Gita 07.24 – To deflect a clear critique of impersonalism is to violate both the meaning and the context
avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ
manyante mām abuddhayaḥ
paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto
mamāvyayam anuttamam (Bg 7.24)
Word-for-word:
avyaktam — nonmanifested; vyaktim — personality; āpannam — achieved; manyante — think; mām — Me; abuddhayaḥ — less intelligent persons; param — supreme; bhāvam — existence; ajānantaḥ — without knowing; mama — My; avyayam — imperishable; anuttamam — the finest.
Translation:
Unintelligent men, who do not know Me perfectly, think that I, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Kṛṣṇa, was impersonal before and have now assumed this personality. Due to their small knowledge, they do not know My higher nature, which is imperishable and supreme.
Explanation:
__(00:07) talked about those who surrender to Him in __(00:09), those who gradually come to the level of surrendering to Him in 7.15 to 19. In 7.20 to 23, He speaks about those who do not surrender to Him but to the devatās. And now, He addresses another category: those who surrender, but not to His personal form—rather, to His impersonal manifestation. He discusses that here.
avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ: Those who think that I was impersonal before and have now become personal.
manyante mām abuddhayaḥ: Those who think like this are unintelligent.
paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto: They do not know My supreme nature,
mamāvyayam anuttamam: which is imperishable, ever-existing, and transcendental.
____(01:00) those who worship the devatās are alpa-medhasaḥ, but He is much stronger in reproaching those who go towards the impersonal Brahman and says they are abuddhayaḥ—lacking in intelligence. Kṛṣṇa has used the word “buddhi” many times in the Bhagavad-gītā. In 5.17, He says tad-buddhayaś tad-ātmānaḥ—fixing the buddhi on Him. And here it is abuddhayaḥ—having no intelligence. The difference is not merely a decrease of intelligence; it is almost an absence of intelligence. That is the strength of this word “abuddhayaḥ.”
Kṛṣṇa further says manyante mām—those who think like this believe that I was unmanifest before and have now become manifest. They do not know My transcendental nature (paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto). Those who think that Kṛṣṇa was impersonal before and has now become personal hold the conception that it is not Kṛṣṇa who is transcendental. Rather, they think that the unborn, all-pervading, impersonal Absolute has merely taken a temporary personal form of Kṛṣṇa, and that this impersonal Absolute is the real object of attainment.
However, Kṛṣṇa clearly says paraṁ bhāvam ajānanto mama—they do not know My supreme nature. What exactly is meant by “My supreme nature?” Kṛṣṇa clarifies this by using the words “ avyaya ” and “ uttama .” The word “avyaya” indicates that those who think Kṛṣṇa was impersonal before and has now become personal fail to understand that Kṛṣṇa Himself is the all-pervading Absolute and that He is avyaya—imperishable. If He is avyaya, it means there was never a time when He did not exist. Therefore, it is not that He was impersonal and later became personal. No—He has always been the eternal, personal Supreme Lord.
___(02:50) Therefore, the conception is that the formless Absolute, when it comes in contact with matter, undergoes various transformations. Brahman in contact with ignorance manifests as matter, as prakṛti. Brahman in contact with rajas manifests as the jīva. And Brahman in contact with sattva manifests as Īśvara. God, according to this idea, is nothing but a manifestation of the Absolute in contact with—and therefore contaminated by—material nature. Kṛṣṇa is saying no, ___(03:30) transcendental. He is unambiguously demonstrating here, asserting here, pre-imposition _____(03:35).
Some impersonalists try to deal with the implications of this verse. In reality, the implications are devastating, for Kṛṣṇa clearly calls such persons abuddhayaḥ. They attempt to dismiss these implications by manipulating the reading of the verse: avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ manyante mām abuddhayaḥ. Since Sanskrit does not use commas or similar punctuation, they artificially insert one—avyaktam, (comma)—and then read the rest as vyaktim āpannaṁ manyante mām abuddhayaḥ: “Although I am unmanifest, people think that I have become manifest, and those who think like this are unintelligent.” In this way, they try to reverse the meaning of this verse.
The problem with this interpretation is that Kṛṣṇa has, in this very chapter, stated that those who surrender to Him—māṁ prapadyate (7.14)—will go beyond māyā. He is not saying that they must surrender to something beyond Him. In fact, throughout this chapter the consistent theme is clear: those who desire to know Him must understand that mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat (7.7)—there is no truth higher than Kṛṣṇa. It is by surrendering to Him that one goes beyond māyā.
Then, in 7.19, Kṛṣṇa says that those who surrender to Him are jñānavān—they are truly wise—and such a soul is a mahātmā:
bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate
vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā su-durlabhaḥ
Kṛṣṇa is unambiguously clear that He alone is the ultimate goal.
Further, at the end of this chapter, in the last verse (7.30), He says:
sādhibhūtādhidaivaṁ māṁ sādhiyajñaṁ ca ye viduḥ
prayāṇa-kāle ’pi ca māṁ te vidur yukta-cetasaḥ
Those who understand Him to be the adhibhūta, those who understand Him to be the adhidaiva, and those who understand Him to be the adhiyajña—such people, if they remember Him in this way at the time of death, attain the supreme destination. What Kṛṣṇa is saying here is that this supreme destination cannot be attained unless one actually comes close to Him, becomes devoted to Him, and understands Him to be the highest reality.
The consistent message of the Bhagavad-gītā is that it is Kṛṣṇa who is transcendental, Kṛṣṇa who is beyond material nature. The idea that Kṛṣṇa—so clearly referring to Himself as avyaktaṁ vyaktim āpannaṁ manyante—is misconstrued as supposedly saying, “Although I am unmanifest, people worship Me in a manifest form,” is not only semantically indefensible, it is also contextually indefensible. The meaning extracted by such an interpretation does not make sense within the verse itself, and further, it does not align with the thematic flow and context of the entire chapter.
__(06:27) referring to the philosophy of impersonalism, this philosophy holds that the highest reality is impersonal. Now, impersonalism has, we could say, two broad divisions: there is brahmavāda and there is māyāvāda. In this verse (7.24), as well as in 9.11 and 9.12, Kṛṣṇa is talking about māyāvāda. Verses 3, 4, 5, He talks about ___(06:48). He reproaches māyāvāda in very strong terms by calling such people abuddhayaḥ. In 9.11, He will address them as mūḍhāḥ—avajānanti māṁ mūḍhā mānuṣīṁ tanum āśritam—those who think that I have descended merely in a human form are mūḍha.
Kṛṣṇa then says, moghāśā mogha-karmāṇo mogha-jñānā vicetasaḥ rākṣasīm āsurīṁ caiva prakṛtiṁ mohinīṁ śritāḥ (9.12)—all their endeavors are ultimately futile. Whatever their aspirations may be—whether for liberation, for cultivating knowledge, or for performing pious activities—everything proves fruitless because they have turned away from Kṛṣṇa. The phrase “rākṣasīm āsurīṁ caiva” is a very strong condemnation; He is saying that they are of a demoniac nature. “Prakṛtiṁ mohinīṁ śritāḥ”—they take shelter of the deluding energy, the mohinī prakṛti, which covers their intelligence.
Kṛṣṇa contrasts the “mohinī prakṛti” with the “daivī prakṛti” in the next verse:
mahātmānas tu māṁ pārtha
daivīṁ prakṛtim āśritāḥ
bhajanty ananya-manaso
jñātvā bhūtādim avyayam (9.13)
He says that such people are mahātmās. Understanding His supreme position, they take shelter of His divine nature. They worship Him without being distracted by anything else—not even by the impersonal manifestation. They recognise that He is the source of all living beings and that He is imperishable.
Kṛṣṇa uses similar adjectives here as He used earlier. In 7.24, He describes Himself as mamāvyayam anuttamam. In 9.12, He says bhūtādim avyayam. The common term is avyayam—imperishable. And bhūtādi means the source of all living beings. In fact, the word bhūta can also refer to “existence,” so bhūtādi denotes the source of all existence. It is He who is the origin of everything, including the impersonal Brahman. Therefore, it is He who is the highest reality.
Therefore, here Kṛṣṇa concludes His overview of the different kinds of people based on their disposition towards Him. At the lowest extreme—the nadir—are those who defy Him. At the peak are those who have completely devoted themselves to Him, and there are also those who are moving in that direction, gradually dedicating themselves to Him. In between are the demigod-worshippers, who are alpa-medhasa, and below them are the impersonalists, who are abuddhaya.
In the future verses, Kṛṣṇa will make some general observations—general not in the sense of unimportant or commonplace, but in the sense of overarching. After giving this specific taxonomic division or classification, Kṛṣṇa will speak about how souls fall into illusion and how they can come out of that illusion. ___(incomplete dictation)
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