Gita 04.24 – When our vision becomes spiritual, our action and destination also become spiritual

Bhagavad Gita 4.24 Here Krishna is using a poetic ornament of repetition to convey a very important philosophical point about Brahman this sort of multiple repetition of the same word happens in the Gita most famously in 9.34 and 18.65 where the words are almost identical and Krishna uses the word Aham six times just as the word Brahma is used here six times and there Krishna Radha Ji uses the word Maam which is basically semantically the same although the form is different so those verses are 18.65 and 9.34 are mostly similar till here both verses are similar 18.65 is and 9.34 is so both these verses have the same number of occurrences of the word Maam although the six, six are there so two in first line, two in second line one in third and one in fourth which is similar to how Brahma occurs in this verse 2.2.1.1 and Brahma and Maam refer to the same ultimate object Brahma refers to spirit and ultimately the highest spiritual reality is Krishna and Aham clearly refers to Krishna so from the poetic or alliteration point of view these two verses are similar but from the semantic content point of view from the meaning point of view and even more close verse is 9.16 where in a very similar way to this here is Brahma there is Aham so in fact there the word Aham comes seven times 2.2.1.2 whereas Brahma comes here six times so the word Brahma is a generic or non-specific term for the absolute truth whereas Aham, Maam is a very clear specific word for the absolute truth it refers to clearly it refers to Krishna Aham now if you see in the 10th chapter Krishna will very clearly state that, sorry Arjuna will state Parambrahma that you are the Parambrahma so in that sense the word Brahma and the word Aham they refer to the same thing now it is not that Krishna is referred to only as Parambrahma to distinguish him from Brahma is used as Parambrahma but many times in scripture the word Brahma is also used to refer to the absolute truth so after looking at all these scriptural parallels poetic parallels now or literary ornament parallels now look let's try to understand the meaning of this verse so Krishna is giving us a spiritual vision of sacrifice he is stating that the sacrifice that is performed if we perform so how everything in it is ultimately spiritual the concept of sacrifice was first introduced by Krishna in 3rd chapter 3.9 to 16 and now Krishna is saying that how everything in it is Brahma so Brahmarpanam Brahma Haver the offering is to Brahma the offered oblation is Brahma Brahma the fire is Brahma Brahma the what is poured out is also Brahma and Brahma Brahma is attained Brahma Karma Samadhina for one who is absorbed in Brahma so essentially Krishna is stating that Brahma is the highest manifestation Brahma is the ultimate destination Brahma is the active principle Brahma is the is the ingredient the component so in that sense everything is Brahma so what does this verse actually mean is it that everything is spiritual there is a principle that ultimately Krishna's two energies are his energies only and in the sense because they come from the one energetic source they have similarity not just diversity so by the purpose or the intention of wanting to do something for the absolute truth in pursuit of the absolute truth even matter can become spiritualized so spiritualization is being spiritual in application now it may not be spiritual necessarily in constitution it may not be made of spirit it may not be made of Satchitananda but it becomes spiritualized in application because it is used for a spiritual purpose so essentially Krishna is stating that after this verse he will talk about various kinds of sacrifices and before starting off Krishna will give a spiritual vision of all the sacrifices by stating how everything in them is Brahma so by having a spiritual vision the sacrifices can be performed for Karmakand but the sacrifices can also be performed with a spiritual vision and then when they perform the spiritual vision the destination is not the attainment of Brahman the destination is not the attainment of Svarga as would be otherwise but the destination is the attainment of Brahman now Brahma karma samadhi now so when the performer of sacrifice meditates how actually everything is spiritual I am a spiritual being this fire is a manifestation of Brahma and what I am offering to the fire is Brahma and the whole process of the offering oblation being accepted being bowed being accepted it is Brahma and when the consciousness becomes spiritualized like this then the person also attains the spiritual destination the person also becomes spiritualized now this verse can also be seen in the context of another famous Mahabharata verse where Krishna compares the Kurukshetra war to a battlefield sorry to a fire sacrifice and he says that the Kurukshetra the war field is the Yagyakunda and the Kauravas are the Ahuti to be offered you Arjuna are the Brahman and the the spool by which the offering is made into the fire that is your Gandiva bow so when you shoot arrows with the Gandiva bow then the Kauravas will be the oblation that will fall on the Kurukshetra war field and their falling will be like they being offered to into the fire Yagyakunda so now Krishna essentially is telling Arjuna that don't have a restricted vision of the spiritual even your fighting can be spiritual and if you have the right consciousness and if you see how ultimately everything can connect us with the spiritual and everything is coming from the supremely spiritual lord so Yagyaya Acharatah Karma was said in the previous verse 4.23 so now how that Acharatah can be done that is illustrated or that is general principle summarized through this particular verse so Arjuna your fight your don't think that your activity of fighting is just a mundane activity no even it is a spiritual activity if you have the spiritual consciousness and this fighting will take you to the spiritual destination so this way Krishna is by introducing and stressing the terminology of Brahman taking Arjuna's consciousness higher so that whereas earlier he was associating action with material activities and something to be renounced now he is showing that action can also be spiritual and therefore it needn't be renounced it can be embraced with the proper purified intention Thank you.