The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.10

12/01/2017.
Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-10.

Through avyakta God reveals Himself as buddhi or mahat and stratifies Himself further down as the cosmic ego, ahamkara. In later Vedantic doctrines, these stages are described as ishwara, hiranyagarbha, and virat. The terminology of the Bhagavadgita is different, but it means almost the same thing. Right from the supreme will of the Creator to the manifestation of cosmic ahamkara, there is only paradise reigning in the universe. There is only a garden of Eden, only heaven, and supreme felicity of cosmic perception everywhere.

There is no egoism, no hatred, not even an individual consciousness. But then starts the sorrow of the individual. There is the manifestation of the grossened elements, mahabhutani—earth, water, fire, air and ether—which look like objects of sense to individuals who are cut off from the outside world. These individuals are again constituted of the five layers—annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnaamaya and anandamaya koshas—the physical, vital, mental, intellectual and causal layers, which appear to be outside the universe.

Then what happens: Iccha dvesah sukham duhkham sanghatas cetana dhrtih. Well, all trouble arises at once, like the cyclone that blows as soon as the sun is beclouded by a darkened screen in the monsoon season. Desires and hatreds of various types take possession of the individual ego as soon as it is severed from the cosmic fold. This much is the short description, an outline given in the thirteenth chapter of the Gita of the kshetra or the field of action, the universe in its material form.

Swami Krishnananda
  To be continued  ....