Category Archives: adhishthaaya

Bhagavad Gita Verse 9, Chapter 15

14 Thursday Mar 2013

Posted by in 15.9, adhishthaaya, ayam, chakshuhu, chapter 15 verse 9, ghraanam, manaha, rasanam, shrotram, sparshanam, upasevate, vishayaan

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shrotram chakshuhu sparshanam cha rasanam ghraanameva cha |
adhishthaaya manashchaayam vishayaanupasevate || 9 ||
 
The ear, eye and touch, taste and smell, taking support of these and the mind, it enjoys the sense objects.
 
shrotram : ear
chakshuhu : eye
sparshanam : touch
cha : and
rasanam : taste
ghraanam : smell
eva : only
cha : and
adhishthaaya : taking support
manaha : mind
cha : and
ayam : this
vishayaan : sense objects
upasevate : enjoys
 
Shri Krishna continues explaining how the jeeva, the individual soul, takes up a human body to carry out its transactions with Prakriti. We can use the wonderful Vedantic text “Drig Drishya Viveka”, or “Discrimination of the seer and the seen”, to examine this process in a little more detail. It explains, with almost mathematical precision, how the eternal essence begins to think of itself as a finite human entity. There are two main players in this process. One is the eternal essence, which is of the nature of infinite awareness and existence, explained in great detail in the second chapter. Let us call it “Om” here. The second player is avidya or ignorance, which exists in the realm of the illusory Maaya.
 
When Om and ignorance come into contact with each other, a fragment of Om is reflected in ignorance, just like a fragment of the sun as though appears in the water of a pot. As we saw earlier, this fragment is called the jeeva. Ignorance creates an apparent limitation, also known an upaadhi, which imposes a sense of incompleteness or finitude upon the jeeva. The jeeva seeks the help of the upaadhi to remove its sense of completeness. The upaadhi can exist in one of many modifications or states. Let us examine these modifications. The sense organs are modifications of this upaadhi that can contact different aspects of Prakriti. The mind is a modification of this upaadhi that can take input from the sense organs, compare that input with its memory, and present a complete picture of what was contacted. The ego is another modification that thinks of itself as the “I”, just like a low level manager thinks of himself as the owner of the factory in the absence of the real owner.
 
Now let us examine the content of this shloka. After the end of its journey in one body, the jeeva travels with the mind and senses, the upaadhi in other words, in search of another physical body. When the ego aspect of the upaadhi associates itself with a tiny physical body inside a womb, based on the desires its wants to exhaust, it develops the notion “I am this body”. It now begins to use the body to transact with the world. The human nose, for instance, is an inert object. But due to the association of the ego with the body, we think that the physical human nose is doing the smelling. The ego then uses the mind to generate the notion “I know that this smell is that of a rose”. This finally leads the ego to generate the notion “This smell it pleasant, it makes me happy”.
 
In this way, the jeeva gives up its power of reality, knowledge and happiness to the ego. The ego becomes the doer and the experiencer of the world. It has to constantly transact with the world in order to chase sense objects for happiness. It forgets the fact that it was happy to begin with. It gives reality to the domain of Prakriti, the three gunas, the visible and so called tangible world. But we should not forget that behind all this is the illusory mix up of Om and ignorance, the mix up of awareness and inertness. The Raamacharitamanas describes this mix up as “jada chetan ki granthi” or the knot between awareness and inertness.

Bhagavad Gita Verse 6, Chapter 4

27 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in 4.6, aatmamaayayaa, adhishthaaya, ajaha, api, avyayaatmaa, bhootaanaam, chapter 4 verse 6, eeshvaraah, prakritim, sambhavaami, san, svaam

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ajopi sannavyayaatmaa bhootaanaameeshvaropi san |
prakritim svaamadhishthaaya sambhavaamyaatmamaayayaa || 6 ||

Though I am beyond birth, imperishable and the controller of all beings, yet by commanding my nature, I manifest with my maaya.

ajaha : beyond birth
api : yet
san : though
avyayaatmaa : imperishable
bhootaanaam : among all beings
eeshvaraah : controller
san : though
prakritim : nature
svaam : my
adhishthaaya : commanding
sambhaavami : I manifest
aatmamaayayaa : with my maaya

This is an important shloka in the Gita, because Shri Krishna reveals himself as Ishvara, the controller of all beings. He says he is not born into this world like an ordinary human. He wills himself or manifests himself into existence by controlling prakriti, which is made up of the 3 gunaas. The power that causes this manifestation is called maaya. Let us look at two examples to understand this concept further.

Our body has billons of cells that carry our a wide range of functions. Each of these cells behave independently. But they are all working for an entity – the person – who is much larger and powerful than all of them put together.

Also consider the wave and the ocean. There are many waves, but all of them are part of a gigantic entity called the ocean. The ocean contains all the waves on the surface, as well as a vast quantity of water that lies under the surface. The wave derives its power from the ocean, but the ocean is more powerful than any one wave.

Similarly, the entire universe is the body of the supreme person known as Ishvara, who is the controller of the universe and the most powerful entity in existence. We are like waves that derive our power from the ocean called Ishvara. The power of Ishvara can be seen in the laws of nature, especially when we see cosmic phenomenon like a supernova explosion. The intelligence of Ishvara can be seen in the harmony of the universe, when we see the vast cosmos with stars, planets, the sun and so on.

Prakriti is related to both us and Ishvara but in different ways. While we are usually under the control of prakriti (the 3 gunaas), it is Ishvara that controls prakriti. It is like a wild horse controlling its rider versus an experienced jockey controlling a race horse. But both Ishvara and us are nothing but the eternal essence, just like the wave and ocean are made up of water. When the eternal essence identifies with a finite body, it is a jeeva. When it identifies with the entire universe, it is Ishvara.

Having grasped the concept of Ishvara, let us know look at the concept of “avataar” or manifestation. Let’s say a small rat tries to invade a large ant colony. Immediately, the entire ant colony springs into action. It is as if there is an “ant colony intelligence” that commands ants to collectively attack the rat in order to protect the ant colony. There was no “birth” of that collective attack, it manifested in response to a situation, and ended as soon as the situation was dealt with.

Similarly, Ishvara has the ability to manifest in the universe. The manifestation could be a short-lived one, like one thought in a person’s mind. It could also be long-living manifestation like a human being in the form of Shri Krishna. Our Puraanic literature describes several avataaras in great detail, but these are only a subset of the countless avataaras that take place over time. An avataara is like a rain-bearing cloud: it materializes out of thin air, does its work, and quietly disappears.

So why does Ishvara need to take an avataara? Shri Krishna covers this topic in the next two oft-quoted shlokas of the Gita.