Gita 07.04 – Sankhya when seen devotionally reveals Krishna’s glory

Thank you from this verse onwards Krishna starts giving the knowledge that he has glorified in the first three verses Krishna has said that in 7.1 here that knowledge by which you will be able to know me in full and your mind will become attached to me so that knowledge is what is what is going to be described by Krishna in this chapter Srila Prabhupada writes in his book on the way to Krishna knowledge comes from Krishna but knowledge doesn't begin with Krishna that means that Krishna says that various places that whatever knowledge whoever has that knowledge ultimately comes from the super soul who gives us that intelligence gives us that knowledge gives us that understanding but knowledge doesn't begin with Krishna that means that we don't suddenly start thinking who is God normally yes there may be some make up calls when we start thinking about higher truths of life but normally we look around the world and try to make sense of the world especially by it's not the big big world that we think about we usually think about our world the world in which we are affected by others we try to affect others and the ups and downs happen in this world and the nature is there around us so we start to observe that so all around us is matter so Krishna connects that which is around us with him by telling us in this verse that it's all his prakriti so bhoomi is earth aapo water, nalo is fire vayu is wind kham is ether mind, intelligence and ego yama ayam may minna prakriti ashtadha minna separate prakriti nature or prabhupada translates it as energy ashtadha, eight so now sometime this verse is prabhupada translates these are my eight separated energies and sometimes this verse is also translated as these are the eight separations in my energy, so I have my material energy and these are the eight separate things in that material energy also so using minna as connected with me that it's separated from me in the sense that although ultimately everything is connected with krishna but matter has a nature that is opposite to the nature of krishna krishna is spiritual, matter is material of course by the very name krishna is eternal, matter at least its manifestations are temporary and although there is such a diversity between the transcendental absolute truth and material elements that comprise existence still there is the connection also the connection is that this is krishna's energy now when prabhupada uses the word energy he uses it in a sense different from the way it is used in modern physics or modern science in general normally earth, water, fire earth, water there should not be considered energy by a scientist they will consider yes water can be used to generate energy hydroelectric power project or earth coal can be used to generate energy through a thermal power project or whatever so energy is a specific thing within material material nature within the conception of science as the word is used scientifically energy is that which causes motion that which makes things happen and energy is a precise scientific term and it refers to a quantity within material nature whereas when prabhupada uses the word energy at that time he refers to it as something which is activated by someone else so when scientists talk about energy they talk about energy itself as the as the agency of movement actually prabhupada talks about energy as the agency of course but he talks about energy as belonging to an energetic and in that sense the term the usage of energy connects much more with energetic and that energetic being supreme energetic being is the supreme lord so behind the shakti is the shaktimaan and krishna is telling over here that he is the shaktimaan he is the supreme being he is the supreme energetic person who is the source of various energies the division of the things in existence into various energies and referring to them as energies of the supreme lord is done in the vishnu purana primarily and the acharyas in our tradition in the gaudiya vishnu tradition i use that vishnu shakti parapropta kshetra ghyakhya tathapara avidya karma sanyaya tritiya shakti rishyate so vishnu shakti parapropta there is one shakti that is parap kshetra ghyakhya tathapara and there is a kshetra ghya shakti and avidya karma sanyaya and there is the avidya shakti there is the material energy karma sanyaya which impels one to karma tritiya shakti rishyate this is the third shakti so krishna is now here talking about the third shakti the material energy and these eight elements are the primary constituents primary components of material existence and among these there are five which are gross and three which are subtle although the fifth element ether ether is also subtle in the sense that it is not perceived by our senses but just as we infer the presence of wind through through touch similarly we infer the presence of ether through sound you cannot see air but when we feel say our clothes waving then we understand or we feel a sense of warmth or frigidity on our face depending on whether the wind that is blowing is hot or cold then we understand that actually there is wind over there so by inference so that means although we cannot perceive in the sense of directly see ether but by inference from perception we can perceive we can understand its existence and that inference is from a gross perception that is the perception of sound so in that sense it is considered a gross element and mind,intelligence and ego are subtle elements now this framework that Krishna uses here in the Bhagavad Gita is drawn from Sankhya Sankhya is one of the six systems of philosophy and Krishna will talk about them again in 13.6 and 7 after he talks about it here and Sankhya involves Eshathya Abhitha Sankhya Buddhir Yogetri Mahamshuddha Krishna I used the word Sankhya earlier also in 2.39 when he talked about how I have spoken this only in terms of analysis so at that time the analysis was primarily differentiating the living being into the body and the soul whereas now here Krishna will differentiate material elements also into the differentiate matter into its component elements and he will also differentiate whatever is talked about earlier matter and spirit as he will connect them as his energies so theistic Sankhya accepts the analysis that is done in Sankhya but places that in a theistic framework wherein the elements are understood to be manifestations of the energy of the absolute in the history of science there have been two broad theories of matter there has been the elemental theory of matter which was talked about in by the Greeks and there has been the atomic theory of matter so the diversity of the material manifestations that are there around us thinkers try to break them down into some fundamental building blocks so one way is to divide them into fundamental elements of which they are made and the other is to build down into fundamental atoms of which they are made so modern science prefers the atomic theory now sometimes the Sankhya of the Bhagavad Gita which is further developed in Sankhya of the Bhagavad Gita in the third canto this is equated with the Greek elemental theory and the Greek elemental theory often had severe problems and it was critiqued and rejected but the Gita Sankhya subsequently the Bhagavata Sankhya that is actually much more sophisticated and subtle and it should be lumped with the Greek elemental theory now understanding the difference between the two is well out of the scope of our present discussion but suffice it to say that this is the way primarily our focus in this flow in the Gita should needn't be on the specifics of the analysis but on the principle underlying the analysis the principle is that when we analyze and differentiate matter into its various components in various ways the important point is that this is ME PRAKRITER that it is Krishna's energy and in this way whenever we see things around us rather than becoming captivated by them I think oh this is beautiful oh this is ugly we are not exactly captivated in the sense of attracted when we see something ugly but still our consciousness gets captivated and we want to go away from there if we are there when we see something ugly we want to we just get can't not think of it and the only way we can avoid thinking about it is by say going away from there so the point is that Krishna is telling tell Arjuna how to make the mind attached to him so he says that learn to see whatever you see in matter in material existence as my energies and this way we can connect the objects of our material sense perception with our spiritual realization with our emotional growth by remembering that they are the energies of Krishna thank you.