Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

Now the next verse reveals inconceivability of this point even further

Bg 9.5

na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni
paśya me yogam aiśvaram
bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho
mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ

Word for word: 

na — never; ca — also; mat–sthāni — situated in Me; bhūtāni — all creation; paśya — just see; me — My; yogamaiśvaram — inconceivable mystic power; bhūta–bhṛt — the maintainer of all living entities; na — never; ca — also; bhūta–sthaḥ — in the cosmic manifestation; mama — My; ātmā — Self; bhūta–bhāvanaḥ — the source of all manifestations.

Translation: 

And yet everything that is created does not rest in Me. Behold My mystic opulence! Although I am the maintainer of all living entities and although I am everywhere, I am not a part of this cosmic manifestation, for My Self is the very source of creation.

 

na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni, not situated in Me

paśya me yogam aiśvaram, just see My yoga aiśvara, the inconceivability  of my power, yogam aiśvaram.

What He is elaborating, bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho, I am the maintainer of all living being but na ca bhūta-stho I am not situated in them, mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ, actually I am the source of all manifestation. There is conceptual concentrated recite in this verse, let us look one by one first one is 

na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni, now there cannot be a more direct contradiction of previous verse then here, Sri Krishna has said in 9.4C Mat Sthani Serva Bhutani, all living beings are situated in Me but here in 9.5 A what He is saying na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni, this is a direct contradiction. Now how can Sri Krishna contradicts? Is it like when sometime we give classes and we say O’ I doesn’t mean that I mean this…Is Sri Krishna making mistake over here? No Sri Krishna doesn’t make any mistake He is God He is Omniscient, He is actually through contradictions helping us to rise to a higher level of understanding a higher level of understanding this is called Artha Patye, which means two contradictory points are made to draw attention to a deeper unifying truth a deeper truth that reconciles both the statements. Suppose we have a statement Devadutta doesn’t eat food throughout day devadutta weight increases, now how can these two statement is true the person not eating food the weight cannot increase so at least one of the statement mentioned above is not true but if we are telling both the statements are true then how do we understand it? Then we have to propose a third statement which reconciles the two so what is the third statement? Devadutta eats secretly at night. So this third statement is not directly stated in these two statements, but is implied and if both of them are true this has to be true so that both of them are reconciled. So Arthapati is called postulation is one of the sabda Pramanas one of the ways of acquiring the knowledge so Arthapatis are used in scriptures to reveal the harmony in apparently contradictory statements, how is that done? By the postulation of the third statement, like scripture says that God does not have a  form Arupa, and then it says God is Ururupa, Gajendra says in his prayers Arupa Ururupaya Kama Ascharya Karmana, Arupa is not form and a Urupa is many forms so how is these statements reconciled, reconciliation is by the point that He doesn’t have material form but has many spiritual form, so arupaya is Lord doesn’t have material form but is spiritual form, similarly we can reconcile different statements when they seem to be superficially contradictory, so these statements if we try to understand them at literal level, not that we have to go to metaphorical level but if we hung up with them, no this must be wrong both of them cannot be correct so these are like banana peels so when we walk on banana peels we slip over and falls, if we are not guided by Guru, Sadhu and Shashtra and try to study the scriptures then in scripture we often finds many philosophical banana peels, what do we mean by that? These are concepts when we try to walk on them conceptually, intellectually, we slips and falls, if we don’t want that to happen we have to be careful, what we have to do is we have to understand that this has to be understood through Guru, Sadhu and Shastra so Arthapathye may required.

So here Srila Prabhupada is giving reconciliation he explains that burdens do not burden the Lord. Mat Sathani Serva Bhutani, all living beings are situated in Me, so some people things that if all living beings are situated in Lord then Lord will be burden, Srila Prabhupada talked about the Greek Roman concept of Atlas where Atlas is carrying the globe, the map of earth is called Atlas which comes from the Greek Roman conception as Atlas as one of gods so Atlas is carrying the globe on his shoulder and Atlas is burdened by carrying that for a long time that concept should not be related to Krishna because Krishna is not burdened, na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni, He is transcendental and by His energy everything happens Svabhaviki Jayan Bala Kriye Ca, Svabhaviki naturally it happens, He doesn’t have to endeavour Krishna don’t have to strive and struggle and strain and sweat to do get things done, He is satya sankalpa, Eitha Nu Rupena eiti tes…this is described in Brahma Samhita that according to His Eccha chetsa, according to His Eccha material energy are endeavoured and things are done.

 So na ca mat-sthāni bhūtāni refers to how Krishna is not burdened by the burden of maintaining material existence it happens by His energies and then Pasyame Yoga Ashwaram, sometime when we make contradictory statements we try to cover up but here Krishna is celebrating He is saying, paśya me yogam aiśvaram, just see my opulence yogam aiśvaram. Normally we talk about Yoga in terms of connection and the process that we follow for us to connect with the Lord, Bhakti Yoga, Gyana Yoga, Karma Yoga these are all the activities that we do Bhakti, Karma, Gyana by which we are able to do Yoga to connect with the Lord but here Sri Krishna is talking about Yoga from His side, so what this is referring to paśya me yogam aiśvaram, so actually Krishna also reveals Himself so that we become connect with Him, that will be called as His Yoga Ashvarya so how does Krishna help Yoga to happen? Yoga means connection so for the connection between Lord and Soul to happen the soul has to endeavour by doing sadhana that the soul does through various path like Karma yoga, Gyana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga…etc but the Lord also reveals Himself so that we can know Him, so that revelation from the Lord that can also be called as Yoga because that is also helping us to connect to Krishna, He is saying this is my mystic opulence so Srila Prabhupada has translated word yoga here as mystic. So mystic is not in terms of not clear, it is mysterious, astonishing, Achintya, wonderful and this sort of understanding increases devotees appreciation for the Lord that how wonderful the Lord is we see the simple faithful appreciation in the story of the Narada Muni and the cobbler…the huge banyan tree come from a tiny seed, if Lord can put such a big tree in a tiny seed then why can’t he pass elephant through needle hole, so in this way it is explained paśya me yogam aiśvaram, so when we see Sri Krishna’s capacity as extraordinary it increases our appreciation. Sometimes when people hear the pastimes of Krishna especially the miraculously pastimes for example the pastime like lifting Govardhan etc. which contradicts the laws of nature, there is a class of thinker who says yes Krishna existed, Krishna spoke the BG He is a very wise person but all these pastimes performed by Krishna in which exaggeration are added later, they say that original Krishna was a very wise and intelligent person, great diplomat but He was over glorified and afterwards all these super natural ideas were added so they wanted to remove the super natural aspect from Krishna and they just wanted to make Him another human being why they do that because they don’t understand Sri Krishna’s divinity so these people wanted to approach Krishna in a neutarian way and they may have nationalistic purpose, political purpose, social purpose whatever and for that purpose they wanted to use Krishna as a model we can learn from Krishna about these things also but we don’t have to reduce Krishna to these roles alone, Sri Krishna is transcendental. When people reduce Sri Krishna to this role then they try to divorce His supernatural activities from His personality and that is because they don’t understand that God can do anything so rather than feeling apprehensive and apologetic like thinking our scripture are having some stories which are probably not true it is mythological no we should be assertive why assertive? Because if He is God He can do anything and the more amazing things He has reported to be done the more it is evident that He is God and this increases our appreciation, devotion and faith as He is saying yogam aiśvaram. This is Sri Krishna’s mystical potency that He is celebrating the contradiction.

bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho

 bhūta-bhṛn, I am the maintainer of living entities 

na ca bhūta-stho, but I am not situated in them

so what is the contradiction over here. So actually if somebody is maintainer of something that person is caught-up in that thing like a head of family is having consciousness in the family and he is attached to the family. But here Krishna is saying No I am not like that bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho, I am not attached I am not entangled 

mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ, and He is saying actually I am the source of all living beings, I am the source of all existence but I am transcendental so Krishna doesn’t get attached although He is maintaining all living beings.

Sri Krishna has made this beautiful creation but He is interested into us and if we want to mesh it up Krishna allows us to do so, of course if we mesh up we will have bad Karma but Krishna allows us to do bad Karma, if an artist has made any painting he doesn’t want others to come and mesh it up but Krishna is not like that, He creates arrangement for living entities to live in best possible ways within material existence but if the living entities mesh up things He allows them to do that because He has given them free will so He is not attached bhūta-bhṛn na ca bhūta-stho.

Now the last line has an interesting usages mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ.

Mamātmā, Krishna is saying mamātmā is My Soul, so why is Krishna using such a word mamātmā, my soul, does this gives credence to the notion mayavadis have that actually that we don’t have to surrender to Krishna we have to surrender to unborn within Krishna, is Krishna refer to something like that He has atama that is source of everything and He is different from Atma. Actually Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakue explains in his commentary that just like in scripture it is sometimes used as Rahu’s head, Rahu’s head appeared over there actually we may use the word Rahu’s head but Rahu is nothing but the head, so when can use the word Rahu’s head because normally the person who has head is having the body but because Rahu’s head is none different from Rahu because rahu is nothing but the head similarly mamātmā is used in that sense that actually Sri Krishna is the atma, the word atma is used sometimes in literal sense and sometimes in figurative sense, none literal sense put your heart and soul in doing service, it is not that you have to take your soul out of the body and put in the service, you can’t take it literally what it means is put your spirit put your essence so Sri Krishna is telling mamātmā bhūta-bhāvanaḥ. So He is saying my essential being which nothing but Me only, if there was some atam which is higher than Krishna, Krishna would have stated by now and Krishna said the opposite repeatedly, Krishna has said that in 7.7 mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat

kiñcid asti dhanañ-jaya, there is no truth higher than Me mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat similarly in 10.8 He will say later on Aham Servasya Prabho, everything comes from Me it is not that I come from something, everything comes from Me and 15.19 also He will say later that

yo mām evam asammūḍho

jānāti puruṣottamam

sa sarva-vid bhajati māṁ

sarva-bhāvena bhārata

, one who understands Me as puruṣottamam he is Sarva-Vid, that person knows everything, bhajati māṁ and that person worships Me sarva-bhāvena bhārata with whole heartedly (all the emotions of heart), so the important point is sa sarva-vid that person who knows everything, it is not that somebody think that there is something higher than the puruṣottamam is Sarva-Vid, No, one who knows Purushottama is Sava-Vid.

So if we look at the overall flow of the Gita then we understand otherwise we take one verse out of context and it might lead to confusion so mamātmā refers to Krishna Himself, Krishna is saying that actually I myself is source of everything bhūta-bhāvanaḥ.

End of transcription.