Bhagwad Gita - Post 102

Verse 19

Bhootagraamah sa evaayam

Bhootwaa bhootwaa praleeyate;

Raatryaagame’vashah paartha

Prabhavatyaharaagame.

This same multitude of beings, born again and again, is dissolved, helplessly, O Arjuna, (into the unmanifested) at the coming of the night, and comes forth at the coming of the day!

Endless is creation, and endless is dissolution. How many times we have come, and how many times we have gone! In all the eighty-four lakhs (84,00,000) of species through which we have to pass, as they say, we are now at the human level. Perhaps we have passed through all these eighty-four lakhs of species. Many a time we have come, and many a time we have gone. Endless is creation, and endless is destruction. There is no beginning and no end for it. 

Bhūtagrāmaḥ: The total of all living beings enters and sinks into unconsciousness, and rises from unconsciousness, and again sinks into it, and rises up. Just as we sink into sleep and rise up to waking, and again sink into sleep and rise up to waking, etc., the same process also takes place in the cosmos.

One must always be conscious of the truth that God is present  everywhere. He is the transcendental entity from whom the universe issues forth and into whom the universe finally dissolves.  And still beyond, He is the supreme eternal, absolute one from whom everything is derived. 

Verse 20

Parastasmaat tu bhaavo’nyo’vyakto’

Vyaktaatsanaatanah;

Yah sa sarveshu Bhooteshu

Nashyatsu na vinashyati.

But verily there exists, higher than the unmanifested, another unmanifested Eternal who is not destroyed when all beings are destroyed.

If all people die, that Eternal Being will not die. Even if millions of Brahmas come and go, that unblinking Eternal is aware of all that is happening. 

This  changing world of the unmanifest must have one changeless substratum, "that which is not  destroyed by the destruction of all beings (bhutas)." the principle of pure consciousness, itself unmanifest, in as much as it is not perceivable by the sense organs or comprehensible by the mind and intellect - is indicated here as the changeless substratum of all, when the lord declares, "beyond this unmanifest, there is the other eternal existence, the unmanifested."

After completing the expose on the impermanence of all material worlds, Lord Krishna elucidates in this verse and the next on the eternal nature of the spiritual worlds which exist beyond the unmanifest and which is never destroyed when all the material worlds perish. 

Let us go back to our example of the movie projector where the light that illuminates the film strip identified itself with a character in the movie. How does that piece of light get liberated? By knowing that the identification with the movie character is false, and the identification with the light is real. The light in the projector remains constant regardless of how many times the movie is shown and rewound. It transcends the movie.

Similarly, Sri Krishna informs us that there is something beyond this cycle of creation and dissolution, something that transcends time and space. Unless we realize that everything that we think will give us happiness is subject to destruction sooner or later, we will never become aware that there is something beyond our materialistic pursuits.

Readers are requested to go through Post 12 titled Essence of Vedanta under the theme “Vedas and Vedantas”.

After reading the above post, readers will get  more clarity on THAT which is beyond manifest and unmanifest, as per the following tabulation explained in that post clearly.

	SANKHYA	BHAGWAD GITA/ VEDANTA	PANCHADASI
Primal cause, beyond Manifest and un-manifest	Not explained	Purushottama/ Prabrahman	Pure canvass/ Purusha
Un-manifest cause	Purusha	Purusha and prakriti	Stiffening of canvass- Iswara
Manifest cause	Prakriti and Mahat	Hiranyagarbha	Outline of Drawing-Hiranya garbha
Manifest creation	Ahankara and all Subsequent tatwa	Same as Sankhya	Inked Drawings- Objects created in the universe

Love.