Bhagwad Gita - Post 171

Verse 34

Yathaa prakaashayatyekah

Kritsnam lokamimam ravih;

Kshetram kshetree tathaa

Kritsnam prakaashayati bhaarata.

Just as the one sun illumines the whole world, so also the Lord of the Field (the Supreme Self) illumines the whole Field, O Arjuna!

The exact relationship of Consciousness, the Eternal Principle of Life, with matter and its various expressions is explained here. 

The example given by The Lord for the purpose is the one sun which illumines the entire world at all times. Just as the sun, the Consciousness merely illumines the world of objects, the body, the mind and the intellect. 

Light itself is the very nature of the sun and in his light everything gets illumined. Similarly, the nature of Consciousness is awareness and in Its presence, everything becomes known i.e., illumined. The sun illumines everything, good and bad, beautiful and ugly, virtue and vice etc. 

So too, in our inner life, Consciousness functions through body equipment and illumines them but never gets contaminated by the actions of the body or by the emotions of the mind or by the thoughts of the intellect. 

Verse 35

Kshetrakshetrajnayor evam

Antaram jnaanachakshushaa;

Bhootaprakritimoksham cha ye

Vidur yaanti te param.

They who, through the eye of knowledge, perceive the distinction between the Field and its Knower, and also the liberation from the Nature of being, they go to the Supreme.

Those who are able to distinguish between kṣhetrajña and kṣhetra, between purusha and prakriti, between the Self and its object, and between consciousness and matter shall attain the Supreme Abode. If this distinction is clear to us, then we will be totally unattached to everything in this world, and we will not be reborn into this world of prakriti, this world of the three gunas. We will attain the Supreme Abode—param.

Sri Krishna now concludes that man's life is fulfilled only when he with his discrimination meditates upon and realizes the constitution of and relationship between the Field, the Knower of the Field and the Supreme Self in himself. 

This can be achieved through the eye of wisdom or intuition which is opened up by meditation, study of scriptures or teachings of the preceptors. One who realizes this is liberated and attains eternal freedom. 

Thus it has been very clearly and emphatically laid down in the Bhagwad Gita that the means of deliverance from maya or ignorance are meditation, renunciation and other spiritual disciplines. 

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 170

Verse 32

Anaaditwaan nirgunatwaat

Paramaatmaayam avyayah;

Shareerastho’pi kaunteya

Na karoti na lipyate.

Being without beginning and devoid of (any) qualities, the Supreme Self, imperishable, though dwelling in the body, O Arjuna, neither acts nor is tainted!

Anāditvān: It has no qualities of any kind as we know qualities here. 

Nirguṇatvāt paramātmāyam avyayaḥ: It is imperishable because it is indestructible. 

The Supreme Self, though existing in this body as the deepest self in us, does not involve itself in any contamination of the gunas of prakriti. 

Na karoti na lipyate: He neither does anything, nor is He contaminated by the fruits of action.

In an earlier talk, it was explained that consciousness remains uncontaminated by anything that takes place, just as space inside a vessel cannot become affected by things that we pour into the vessel. 

If we pour something fragrant into the vessel, the space inside it, does not become fragrant; or if we put something which smells foul into the vessel, the space inside it does not become bitter/foul smelling. 

Similarly, the witness consciousness in all of us, which is the light of the sun in the sky, as it were, is untarnished by anything that may happen to our Gross body (physical) or Subtle body (mind/intellect/vasanas etc.)

Verse 33

Yathaa sarvagatam

Saukshmyaadaakaasham nopalipyate;

Sarvatraavasthito dehe

Tathaatmaa nopalipyate.

As the all-pervading ether is not tainted because of its subtlety, so the Self seated everywhere in the body, is not tainted.

The subtlest reality is consciousness, and all things that are external to it, of which it is conscious, are gross. Everything in the world is gross; therefore, consciousness — which is the subtlest of being — cannot actually get involved in anything in this world, the two being dissimilar in nature. 

The subtle cannot enter into the gross, and the gross cannot affect the subtle. 

Because of the subtlety of the Supreme Being and its all-pervading nature—sarvatrāvasthita—it is not affected by anything that takes place in creation, either by evolution or involution. 

As the waters of the mirage cannot drench the desert, the world of plurality - the domain of matter and its activities - cannot contaminate the Eternal. 

The Self, though permeates and pervades the whole body, is not soiled by its virtuous or vicious actions just as space is not dirtied by the things accommodated under it. 

  

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 169

Verse 28

Samam sarveshu bhooteshu

Tishthantam parameshwaram;

Vinashyatswavinashyantam

Yah pashyati sa pashyati.

He sees, who sees the Supreme Lord, existing equally in all beings, the unperishing within the perishing.

Samaṁ sarveṣu bhūteṣu tiṣṭhantaṁ

That Being is equally present in all as the Self of all. It is the Self of the ant and the elephant and the human being and the God. 

The distinction among them is due to the appearance of their subtle bodies and gross bodies, but the life that is behind the subtle and gross bodies is common—as sunlight is common and appears to be colored or distorted according to the nature of the glasses that we put on. 

The Supreme Lord exists in an equilibrated fashion everywhere. 

“He sees” is the expression with which the translation of the verse begins. Here, the “seeing” is that Seeing which is not the effect of any other seer, which is not illumined by any other seer. This means, the being referred to in the verse is the Eternal witness, the SELF.

Only when one exists as SELF ILLUMINED SEER, Pure Atman, “can see the Supreme Lord, existing equally in all beings, the unperishing within the perishing.” 

People die, everything perishes, and all things get destroyed.  But in the midst of this destruction taking place perennially, perpetually, right from creation—in the midst of this flux and destruction and movement—there is an unmoving Eternity. 

This apparently ever changing Jagath, has to have a changeless phenomenon, the substratum, which holds the Jagath. And that which holds thus, is and must be changeless, unmoving eternity, i.e., Pure Consciousness or Purusha or Purushottama, as referred in the Bhagwad Gita.

Verse 29

Samam pashyan hi sarvatra

Samavasthitameeshwaram;

Na hinastyaatmanaa’tmaanam

Tato yaati paraam gatim.

Because he who sees the same Lord dwelling equally everywhere does not destroy the Self by the self, he goes to the highest goal.

Mostly we kill the Self with the self—hinastyātmanātmānaṁ. 

A kind of atma hatya is going on when the Self is forgotten and only objects are remembered. 

Only external things are in that person’s memory; the Self is completely obliterated from experience. That state of affairs—where the consciousness of the Self being there is completely obscured by intense concentration on objects outside—is called spiritual suicide; it is killing the Self with the self. 

That is, we do not know that we are existing at all as the Self. We know that there is a world outside, we are busy with things outside, but we are not busy with our Self. 

But having known the equally distributed consciousness of the Paramatman, equally distributed Eternity—knowing this, seeing this, beholding it, and contemplating it, one will not be subject to this otherwise common experience of Self-destruction; and knowing this, one attains to the Supreme State, yāti parāṁ gatim. 

Love.