The Relevance of the Bhagavadgita to Humanity

The First Six Chapters of the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Chapter 11: Participating with the Intention of the Universe

The Creator released His creation of beings with the injunction that everyone is necessarily associated with a sacrifice. This is a very famous statement in a verse of the Third Chapter of the Bhagavadgita: sahayajñāḥ prajāḥ sṛṣṭvā (BG 3.10). A wealth of meaning is hidden in this little half-sentence, as it were. Everyone is born by the ordinance of the Creator with an association with sacrifice, and is necessarily connected with sacrifice. Unconnected with sacrifice, nobody is born, which is something very strange and interesting to hear. Sahayajñāḥ is the srishti. Creation is connected, unavoidably and invariably, with sacrifice.

Wonderfully deep is the meaning of the word 'sacrifice'. Anything can be conjoined with the meaning of that word. The Sanskrit word yajna means 'sacrifice'. We may translate it into the English language as 'sacrifice', 'self-abnegation', 'self-alienation', 'sharing', 'parting with', 'giving', 'exceeding oneself by parting with a share of oneself', and so on. Deep is the meaning of the word 'sacrifice'.

We have a pithy statement in the Vedic lore which states yajño vai viṣṇuḥ (Yajurveda 6.2.9.2): The ruler of the universe is sacrifice. Vishnu is the supreme cosmic administrative ruling principle. The supporting power of the universe is Vishnu. It is identical with sacrifice, which means to say, we are supported by the principle of sacrifice. 'We are supported' means that we are enabled to live, that we exist because of this sacrifice. But for the existence of such a thing called sacrifice, existence would not be possible.

Now, this is a little hint in the beginning of the Third Chapter of the Gita. What is meant by 'sacrifice being connected with all beings'? We are all living beings, and everything is a being. It is necessarily connected with a sacrifice, which means to say, an obligation to render in respect of everything else an act of sharing and cooperating for the purpose of not only one's own sustenance but a mutual sustenance. This mutuality of sustenance is brought out in the second passage of the very same chapter. Devān bhāvayatānena te devā bhāvayantu vaḥ, parasparaṁ bhāvayantaḥ śreyaḥ param avāpsyatha (BG 3.11): Worship the gods, adore the divinities and share what you have with these divinities, so that they may bless you with their grace and enable you to live comfortably and securely.

There is, in the midst of these two little verses, a complete philosophy of life, as it were. As we have noted in our earlier sessions, there is a cooperative activity automatically going on in all of nature, so that every part of creation is sustained by the very fact of this cooperative movement and sustenance. It is a balancing of cooperative contribution that gives the appearance of the existence of an individual. We exist as individuals, and seem to be living as persons independently by ourselves. Are we really independent persons? Or are we appearing to be independent? We may, in our blinded vision of things and clouded idea of our own selves, think that we are really independent individuals, but a wider vision and a deeper probe into the secret of things will reveal that we are not independent individuals. There is a fabric of interconnected constituents which gives the appearance of the sustenance of every part. The part seems to be balanced in its position on account of energy in the form of a sustaining contribution coming from every other part. The balancing of forces in a particular manner, a type of concentration of this balancing of energy in a particular point in space and time, looks like an individual, tentative existence.

There is a rapid movement of forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. They never are stable in themselves. The whole universe is a movement, it is a velocity, it is an ocean of inwardly active, moving and energising elements, so that the inward activity of this threefold force called sattva, rajas and tamas in a particular or given manner, at a given moment of time, projects a kind of universe, a particular pattern or form of the coming together of these three forces, is a world. These forces can assume another pattern if the need be, and another world can be created.

Varieties of pictures can be painted with the same kind of inks. There can be only three inks, say red and blue and yellow. There are three inks in three bottles, and the artist manufactures a picture out of these three inks only, by the act of his brush. You can know and appreciate that he can bring about any picture out of the very same inks. He can paint a dog, a horse, a man, an angel, a tree, a hill, or a landscape. Any blessed thing can be created by the manipulation of these three inks only. The proportion of distribution, the intensity of the ink, and so on, will decide what kind of picture is to be presented. Similarly, varieties of worlds are there. Endless are the possibilities of space-time complexes. This is one kind of space-time complex, and one kind of picture is before us. We may think that this is the only world that is possible and no other world is possible. It is not so. It is like imagining that with the inks you can have only one picture, and not more than one picture.

The energies – sattva, rajas and tamas – can arrange themselves in any form; a particular form that they take is called a world, and we are a part of the world. Inasmuch as our mind, our consciousness, our intelligence is tethered to this particular form only, we cannot visualise any world other than this particular world. Our consciousness is tied to this body so forcefully that we cannot imagine that there can be anything other than this body. It is the only reality. In a similar way, the perceptive consciousness gets accustomed, by a vehemence of association, with this particular picture presented by a given pattern of the arrangement of these three forces, sattva, rajas, tamas, and makes us believe that there is only one world, that there is no other world, that this is the only reality. Many a time we are likely to imagine thus. We are caught up within a single prison, and therefore we do not know what is outside it. Infinite worlds are possible. Infinite possibilities there are of experiences, and endless are the potentialities in the bosom of prakriti.

Why should the gunas, or the properties of prakriti – sattva, rajas, tamas – arrange themselves in a particular form only, and not in any other form? This is something like asking, “Why I am born into this body only? I could have been born into some other body. What is the reason for my being what I am, and why am I not something else?” The answer is given. The propulsion of consciousness in a given direction is the reason for the shape it takes as the body, and the total action and reaction of the cumulative, concentrated direction given by a group of individuals, a set of individualities, is said to determine the kind of shape that the gunas should take in the form of a manifested universe. It does not mean that the same pattern will be maintained in every cycle, though there can be the same form maintained once again, if the necessity arises. A passage from the Veda says: The Creator creates the world in the same way as He did in various cycles or eons of creation.

There are, therefore, patterns of the projection of these forces – sattva, rajas, tamas. The variety that we see in the world is an illusion, as the illusion of the difference of presentation is made possible by the distribution of ink, though the inks may be only a few – one, two or three. Though variety is there, the basic substance of this variety need not be so multitudinous as the picture is made to look.

Now, the painted picture gives the semblance of a wholeness. Every part of the painting is sustained in a given manner in order that the wholeness of the picture can be made possible. Every particular dot of the ink should be in a particular position only. It should not be in some other position. And the presentation is entirely dependent on the total action of these many dots. There is a mutual collaboration, contribution, made, as it were, by these little dots. Every dot of ink cooperates with every other dot of ink, and it is this cooperative accumulation of presentation that gives us the idea of a wholeness which we call the picture. Actually, there is no such thing as the picture. It does not exist; yet, it appears to be there. What is there is only little dots of three kinds of ink, and these three dots variegatedly presented by the expertness of the artist give the impression of a manifoldness and a total vision of something.

In a similar manner, we seem to have an individuality of our own. I am a man, and a complete man, not a half man or a one-fourth man. Yet, this total man that I am, this individuality that I am assuming, is a picture presented by the three gunas. There is nothing in me except these three forces. I have many things. Everyone feels there are many things in this body, this mind, and so on. It is a big factory of varieties of treasure, as it were, but all these contents of this wondrous factory of human personality contain only three items, nothing more – the properties of prakriti: sattva, rajas and tamas.

In the intensity of expression, in a differentiated manner, they look like various bodies – the physical body, the astral body, the causal body, or, as you might have heard, there are five layers of our individuality. These are called, in our Sanskrit language, annamaya, pranamaya, manomaya, vijnanamaya and anandamaya koshas. The physical, the vital, the mental, the intellectual, and the causal layers are not five shirts put on by the Atman. They are a thick layer of cloud distributed in a variegated intensity of expression, as a cloud may cover the sun and we cannot say there are many kinds of cloud. Cloud is cloud, but it can be thick or thin, and it can be distributed in layers of depression and pressure. It can be dark, it can be lighter, it can be anything whatsoever. The variety in the distribution of the density of the cloud does not mean that there are many clouds. There is only a difference in the intensity of their expression as layers, as it were. They are not even layers of one thing over the other. It is one thing only appearing as many. Likewise is the apparent distribution of the so-called fivefoldness of our five sheaths. There are not five sheaths. There is one sheath only, in the same way as there is one cloud covering the sun, but they look like five, or sometimes we call them three, because of the intensity of their expression. We have a physical body with legs and hands and feet and eyes and brain and heart and lungs and sense organs and mind and intellect. A wonderful mechanism we have in our so-called layers of expression, but they are only these threeforces playing a drama, three things appearing as many things. Therefore, our so-called stability of individuality, our independence that we are assuming, is an illusion. We are not independent persons; nobody is independent in this world. The independence is a tentative, illusory presentation of a stability created by a concentration of these three forces at a given moment of time, for a particular purpose, and when that purpose is fulfilled, the pattern will change suddenly, and there will not be this particular individuality of ours. We will shed this individuality, and we will assume a new form by a rearrangement of the constituents which are nothing but these.

Hell and heaven are nothing but these three gunas. What a difference between hell and heaven! Unthinkably different are the conditions prevailing in heaven and hell, but there is nothing substantially different in the formation of these arrangements or atmospheres or environments we call hell and heaven. The particular type of pressure exerted by the gunas in a type of intensity will give us the idea of a particular world, as I mentioned. We call it a physical world, an astral world or celestial world, a nether region, an inferno, and so on. So there is no inferno, paradiso, purgatorio – nothing of the kind. There is no earth, there is no heaven, there is no sky. These are all forms taken by different pressurised expressions of the three gunas: sattva rajas, tamas. The whole world is this much – including me, including you, including inanimate objects, animate objects, and every blessed thing. Na tad asti pṛthivyāṁ vā divi deveṣu vā punaḥ, sattvaṁ prakṛtijair muktaṁ yad ebhiḥ syāt tribhir guṇaiḥ (BG 18.40): In all the earth and all the heaven, there is nothing visible, nothing tangible, nothing intelligible which is not a formation of these three gunas.

So where do you stand as an individual? You do not exist as an individual. You are a concentrated point of these three forces arranged in a particular form. They can rearrange themselves at any time, and you are no more there. Immediately there is a distribution of the constituents. We can have another building with the same bricks, only rearranging them in a different pattern. It may look like a temple, it may look like a church, it may look like a mosque, or it may look like a dome. It may look like anything. We may call the structure by different names because of the shape taken by the very same bricks. The same bricks look like different structures, and we give them different names. Here is a temple and here is a shop, and many things are told about buildings because of the form taken by the same building material. So there are three building materials in this cosmos – sattva, rajas, tamas. Finally, we will be told there are not even three. When we go to the later chapters, the Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Chapters, we will find even the threefoldness of this force is not an ultimate fact. There is something very unique and surprising that is revealed later on. Thus, inasmuch as we are not independent, inasmuch as we are constituted of powers that are also the basic building bricks of everyone else also, there is an interconnection of us with everybody else.

Now, the universe is a ubiquitous, all-pervading maintenance of balance. Even our existence is a kind of balance. If the balance is upset, we will not be here even for three minutes. Even the building is a balance of the building material. If the balance is not there, there will be no structure. It will not stand. The stability of the thing is the balance of its inner constituents, and therefore our so-called stability and perpetuation of our individuality, the imagination that we are existing as so-called Mr., Mrs., and so on, is an illusion because its existence, even for a moment, is due to the balance maintained by these inner forces. But why do they maintain this balance? This so-called maintenance of balance is also dependent on various other aspects of the very same three forces distributed elsewhere in the cosmos. If the leg is to stand erect, all the muscles of the body also should cooperate. It is not enough if only the knee bends or straightens itself. Medical men tell us that four hundred and fifty muscles are activated immediately merely by the act of standing. We do not know that four hundred and fifty muscles are working merely when we are standing. Likewise, the whole cosmos is active merely by a particular event that takes place.

There is a beautiful phrase uttered by a modern thinker: The universe is in travail at the birth of even a single event. Travail is the pang of birth, and at the birth of even a single event in the world, the pang is felt by the whole universe because the whole universe is made up of such substance as is present in the operation and activation of any event anywhere. Or, to give our old homely example, the activity of any single part of our body is, at the same time, the activity of the whole body. Thus, unless the whole universe contributes its might and cooperates in a given manner, we would not be existing here as a person. But why are we existing as this person in this particular form as an individual? It is for the fulfilment of the purpose of creation itself. There is a purpose and a tendency in the very structure of creation, and that particular intended purposiveness or structure of creation decides what kind of person we must be.

For instance, there is a Constitution of a government. It is a principle that is laid down for the administration of the whole country. That principle is the purpose behind the very action called administration. That purpose laid down in the Constitution will decide every kind of detail of the manner of the performance of personnel in the government. This person should do this, that person should do that, in this manner, in this form, at this time, and so on. The details are determined by the central thought, the original will that we call the primary ordinance of the Constitution. So the whole universe has one will, call it God's will or whatever it is. That central intention of the universal arrangement of the three gunas will decide what kind of person we should be, and anything should be.

Then what is the purpose of our existence in this world? It is not to eat, drink, and be merry. Why does a particular official work in the government as a little clerk in an unknown office? It is not because he wants to draw a salary. That is incidental. He exists as a little contribution for the stability of the entire setup called the welfare of the nation. A little, single, unknown man working in a corner, in a desk, is contributing his little might as a necessary cooperation of the stability of the entire framework of the administration. He is as important as anybody else. An unknown worker is as important as a well-known advisor. So the existence of each individual in a large framework of operation is conditioned and determined by the original intention of the whole framework itself.

Thus, why do we exist? It is not because we have to enjoy things in this world. Life is not intended for personal enjoyment. You do not exist for yourself. A little participator in an administrative setup does not exist for himself or herself. That existence is conditional existence, not unconditioned existence – conditional in the sense that it is a participation in larger existence, which is also the welfare of each individual. So why do we exist, and why do we work, and what kind of work are we doing? There is no such thing as individual action. We cannot do anything. “I do.” This kind of statement should not be made. The whole world works, and when it works, it utilises our work also as a necessary operation of a little nut and bolt or wheel, or whatever it is, for the fulfilment of its purpose.

So whenever we do any little work, we are doing a cosmical work, we are doing a universal work, we are participating in the creative activity of the cosmos. It is not my work; it is not your work. Such a thing cannot be. Even in the imagination, that kind of independence of our work cannot be permitted. Even in imagination, that is not possible. Not only is it not possible for us to work independently for our own purpose, it is not possible for us even to exist as an independent person because we are a little thread in this large fabric of the spread-out three gunas which are this world.

So prakriti determines every character, and each one of us is one particular character. The whole presentation of a dramatic performance is a total picture that is presented before an audience. That total picture assumes a meaning if every actor participates in a given manner at a given moment, but if each one independently acts – I shall do whatever I like – then there is no totality of the dramatic presentation. There is a script prepared by the director of the drama, or there is an intention of the director, we may say; that script, or the original thought which is the purposiveness of the whole presentation, will decide what sort of performance is expected from every dramatic personae. Likewise, the purpose of the universe will decide what kind of work we have to do in this world. We cannot say we will do what we like. There is no such thing as our liking, and such a statement has no meaning. Our liking is nothing but a liking of the universe. So we are born with a sacrifice, which means to say that our independent existence as we assume it and imagine it is actually a position that we are occupying in the large administrative setup of the cosmos whose building materials, or operation of powers, are the three gunas: sattva, rajas, tamas.

This is to explain the inner suggestiveness of that beautiful single phrase, as it were, sahayajñāḥ: Togetherness with sacrifice is our existence. Our existence is a togetherness with sacrifice. Therefore, without sacrifice we do not exist, and if sacrifice means cosmic cooperation, sharing with everything with which we are connected, which means to say, a universally spread out participation of ourselves, each little work of ours is the worship of the universal intention. This is the meaning of 'work is worship'. How does work become worship? It is because whatever we do is an operation through the instrumentality of our particular form of individuality as a contribution for the presentation of the total picture of the intention of the whole cosmos. Each man is a cosmic man. Every little servant of the government says, “I am the government.” He is like the government. He has got authority of the government. He can summon it. So each person is a cosmic pressure point, as it were, and the whole universe, the macrocosmic existence, is microcosmically present in each person. When we say we are a pindanda, or a microcosm, we mean that in a miniature form the whole universe is within us. If the whole universe is within us in a pindanda form or a microcosm, the entire purpose of the cosmos is in the brain of each individual. In each cell of your body the universe is active; therefore, you have no individuality of your own. There is no such thing as your work, and there is no such thing as my work. It is the work of the whole purpose of creation.

Therefore, give up this idea “I shall do, I shall not do.” The question does not arise. Neither can we say “I shall do”, nor can we say “I shall not do”. Both these statements have no significance because perforce we have to act, as a carriage attached to a railway engine is perforce dragged by the movement of the engine. “I shall move, I shall not move,” the carriage does not say, because it is attached to the engine. Each one of us has this position of being attached to this central operative engine of the intention of the cosmos, and where it pulls, there we have to move. We cannot say, “I shall move, I shall not move.” We have no choice.

This denial of particular choice is not a denial of freedom; it is an enhancement of our freedom. The more we participate and cooperate with the intention of the universe, the greater is our freedom. An individual has less freedom, but an individual associated with an organisation has a greater freedom. Association with an organisation implies limitation also to some extent, but this limitation is a greater freedom granted from another point of view. So the denial of individual activity and the affirmation of a universal purposiveness of things is not a denial of freedom; it is an enhancement of our freedom.

Now another point is made there that God should be worshipped, and that gives significance to our work. What that is, we shall see later.