Bhagwad Gita - Post 87

Verse 7

Mattah parataram naanyat

Kinchidasti dhananjaya;

Mayi sarvamidam protam

Sootre maniganaa iva.

There is nothing whatsoever higher than Me, O Arjuna! All this is strung on Me as clusters of gems on a string.

In this verse, very emphatically the Lord says, “Nothing outside Me can exist, not even this universe.” He transcends the universe by saying, “Even this universe that I have been describing to you cannot be there without Me; and higher than Me, nothing can be.” 

Parataram can mean ‘external to Me’ or ‘higher than Me’. “Beyond Me, there is nothing. Outside Me, there is nothing. There is nothing either as the fourteen worlds, the gods in heaven or what is called prakriti; nothing of that kind can be outside Me.” 

Now the Sankhya has been transcended. The Purusha Supreme is speaking: “Prakriti cannot be outside Me.” But the Sankhya says that Prakriti is immortal, that it is as indestructible as Purusha itself. 

If that is the case, there is a predicament regarding the relationship between consciousness and matter, purusha and prakriti, which is transcended here in the Vedanta of the Bhagwad Gita. 

“I transcend everything, even prakriti, and it cannot exist without Me. It cannot even be outside Me, let alone without Me.” If that is the case, if the whole cosmos is not outside God, then it is permeated by the immanence of God, and every atom in the cosmos dances with the power of the Soul which it assumes from the Almighty Himself. 

Shri Krishna addresses Arjuna as the Dhananjaya, the conquerer of wealth, and makes a bold statement. He says that other than Purusha, there is nothing in this universe. This means Purusha alone exists in the universe. Other than him, there is nothing else.

Mayi sarvam idam protam sutre maṇigaṇa iva: “As beads are strung on a thread, the whole universe is strung on Me.” The beads cannot become a garland or a mala unless there is a thread. 

“There would be no cohesion, no principle, no meaning, no future, and no sense in anything if there was no thread underneath to connect the little bits of creation. I am that thread—the Supreme Soul—and, therefore, I am everything.”

Sri Krishna says that Purusha  pervades the entire universe just like this string pervades the entire necklace. When we apply our intellect, the necklace and the beads disappear, as it were, and only the string remains. 

Each bead contains the string, but the string contains all the beads. In other words, the string is all-pervading. With the knowledge that Shri Krishna imparts in this chapter, we should strive for piercing through the world of names and forms and only seeing Purusha.

Sveta Ashvatara Upanishad says,

Tam isvaraṇaṃ paramaṃ mahesvaraṃ

Taṃ devatanaṃ paramaṃ ca daivataṃ

Patiṃ patinaṃ paramaṃ parastad

Vidama devaṃ bhuvanesam iḍyam  (6.7 )

We know Him who is the Supreme Lord of lords, the Supreme Deity of deities, the Ruler of rulers; who is higher than the imperishable prakriti and is the self-luminous, adorable Lord of the world.

All these adjectives are used to emphasize the uniqueness of Brahman. He is the supreme among all gods. He is self-luminous and the God of all gods, the Ruler of all the rulers. He is higher than Brahma. He rules the world and is the sole object of worship in the world. He is to be known as our own self.

In the teachings given through other blog posts etc. (creation of universe, veda and vedanta etc), this Purusha is understood as the Pure canvass described in the Panchadasi 6th chapter, Brahman or Pure consciousness described in various posts. 

When we come across commentary given by any Dvaitin, the entire declaration by Krishna is given by the Dvaitins as about the Neela mega Shyamala Krishna. 

But a careful understanding of even this verse where He declares that He is beyond this creation, then we can understand that it is not about the form, but it is about THAT which is beyond all forms, beyond creation and beyond even Prakriti.

Love.