The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : 14-11.

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Chapter 14: The Absolute Pervading the Universe-11.


We live in a sense world, in an intellectual world and also in a spiritual world.

We are sensory beings, rational beings and spiritual beings—all things put together.

 When the sense world is sitting hard on our face as a phenomenon of diversity and differentiated objects, we are likely to admire God as that which is present behind this variety, and worship symbols, isolated forms as channels for our entry into That which is behind these forms.

This is the significance of the worship of symbols, forms, idols, images, etc.

Even our concept is only a symbol—an idol or a symbol is not necessarily physical and visible to the eyes.

A concept in the mind is also an idol, because it has a form and a shape and is localised.

But this localisation, this channelisation and this idealisation are intended to take the mind above itself to That which is transcendent and lies behind it as the principle conditioning it.

So these schools of thought, whether it is Advaita, Vasishthadvaita or Dvaita are not self-contradictory—they are complementary, one to the other.

One emphasises one aspect; another, another aspect.

God manifests Himself as this variety of things—it is true.

It is also true that this variety is interrelated in a universal completeness and it is not just a distracted variety. It is an organic completeness, ultimately.


But it is also true that there is no such a thing as relatedness in the Absolute.

It is one indivisible mass of being.

So the great Teachers are all correct.

They emphasise various layers and stages of experience or realisation, and the Bhagavadgita endorses as correct these approaches as the One, as the interrelated, and the diversified.

Further on we will be told, in this very chapter, that every conceivable thing in the world is a direct manifestation of God-Being, whether it is visible to the eyes, tangible to the senses or merely conceivable by the mind.

Chapter 14: The Absolute Pervading the Universe. ENDS.

Next : Chapter 15: The Rarest of Devotees

Swami Krishnananda
To be continued  ....


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