BHAGVAD GITA
Chapter 15: Supreme Spirit
Lord Krishna said: The sages
compare this creation to an everlasting, ever-changing tree having its Source
above and countless cosmos as its branches. The Vedic hymns are the leaves. One
who truly understands this tree is a knower of the Vedas (15.01)
The human life on the earth may be
also compared to a tree. The branches of this tree spread all over the cosmos.
This tree is nourished by the three Gunas of material Nature and the sense
objects are its sprouts. It’s sustaining roots of personal desires and ego due
to ignorance stretch deep in human world causing Karmic bondage. (15.02)
One should cut these firm
sustaining roots of this mysterious tree of human life by the mighty ax of
Self-knowledge and detachment, and seek nirvana, the goal of life, by
surrendering to the will of God, the creator. (15.03-04)
Those who are free from pride and
ignorance, who have conquered the evil of attachment, who are always
soul-conscious with all desires completely controlled, who are unaffected by
pleasure and pain; reach the eternal goal. (15.05)
The sun does not light My supreme
abode, nor the moon, or the fire. Having reached there one does not come back
to earth. (15.06)
Atma in the body is eternal
indivisible fragment of Paramatma or God. Atma associates with the six senses
of perception, including the mind, and it is then called Jeeva or Jeevatma.
(15.07)
Just as the air takes aroma away
from the flower; similarly, the individual soul takes out the causal and subtle
bodies from the physical body it leaves during death to the new physical body
it acquires in reincarnation. (15.08)
The Jeevatma enjoys sense
pleasures with the help of the six senses: hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell,
and mind. (15.09)
The ignorant cannot see Jeeva
departing from the body, or remaining in the body and enjoying sense pleasures
by associating with the Gunas. Seers with the eye of knowledge can see. (15.10)
The yogis striving for perfection
feel Atma abiding in their heart; but the ignorant, whose intellect is not
purified by Self-knowledge, do not feel even though striving. (15.11)
The light that comes from the sun
and which is in the moon, and in the fire; know that light to be My
energy. (15.12).
I enter the earth and support all
beings with My energy. I become the sap-giving moon and nourish all the plants
and animals. (15.13)
I remain in the body of all living
beings as digestive fire. Uniting with vital breaths, the Prana and Apana, I
digest all varieties of food. (15.14)
I am seated in the subtle hearts
of all beings. The memory, knowledge, and the removal of doubts and wrong ideas
about the Self by reasoning or in Samadhi come from Me. I am known by the study
of the Vedas. I am, indeed, the author of the Vedanta as well as the student of
the Vedas. (15.15)
There are basically two beings in
this world: The changeable and the everlasting. The physical bodies of all
beings are changeable, and the Atma or spirit is everlasting. (15.16)
There is the third being called
Ishvara or Paramatma, the Supreme Spirit, who is ever present in the three
worlds and sustains them. (15.17)
I, the Supreme Being, am higher
than both Atma and body. Therefore, I am known in this world and in the Vedas
as Paramatma, or the Supreme Spirit. (15.18)
The wise, who truly understand Me
as the Supreme Being, know everything and worship Me wholeheartedly. (15.19)
Thus, I have explained this most
secret transcendental science of the Absolute. Having understood this, one
becomes enlightened, one’s all duties are accomplished, and the goal of human
life is achieved, O Arjuna. (15.20)
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