says Shakti. The Upanishads did not develop this thought; for Vedanta does not care for the God-idea. But in the Gita comes the significant saying to Arjuna, “I am the real, and I am the unreal. I bring good, and I bring evil.”[Source]
Sri Ramakrishna Says —
MASTER (smiling, to M.): “He went there [referring to Bodh-Gaya].”
M. (to Narendra): “What are the doctrines of Buddha?”
NARENDRA: “He could not express in words what he had realised by his tapasya. So people say he was an atheist.”
MASTER (by signs): “Why atheist? He was not an atheist. He simply could not express his inner experiences in words.
Do you know what ‘Buddha’ means? It is to become one with Bodha, Pure Intelligence, by meditating on That which is of the nature of Pure Intelligence; it is to become Pure Intelligence Itself.”
NARENDRA: “Yes, sir. There are three classes of Buddhas: Buddha, Arhat, and Bodhisattva.”
MASTER: “This too is a sport of God Himself, a new lila of God.
“Why should Buddha be called an atheist? When one realises Svarupa, the true nature of one’s Self, one attains a state that is something between asti, is, and nasti, is-not.”
NARENDRA (to M.): “It is a state in which contradictions meet. A combination of hydrogen and oxygen produces cool water; and the same hydrogen and oxygen are used in the oxy-hydrogen blowpipe.
“In that state both activity and non-activity are possible; that is to say, one then performs unselfish action.
“Worldly people, who are engrossed in sense-objects, say that everything exists — asti. But the mayavadis, the illusionists, say that nothing exists — nasti. The experience of a Buddha is beyond both ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence’.”
MASTER: “This ‘existence’ and ‘non-existence’ are attributes of Prakriti. The Reality is beyond both.”
The devotees remained silent a few moments. (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
—–
MASTER (to M. and the others): “Is it an easy thing to obtain the Knowledge of Brahman? It is not possible unless the mind is annihilated. The guru said to the disciple, ‘Give me your mind and I shall give you Knowledge.’ In this state one enjoys only spiritual talk and the company of devotees.
(To Ram) “You are a physician. You know that medicine works only when it mixes with the patient’s blood and becomes one with it. Likewise, in the state of Brahmajnana one sees God both within and without. One sees that it is God Himself who has become the body, mind, life, and soul.”
M. (to himself): “Assimilation!”
MASTER: “A man attains Brahmajnana as soon as his mind is annihilated. With the annihilation of the mind dies the ego, which says ‘I’, ‘I’. One also attains the Knowledge of Brahman by following the path of devotion. One also attains It by following the path of knowledge, that is to say, discrimination. The jnanis discriminate, saying, ‘Neti, neti’, that is, ‘All this is illusory, like a dream.’ They analyse the world through the process of ‘Not this, not this’; it is maya. When the world vanishes, only the jivas, that is to say, so many egos, remain.
“Each ego may be likened to a pot. Suppose there are ten pots filled with water, and the sun is reflected in them. How many suns do you see?”
A DEVOTEE: “Ten reflections. Besides, there certainly exists the real sun.”
MASTER: “Suppose you break one pot. How many suns do you see now?”
DEVOTEE: “Nine reflected suns. But there certainly exists the real Sun.”
MASTER: “All right. Suppose you break nine pots. How many suns do you see now?”
DEVOTEE: “One reflected sun. But there certainly exists the real sun.”
MASTER (to Girish): “What remains when the last pot is broken?”
GIRISH: “That real sun, sir.”
MASTER: “No. What remains cannot be described. What is remains. How will you know there is a real sun unless there is a reflected sun? ‘I- consciousness’ is destroyed in samadhi. A man climbing down from samadhi to the lower plane cannot describe what he has seen there.” (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
Râmlâl (nephew of Shri Ramakrishna) came from Dakshineswar. He had long lived with and served the Master and had often sent him into ecstasy by singing devotional songs. He was, therefore, dearly loved by the Order of Ramakrishna. In course of conversation he said:
“Formerly, the Master and Hriday used to live in the large room of the Kuthi (a building in the Dakshineswar temple) and the Master’s mother used to sleep in an adjoining small room. Many nights they used to hear a man with shoes on going up and down the stairs, and opening doors and windows. It was a ghost-possibly of a European. For the Kuthi had been a European residence before the temple was built. The Master used to say, ‘We cannot say that this world is entirely false. For we are actually seeing it with our eyes. Nor can we say that it is real. For just see how this garden has changed. Formerly it was a graveyard, and this Kuthi, the house of a European. But now! And some days after, this temple also will vanish, and who knows what will come next ?’ – Swami Premananda (Source: Spiritual Talks by the First Disciples of Sri Ramakrishna)
The very idea ‘I am the body’ is itself a misapprehension. It is the sole cause of birth, death, decay, disease… all of it. Hence the only way to be free of these is to be free of the body-identity; that can happen only through the right knowledge. There is a verse in the Bhagavata which says, “The Lord has two forms. When we open our senses and behold the world, the Lord is before us as the all-devouring time.” We can worship Him as such. Worshipping kāla is saṃsāra. This is what everyone does, and the fruit of such worship is death. The Bhagavata continues, “The same Lord is within you as Consciousness, as Purusha. If you turn your mind inward and realise Him in your heart, the fruit is immortality—amṛtatva. The same Lord, on the one side, is death, and on the other side, immortality.”* That is why in the Gita itself, Krishna says, “amṛtaṃ caiva mṛtyuśca—I am both immortality and death” (BG9.19). (Source: Srimad Bhagavad Gita – Elixir of Eternal Wisdom)
Related Articles:
- I will now describe that which ought to be known, through the knowing of which one attains Immortality. It is the Supreme Brahman, which is without beginning and is said to be neither being nor non-being. (BG 13.13)
- As I surpass the Perishable and as I am higher even than the Imperishable, I am extolled in the world and in the Vedas as the Supreme Self. (BG 15.18)
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 9 🔻 (34 Verses)
