The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch-11. Part-4.

Chapter 11: God Present Within Us :


Part-4.

Every object has infinite relationships, but this infinitude of relationship is incomprehensible to the mind of the observer of the object.

The object is taken as an isolated, localised something, cut off from all other objects, and this idea that the object is absolutely independent of all other objects, especially independent of the observer himself, is the basic defect in the knowledge process.

This is usually called ‘the fallacy of simple location’. That objects are simply located in a particular place is a fallacy, and this fallacy is at the root of all our knowledge.

While we extend our knowledge to the supreme object, God, who is supposed to be the object of our contemplation and meditational processes, we no doubt try our best to free this object, which is God, from the common defects of the usual empirical perceptional process—but still God stands before us as a tremendous object.



The Bhagavadgita  endeavours to free our minds from this obsession that God is an object, because the term ‘object’ has certain implications.

It stands outside the subject.

The adhibhuta is outside the adhyatma.

The adhyatma is the subject; the adhibhuta is the object.

But as these terms in these verses of the Bhagavadgita would point out, God is not merely the adhibhuta.

He is not an object, though He may be the supreme object, transcending all other limited objects.

Still He stands before us as an object.



But the Gita tells us that this adhibhuta, the supreme object, is inwardly related to the adhyatma, the subject.

So the field of operation of the object extends beyond its conceived location and permeates the very subject itself, which endeavors to conceive this object.

So much so, it is impossible to raise the mind to the status of the concept of God unless there is an equal rising up of the status of the subject himself.



Not merely this, there are other aspects also mentioned in these slokam-s. It is not merely the adhibhuta or the object, or the adhyatma or the subject that is the concern here.

The other terms used are adhidaiva and adhiyajna. Adhiyajna is the field of action, activity, operation, relationship and any kind of external dealing in human society in general, to put it in plain terms


Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....