एतां विभूतिं योगं च मम यो वेत्ति तत्त्वत: ।
सोऽविकम्पेन योगेन युज्यते नात्र संशय: ।। 10.7 ।।
etāṁ vibhūtiṁ yogaṁ cha mama yo vetti tattvataḥ
so ’vikampena yogena yujyate nātra sanśhayaḥ
He who in reality knows these manifold manifestations of My being and (this) yoga power of Mine, becomes established in the unshakable yoga; there is no doubt about it.
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, Verse 7
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अहं सर्वस्य प्रभवो मत्त: सर्वं प्रवर्तते ।
इति मत्वा भजन्ते मां बुधा भावसमन्विता: ।। 10.8 ।।
ahaṁ sarvasya prabhavo mattaḥ sarvaṁ pravartate
iti matvā bhajante māṁ budhā bhāva-samanvitāḥ
I am the origin of all, from Me everything evolves - thus thinking the wise worship Me with loving consciousness.
~ Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 10, Verse 8
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Questioner (Q): Shri Krishna is saying that he is the origin of everything. Knowing this, one who meditates upon him, worships him, gets firmly seated in him and becomes unshakable.
I can see that my current situation is far from perfect, and perfection is what I desire. Therefore, I should aspire for perfection and work towards it. What I do not see is that there is someone or something that is the source of everything that is perceivable. And as per these verses, only when I know him to be the origin, will I be unshakable.
Please help me understand how I can see Krishna as the source of everything, without whom nothing can exist.
Acharya Prashant (AP): No, no. You can’t bypass the process and the practice. You can’t straight away come to the end. Before you see that Krishna is the origin of everything, you will have to obviously drop your belief that one thing is the origin of another thing. You cannot believe in X and Y parallelly, simultaneously, when X violates Y, or can you?
These verses say, “I’m the origin of all. From Me everything evolves.” The questioner says, “What I’m not able to see is that there is a someone or something that is the source of everything that is perceivable.”
How will you see that something is the source of everything, when you are very confident of your concept that one thing is the source of another thing, and that’s what you evidently see in the world, don’t you? Start with yourself. Who is your source? Had it not been for this spiritual context, you would have not taken a moment to answer me. You would have immediately said, “Oh, my parents are my source.” When you are so certain that you come from your parents, how will you ever come to see that you come from Krishna?
And now you are asking me, “Sir, I am unable to see that Krishna is the source of everything.” You are not unable to see that Krishna is the source of everything. You are unable to drop the notion that your parents are not your source. That’s your problem!
In this world, you see everything as originating from another thing within this world. Then how will you ever see that the entire set of things in the universe comes from something that is nothing?
Where did your mobile phone come from? The factory. So now you know where the mobile phone comes from. Why will you say, "It comes from Krishna"? That would be so illogical and foolish, no? And I have straight away pointed at the central fallacy: your central fallacy is that you come from your parents. Since you think that you come from your parents, therefore you think that everything that is there in the world comes from another mortal thing, another material thing.
Why do you think you come from your parents? Because you think that you are the body. Your body did indeed come from your parents; no doubt about that. Now you know why it is so difficult to see Krishna as the origin: because the body indeed does come from other things. What is the mobile phone? It is a body. And everything that is bodily will necessarily come from another body. Therefore, you are right when you say that you come from your parents. As long as you are the body, you are stuck! But you are the body. And if you are the body, then you cannot come from Krishna—you are coming from your parents!
Therefore, to know that you come from Krishna, you will have to first of all stop seeing yourself as the body. That’s very difficult. That is very difficult because the body is the source of such pleasure. Body includes the brain, so all the mental pleasures are also included in bodily pleasures. Food, prestige, knowledge—how pleasuresome! And how can we forget sex? One of the greatest pleasures that the body knows. When the body is giving so much to you, how will you say you are not the body?
So there is a vested interest, there is a clear incentive to keep calling yourself as the body. Calling yourself as the body offers you titillation. And if you are the body, you don’t come from Krishna. Body came from the sperm and the egg—two basic cells. Game up!
Very few are those who very well know that your father is not your father. Your father is your brother, and the two of you have a common father above your head, and your real father is someone else. The one you have been so far been calling as your father and your mother are just your brother and sister. That is analogous to saying, “I do not come from the world.”
The world and me are one—we are brothers!
The world is not my father; the world is my brother.
I don’t come from the world; the world and me both come from somewhere else.
The world is not my origin; the world is my mirror image.
These are two very different statements, and these are two very different people who live in these statements. There’s one who says, “The world is my progenitor,” and the other one says, “The world is just my dualistic companion.” The one who sees that “the world is just the other end of the duality that I am” will be compelled to live in Krishna, because if you and the world are just one, two sides of the same coin, then there has to be a non-relative reality beyond the two of you.
You are related to the world; the world is related to you. What are the two of you, both of you, based on? Then there has to be something Absolute, that is dependent neither on the world nor on you. Otherwise it is a very bad situation, a helpless situation. The world is you; you are the world—what’s the truth of either of you?
You cannot talk of yourself except in relation to the world, and there is nobody to talk of the world, except you. Anything beyond the two of you that can carry the whole thing? There has to be something beyond.
But that something beyond should not be the target of your attention. You have to, first of all, attend to yourself. You have to watch your own reality. When you watch your own reality and come to disbelief in what has appeared real so far, then that itself, that process of stage, that process of negation itself is, Krishnatva. It does not lie in believing in some supernatural, glorious personality called 'Krishna'. It’s a process of negation.
Look at yourself; look at yourself; look at yourself!
"What’s going on? How do I operate? What is this ‘I’-sense?”
If you don’t look at yourself, then your Krishna will just remain something very imaginary, very flimsy, very small, and therefore, very valueless.
Related to this is the thing about causation and doership. Causation implies you know where a certain thing is coming from. The effect is a product of the cause, and if the effect is a product of the cause, how can Krishna be the origin? Now, if you are deeply rooted in your belief in causation, again you’ll have a problem.
Similarly, doership. Every doing appears to have a doer behind it, right? If you are very confident that whatsoever is happening—at least in your life—is being done by you, then how will you take Krishna as the origin?
Belief in doership and belief in the cause-effect chain directly militates against Krishna realization. How to get over it? You’ll have to see that you’re not doing stuff. Because you are the body and the body is mechanical, stuff is just happening through you.
You’re not the doer. You are very vainly carrying a false, misplaced, and hollow sense of doership. You’re not doing something; it’s just happening. It’s a thing of tendencies, hormones, chemicals. Why unnecessarily burden yourself with the claim that you are the doer?
But then, that’s what vanity demands, right? “If I am the doer, what’s the role of Krishna then? I am the one who is in command. I’m the one in office; I occupy the chair!” Are you really in office? Are you the authority? Do you really direct proceedings in your life? Seriously? Or is it only post facto that you rush to take credit?
Once something has happened, then you say, “I did it.” Hello? Was it really a conscious decision? It was like a slip; it happened. But we still say, “I slipped.” As if you decided to slip; as if it was a well considered decision—“I slipped.”
We even say, “I made a mistake.” That’s the extent of our nonsensical doership. “I made a mistake.” You didn’t make a mistake; the mistake happened, and you were absent; the ‘I’ was nowhere there. The central mistake is to think you made a mistake. The mistake was all that happened; ‘I’ was totally absent. Had you really been present, would the mistake have happened?
But that’s our life; a sequence of mistakes. Sometimes it hurts, and we call it a 'mistake'. Sometimes it doesn’t hurt so much, and we call it a 'decision'.
“I did it!” Sir, why is it not a mistake? “Because, you know, the butt is not yet swollen!”
We never decide anything; that’s what you have to see. You don’t have to believe that Krishna is the supreme doer. First of all, you have to admit that you are not the doer, and that is sufficient, sir. You don’t have to believe that Krishna is the origin of all actions. You just have to firstly see that your actions are not yours.
Whose actions are they then? Keep that question aside. That’s not for you to ask. You are nobody to ask that question. Not that there is some statutory prohibition; it’s just that right now you don’t deserve to ask that question. When you do not know yourself, how will you know Krishna? You do not know the limited entity that you are, and you are venturing out to ask about the unlimited one. That’s foolish! That’s why I’m saying, "Don’t ask that question."
Just see that your stuff is not yours. Just see that you are not. That’s enough. Negating yourself directly transforms into Krishna affirmation. And if you haven’t negated yourself, and yet keep declaring a certain faith and affirmation in Krishna, then you are a big hypocrite.
On one hand, you keep thinking of yourself as the doer, as the body, as this and that. On the other hand, you keep paying lip service to Krishna by saying, “Oh, He’s the one who does everything! I am nobody.”
