Gita 10.32 – Krishna manifests as all phases of action in material existence

In the sacrifice of the chanting of the holy names.

Thank you. Krishna is speaking here about how he manifests in various ways in this world, in the various opulent, powerful things here. So now he talks about three phases of existence and the primary activities associated with them and how he, it is he who manifests as them.

So sarganamadhirantasya, sarga is creation, adi is beginning, anta is end, madhya is the middle. So now usually the beginning involves creation, anta involves, the end involves destruction and in between there is maintenance. And creation, maintenance and destruction, these three activities are broadly correlated with the three devatas, Brahma, Mahesh and Vishnu, who look after the corresponding functions.

And at the same time, here the verse underscores that actually all these three phases associated with the three deities, it is Krishna who is manifesting as them. The Gaudiya Vishnu philosophy explains the concept of the yuga avatars and then it talks about how it is the one supreme being, Krishna, who manifests as these three avatars, as Brahma manifesting the potency of Rajas, he creates, as Shiva, as Mahesh manifesting the potency of Tamas, he destroys and as Vishnu manifesting as the potency of Sattva, he maintains. So if we consider, say, our body, the cells within that are growing, they are constantly in a state of flux, they are there and they are gone.

In fact, if you consider millions of cells are coming into existence and are going out of existence, practically every minute, it sounds like mind-boggling, but then we consider the sheer number of cells that are there in the body that itself is mind-boggling. So now all this, how it is happening? It is actually Krishna who is maintaining all this. It is ultimately by Krishna's arrangement that all forms of manifestations are taking place.

But everything that is being manifested, everything that is being maintained, it is all happening by Krishna's arrangement, Krishna's grace, Krishna's potency. So in our life also, we will see that we go through different phases, not just literally in terms of growing in childhood, maintaining the status quo in middle age or deteriorating in old age, but even within one age, even in our youth, sometimes things go right for us, sometimes things don't go so right for us, sometimes these things just go terribly wrong, sometimes things go just astonishingly wonderful. So all these phases, we should know that actually, yes, it is our choices, our reactions to our choices present and past, all these are definitely involved over there.

But through it all, we have the opportunity to go closer to Krishna. It is Krishna who is arranging everything for us. And thus by meditating on this truth, we can always feel the proximity of Krishna in all phases of time, all phases of existence and all the ups and downs of life.

Adhyatma Vidya Vidyana and this brings us to the point that there are various kinds of knowledge and among them, Krishna says he is spiritual knowledge. We see that say in different branches of education, often those branches that offer the highest returns, maybe the highest salaries or the most prestige or the maximum power or whatever are the returns that people value in particular context. But the branches of education which offer the maximum returns, often they also require, they are also valued, they are also valued the most.

Often only the best students, the students with the best marks get there and often the best facilities are also available over there. Sometimes the fees for such things also become high. The point is that where a lot of return is there, that knowledge gets valued.

So now spiritual knowledge offers us the maximum returns. It offers us eternal life. It helps us understand our own eternal nature and then by harmonizing with our eternal nature, we move closer towards Krishna and we attain Krishna.

Thus actually it is Adhyatma Vidya Vidyana Vadaha Pravadatamaham. So this is spiritual knowledge. Among various forms of knowledge, Krishna says he manifests as spiritual knowledge and then Vadaha Pravadatamaham.

So Pravadatam refers to arguments. Vadaha is conclusion. Arguments and debates were a major part of the intellectual culture of ancient and medieval India.

And in this, just like if two people are fighting with swords, now the sword is thrust in different ways and some blows are parried, some blows are, they hit the target, some blows are countered, whatever way. So now sometimes if a sword thrust knocks out and defeats the other person or in boxing, if one punch acts as a knockout punch, then that is considered to be the foremost punch. So like that, if there is an argument which knocks out the opponent, which just decides, which is so convincing, so powerful, so irrefutable that it just ends the discussion over there.

That is called as Vada. So there are different kinds of arguments, but the conclusive irrefutable argument that is a manifestation of Krishna. Vadaha Pravadatamaham.

So Krishna says that in arguments I am, I manifest the Pravadatam, among the arguments, among the, this thing, I manifest this Vad, this particular feature of Vada that is the decisiveness. So that's why there can be different people who have different speech, many different people speak in different ways, when people have different capacities for eloquence and it's all very good. But those who can settle arguments, those who can take things towards conclusions, that is very positive.

And that is what is being talked about here, in this particular text, that Krishna is the conclusive argument. So if you look at this, in many of these verses, Krishna talks about four things, one in each line, but in this verse he's talking about three things, three manifestations. Actually we could put it another way and we can say that he's manifesting, he's talking about five manifestations, because the first two lines, they talk about Krishna manifestation in the beginning, the middle and the end.

So, Sargaanao Adhiradhyasya Madhyamchai Vaham Arjuna, Adhyatma Vidya Vidyana Vadaha Pravadatamaham. Here Krishna talks in terms of the growth of things and the growth of knowledge, the change of things and the manifestation and the growth of knowledge. He says through it all we can see him manifesting.

So when things blossom, we see it's Krishna manifesting when we recognize the foremost form of knowledge, that is spiritual knowledge. Krishna himself has spoken of spiritual knowledge. Now although the Bhagavad Gita is spoken on a war field, Krishna doesn't give Arjuna martial knowledge, Krishna gives him spiritual knowledge.

So that is most important and the right spiritual knowledge can enable Arjuna to use whatever martial knowledge he has properly, effectively, fruitfully. So then he says that there can be, even with the spiritual knowledge, there can be different subjects and different discussions on those subjects, different arguments for supporting particular points. But then he says he concludes the argument that it is he manifested in the form of those arguments.

Thank you.