Gita 07.05 – The Absolute Truth is immutable, but its energies are mutable

Upareyam Itas Tvanyam Prakrityam Vidyame Param Jeev Bhuta Mahabahu Yedam Dharyate Jagat Upareyam Itas Tvanyam Jeev Bhuta Mahabahu Upareyam Itas Tvanyam He is describing his relationship with the material nature and describing how actually he is the he is the soul of the sustainer of material nature so he says that in the previous verse he has said that the material nature which comprises the eight elements those elements are his energy so there he has not actually used the word inferior it is separated energy but in this verse he uses the word Apara Upareyam Itas Tvanyam so Itas this is a pronoun that refers to the previous line, previous text so that Bhumirapona Lovayu Khamano Buddhe Vichahankarityam Vinna Prakritarshtadha so that is continued Upareyam Itas Tvanyam so this is my Apara Prakrityam Prakrityam Vidhime Param and know that I have a Paraprakrity also so Apara and Para these are words which are frequently used in the Upanishads to differentiate between material and spiritual so the Upanishads for example the Upanishad says that the Aparavidya which is given in the Vedas will lead one to continue in the cycle of birth and death but the Paravidya will take one out of that cycle and the Paravidya so the Aparavidya is the what is generally given in the Vedas about Karmakand, the Paravidya is spiritual knowledge that is given in the Upanishads now Prakrityam Vidhime Param so Krishna says there is a Paraprakrityam Bhagavad Gita is also an Upanishad that is Gita Upanishad in fact it is considered often to be the essence of all the Upanishads so here Krishna says that Prakrityam Vidhime Param Paraprakrityam what is that Paraprakrityam Krishna is using the Upanishadic terminology over here with respect to Prakrityam Jeevabhootaam Jeevabhoota the aggregate of the living entities the living beings basically Mahabaho Arjuna Vedam Dharyate Jagat so for them the world is sustained now the difference between the Para and Aparaprakrityam is primarily in terms of consciousness of course there is a radical difference in the sense that the Aparaprakrityam is the Paraprakrityam the Atmatattva is Satchitananda and Prakrityam is Satchitananda now one of the fundamental questions which Vedantic philosophy deals with is that if Brahma is Shuddha if Brahman is transcendental is pure blissful then how is it that in this world there is so much suffering so how has the suffering of this world come about from a world that is transcendental or from an absolute truth that is transcendental and we are also parts of the absolute truth we are somehow emanations from the absolute truth then how is it that we suffer if Brahman is Ananda and we are emanations from then how do we suffer so there are various kinds of relationships that we have talked about there is essentially Parinamvada and there is Vivartavada so putting the technicalities aside Parinam means that the absolute truth undergoes transformation and that's how the world is emanated and Vivarta is that actually the world is in way an illusion and to the extent we are subject to the we are under illusion to that extent we feel suffering once we come out of illusion we will come out of suffering now interestingly at one level we can say that both of these philosophies have problems because Parinamvada the problem is that the absolute truth is generally considered to be unchangeable and the Upanishads do say that the absolute truth is unchangeable so how do we explain the point that the absolute truth undergoes changes and further it is stated that if you look at Vivartavada if there is illusion and somehow some aspect of we are some way connected with Brahman so if we are a feature of Brahman then how can Brahman come under illusion what is the other reality that will bring Brahman under illusion again there is no answer for that so now Parinamvada is of course the Vaishnava Vedantic understanding and the basis for this understanding is the simultaneous difference and non-difference between God and his energies so this concept is talked about in the Vishnu Puran especially Vishnu Shakti there is one Shakti which is Para the same terminology is there here in the Bhagavad Gita also now there of course the word is used Shakti so here Krishna uses the word Prakriti and although they have different connotations but Prakriti is nature Shakti is energy but broadly speaking the relation, the conception when it is analysed when Prabhupada uses the word energy, he actually doesn't mean energy in the sense which is used in physics discussed in our previous talks so here it is applicable for nature in the sense that the word nature does not necessarily immediately remind us of its source whereas the word energy immediately brings to mind its source and Krishna is connecting both these Prakritis within his Prakriti, his Para Prakriti and his Apara Prakriti so in that sense considering the intimate connection that Krishna is stressing in the language and the sense in which we are familiar, so energy connects us with the energetic much more easily links us in our mind so therefore now Prabhupada translates Prakriti as energy and now the energies of the absolute truth are simultaneously different and non-different from the absolute truth so the absolute truth itself does not undergo any changes but its energy undergo change and that's how the immutability of the absolute truth is reconciled with the mutability of the world the mutability of the world includes the mutability of the souls who go through different species and different bodies which happens in this Prakriti, in this world so both the Para and Apara Prakriti are mutable, the soul is mutable in the sense not that the soul undergoes changes that was earlier stated clearly that doesn't happen especially in the 6th chapter soul does not undergo changes but the soul's consciousnesses undergo change at our level of appearance it does seem that the consciousness that the soul is very evident in a human form and soul presence is almost imperceivable, non-perceivable in a say animal form in a tree form so actually the difference and non-difference of the absolute truth helps us reconcile the difference and non-difference between the absolute truth and synergies helps us reconcile the mutability of the world with the immutability of the absolute truth and the Para Prakriti which Krishna talks about here he will tell later that how if this Para Prakriti connects with the Para Ishwara, the supreme lord then that can regain its Para status that we talked about in 7.14 and here the living entity is in trouble, is entangled is illusion but it can come out of illusion and become liberated if it takes shelter of the lord of which it is a part so we as souls how we can take shelter of Krishna and how he is our shelter, we simply have to realize it and surrender to him that will be discussed in the subsequent verses in this chapter.