The Distilled Wisdom of the Gita

This, then, is the essence—the distilled wisdom, as it were—of the Bhagavad Gita. Sri Krishna reveals to Arjun what he calls the rahasyam uttamam, the supreme mystery, in four movements of consciousness.

The First Movement—Atmabodh

The first movement takes us inward, behind the play of our surface mental-vital existence, our world and personality, as Sri Krishna reveals his first rahasya to Arjuna: You are not the mind or body, nor the person or personality, nor even your nature: you are the immortal atman—indestructible, immutable, intangible, forever beyond age and death, beyond dying and killing, beyond grief or joy, victory or defeat, beyond the elements of prakriti, and the multiplicity of the universe. Abandon, therefore, the idea of death, for nothing and no one dies, and know yourself as the immortal Self.

But to know ourselves as the immortal atman, we must stop identifying with mind and body, we must renounce entirely our attachment to the senses and objects of the senses. We must learn, through contemplation and inner concentration, to withdraw the senses into the buddhi, and the buddhi into the heart, the psychic centre, and then into the consciousness of the atman.

We must step back from the play of prakriti, both within and without, and sit in solitude, with mind and heart fixed in our inmost being. We must renounce all attachment to people and places, renounce all desire for action and the fruits of action, renounce all possessions, inner and outer. We  must give up all preferences, all likes and dislikes, and remain quietly above the pull and push of the dualities of prakriti. The mind must always be fixed on Sri Krishna, the heart ever turned to him—allowing him to lead us as he will, demanding nothing, insisting on nothing.

Gradually, step by step, fixing all our attention on the atman, we must cease from all thought and word, from all mental activity, and become inwardly motionless, changeless. And then, by and by, the knowledge of the atman will unfold in our minds and hearts, opening us in stages to all that is beyond, higher and deeper.   

As the waves of our buddhi and chitta subside, and as the mind quietens, a subtler perception and wisdom open in us, a wisdom and perception that were always there but obscured by the incessant waves and ripples of the mind. We then begin to see through the veils of prakriti, and the world and self become increasingly transparent to our vision. We see with growing clarity that we are pure consciousness, the inner self, and not prakriti, not the body or mind, not the outer person or personality; we also realize that as the inner self, we are unaffected by the movements of prakriti. Our identification with prakriti dissolves—gradually or rapidly, depending on our previous karmas—and we increasingly identify with pure consciousness, that which is the atman—or Purusha, in the language of the yogis—in us. This inner separation of atman or Purusha from prakriti is the first firm basis, or sthiti, of the Yoga of the Gita.

The Second Movement—Udasinata

The second movement takes us higher, to a sthiti from where we can feel prakriti and her movements from above, no longer moved or affected by any of it. We then realize that we were never really involved with prakriti to begin with—the involvement was a projection of the mind, and it was always prakriti playing with her own energies, in her own field, and we were always a bystander, a witness, a sakshi—never the actor, doer, participant. In fact, there never was a doer, a karta, and there never was any personal agency. All was being done by prakriti through her energies and forces, her gunas. It was prakriti moving in us, and we believed that the movement was ours. We were like marionettes on a string, without personal will or autonomy, entirely conditioned by prakriti, her forces and energies continuously shaping and determining what we believed to be our volition, our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, actions and reactions.

And then we see even deeper, and realize that we ourselves are made out of prakriti, our very identity is a projection of prakriti, our body, our mind and its senses and organs, our reason and ego, are all formations and projections of prakriti—there is no personal self, and there never was. The illusion of separate self and personality falls apart, and we come upon the void of anatman, or no-self. Many stop here, for the silent void of no-self swallows the mind and senses. But if you know how to wait, and if can you keep your attention fixed on the atman, then your consciousness opens to a higher range of being, a higher reality.

The Third Movement—Nimittabhava

And then, a third movement of consciousness unfolds, taking us still higher and wider. We now see that prakriti herself is not the final term, she herself is a lower, a subordinate, term of Sri Krishna’s  consciousness—apara prakriti, and there is a higher nature, a paraprakriti, which is Sri Krishna’s own nature extending into the cosmic play. It is through his paraprakriti that Krishna enters into the cosmic manifestation, himself becomes the embodied individual, the Jiva, and through that upholds the cosmic play, leading it from within towards its evolutionary consummation in Krishna’s perfection. We see then that behind prakriti, and transcending prakriti, is Sri Krishna himself; and within prakriti as well, even as the individual Jiva, is Sri Krishna. The vision is then integral and complete: Sri Krishna is the transcendent Divine, the one being and consciousness—ekam sat—and Sri Krishna is the cosmic Divine, Ishvara, the Lord and Master of the manifestation; and Sri Krishna is the immanent Divine, the Ishvara seated in our hearts—sarva bhutashaya sthita.

The realization that all is Sri Krishna, Sri Krishna within and without, Sri Krishna in all things and beings—vasudeva sarvam iti—is now complete. We now realize with complete clarity that we were not playthings of prakriti, never the ignorant and deluded doer and actor, but the instrument in the Lord’s hands, an instrument, or nimitta, of the Divine. It was always Sri Krishna, secret and veiled in us, who was unfailingly navigating the chariot through the chaos and vicissitudes of the human battlefield. We only had to turn to him and recognize him for the veils to fall, and his power and intervention to become infallible in us and in our lives.

To know ourselves as Sri Krishna’s nimitta, to live in that consciousness in all conditions, inner and outer, to be hollow like a flute in his hands, is the consummation devoutly wished for by every Yogi, every devotee—for as his nimitta, it is he who takes full control, lives and moves through us, wills and acts through us. In a fundamental sense, we become Krishna even as Krishna becomes us.

The Fourth Movement—Brahmanirvana

This, Sri Krishna calls nirvana in Brahman, or transcendence in the Divine, of which he says, constantly keeping the mind absorbed in Me, the yogi attains nirvana, and abides in Me in supreme peace. This is not the nirvana of extinction but of fulfillment and transcendence. But what is certainly extinguished is the delusion of the separative ego, the delusion of mortality and death.

And this is the distilled wisdom of the Gita—that we exist in Sri Krishna and by Sri Krishna. He alone is. Our existence as the ego, the aham, is but a projection of the Jiva that we are, and the Jiva that we are is Sri Krishna himself involved in mind and matter. We are being of his being, consciousness of his consciousness. Thus is this universe designed, thus is it played out.

There is no reason for us to fear or doubt, struggle or suffer. All that appears to us as good or evil, fortunate or unfortunate, pleasant or unpleasant, human or demonic, are movements in Sri Krishna’s infinite play of possibilities, and reacting to anything, or judging, rejecting or fighting anything, is entirely futile, even childish. The only Yoga is to remain calm and immobile, above the play of dualities, surrendered in being and becoming to Sri Krishna, consenting to his will, allowing him to work out whatever needs to be worked out in the light and bliss of his perfect knowledge, his brahmavidya.

[This article has been reprinted from our archives—Ed.]