स्वयमेवात्मनात्मानं वेत्थ त्वं पुरुषोत्तम ।भूतभावन भूतेश देवदेव जगत्पते ॥
svayamevātmanātmānaṁ vettha tvaṁ puruṣottamabhūtabhāvana bhūteśa devadeva jagatpate
Thou alone knowest Thyself by Thyself, O Purushottama; Source of beings, Lord of beings, God of gods, Master of the world!
Compiled rendering · Anilbaran Roy
AI translation
Essays on the Gita
This Godhead is not the limited personal God of so many exoteric religions; for those are all only partial and outward formations of this other, this creative and directive, this personal side of his complete truth of existence. This is the one supreme Person, Soul, Being, Purusha of whom all godheads are aspects, all individual personality a limited development in cosmic Nature. This Godhead is not a particularised name and form of Divinity, iṣṭa-devatā, constructed by the intelligence or embodying the special aspiration of the worshipper. All such names and forms are only powers and faces of the one Deva who is the universal Lord of all worshippers and all religions:10·15 but this is itself that universal Deity, deva-deva. This Ishwara is not a reflection of the impersonal and indeterminable Brahman in illusive Maya: for from beyond all cosmos as well as within it he rules and is the Lord of the worlds and their creatures. He is Parabrahman who is Parameshwara, supreme Lord because he is the supreme Self and Spirit, and from his highest original existence he originates and governs the universe, not self-deceived, but with an all-knowing omnipotence. Nor is the working of his divine Nature in the cosmos an illusion whether of his or our consciousness. The only illusive Maya is the ignorance of the lower Prakriti which is not a creator of non-existent things on the impalpable background of the One and Absolute, but because of its blind encumbered and limited working misrepresents to the human mind by the figure of ego and other inadequate figures of mind, life and matter the greater sense, the deeper realities of existence. There is a supreme, a divine Nature which is the true creatrix of the universe. All creatures and all objects are becomings of the one divine Being; all life is a working of the power of the one Lord; all nature is a manifestation of the one Infinite. He is the Godhead in man; the Jiva is spirit of his Spirit. He is the Godhead in the universe; this world in Space and Time is his phenomenal self-extension.
Arjuna accepts the entire knowledge that has thus been given to him by the divine Teacher. His mind is already delivered from its doubts and seekings; his heart, turned now from the outward aspect of the world, from its baffling appearance to its supreme sense and origin and its inner realities, is already released from sorrow and affliction and touched with the ineffable gladness of a divine revelation. The language which he is made to use in voicing his acceptance is such as to emphasise and insist once again on the profound integrality of this knowledge and its all-embracing finality and fullness. He accepts first the Avatar, the Godhead in man who is speaking to him as the supreme Brahman, as the supracosmic All and Absolute of existence in which the soul can dwell when it rises out of this manifestation and this partial becoming to its source, paraṁ brahma, paraṁ dhāma. He accepts him as the supreme purity of the ever free Existence to which one arrives through the effacement of ego in the self’s immutable impersonality calm and still for ever, pavitraṁ paramam. He accepts him next as the one Permanent, the eternal Soul, the divine Purusha, puruṣaṁ śāśvataṁ divyam. He acclaims in him the original Godhead, adores the Unborn who is the pervading, indwelling, self-extending master of all existence, ādi-devam ajaṁ vibhum. He accepts him therefore not only as that Wonderful who is beyond expression of any kind, for nothing is sufficient to manifest him,—“neither the Gods nor the Titans, O blessed Lord, know thy manifestation,” na hi te bhagavan vyaktiṁ vidur devā na dānavāḥ,—but as the lord of all existences and the one divine efficient cause of all their becoming, God of the gods from whom all godheads have sprung, master of the universe who manifests and governs it from above by the power of his supreme and his universal Nature, bhūta-bhāvana bhūteśa deva-deva jagat-pate. And lastly he accepts him as that Vasudeva in and around us who is all things here by virtue of the world-pervading, all-inhabiting, all-constituting master powers of his becoming, vibhūtayaḥ, “the sovereign powers of thy becoming by which thou standest pervading these worlds,” yābhir vibhūtibhir lokān imāṁs tvaṁ vyāpya tiṣṭhasi.*
He has accepted the truth with the adoration of his heart, the submission of his will and the understanding of his intelligence. He is already prepared to act as the divine instrument in this knowledge and with this self-surrender. But a desire for a deeper constant spiritual realisation has been awakened in his heart and will. This is a truth which is evident only to the supreme Soul in its own self-knowledge,—for, cries Arjuna, “thou alone, O Purushottama, knowest thyself by thyself,” ātmanā ātmānaṁ vettha. This is a knowledge that comes by spiritual identity and the unaided heart, will, intelligence of the natural man cannot arrive at it by their own motion and can only get at imperfect mental reflections that reveal less than they conceal and disfigure. This is a secret wisdom which one must hear from the seers who have seen the face of this Truth, have heard its word and have become one with it in self and spirit. “All the Rishis say this of thee and the divine seer Narada, Asita, Devala, Vyasa.” Or else one must receive it from within by revelation and inspiration from the inner Godhead who lifts in us the blazing lamp of knowledge. Svayañcaiva bravīṣi me, “and thou thyself sayest it to me.” Once revealed, it has to be accepted by the assent of the mind, the consent of the will and the heart’s delight and submission, the three elements of the complete mental faith, śraddhā. It is so that Arjuna has accepted it; “all this that thou sayest, my mind holds for the truth.” But still there will remain the need of that deeper possession in the very self of our being out from its most intimate psychic centre, the soul’s demand for that inexpressible permanent spiritual realisation of which the mental is only a preliminary or a shadow and without which there cannot be a complete union with the Eternal.
