The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -19.9

10/04/2017

19: True Knowledge : 9.

Who can know the knower of things? Thus the supreme knower of all things, the omniscient Absolute, is a non-existent something to the senses, the mind and the intellect which expect everything existent to be outward in space and in time. It has neither beginning nor end, but it exists everywhere. That which exists everywhere appears to be nowhere.

For us, to be existent is to be somewhere, and we cannot imagine a state of affairs where things can be existing everywhere, because perception is impossible if the object is spread out everywhere uniformly or equally. If perception is not possible, knowledge of it is also not possible. When knowledge does not recognise the presence of a thing, it dubs it as non-existent. But here is the mystery of mysteries, the miracle of all miracles, which is the Supreme Godhead of the universe that grasps everything without limbs, sees all things without eyes, hears everything without ears, moves everywhere without feet, and speaks in every language, through all tongues.

The human mind is not made in a way to understand this mystery, because the uniformity of existence is something not seen anywhere in this world. Nothing is uniformly present anywhere. Everything is somewhere, in some form, but not everywhere, in every way. But That which is everywhere, at every time, in every form, is an object of stories and fables for us—we cannot conceive it even with the farthest stretch of our imagination. All eyes, all ears, all feet, all heads, all limbs is this Supreme Being. Every part of it can perform every function.

This is not so in the case of individuals like us, where some organ, some limb, some faculty can perform only some function allotted to it, and not all things. Our minds become stupefied by even thinking such a supreme fact of facts. We go giddy, our heads begin to reel, or the mind finds it is better to go to sleep rather than contemplate mighty mysteries of this nature. It envelops all things. Not merely does it envelop in the sense of covering things, but it is the indweller of all beings. It is not merely outside things as their cover, but it is also inside things. It is not merely outside things and inside things, but it is also the substance and constitution of all things. It is not merely the efficient cause, the Creator of things, but it is also the material cause or the substance of things.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued ....