Gita 07.12 – The Gita’s vision of God is not pantheistic but panentheistic

7.12 That whatever is sattvika bhava sattvika is in the mode of goodness rajasas tamasas chaye and whatever is in the mode of passion and whatever is in the mode of ignorance tamasas chaye ignorance matta eveti tanviddhi matta eveti means it comes from me Krishna is saying tanviddhi natvaham teshu temai they all come from me and actually I am matta eveti tanviddhi natvaham teshu temai I am not in them, they are in me so here Krishna is making many significant points so Krishna talks about 3 modes now the 3 modes are something that actually pervade existence 3 modes are something that comprise existence underlie everything in existence falls in the category of these 3 modes and they are not just a category for analyzing what existence is in the state of they are actually also the compositional ingredients of existence 3 modes and what Krishna says over here is that whatever exists in all the 3 modes satrikabhava, rajasas, tamasas chaye whatever exists in any of these modes matta eveti, it all comes from me natvaham teshu, but I am not in them temai, natvaham teshu temai so here what Krishna means is that if we see earlier he has said that he underlies he lies inside everything so sutrim mani ganaiva just as sutra thread lies in a necklace similarly he says that I underlie all of existence mayi sarvam idam parottam but now he is saying that earlier he has said that I am inside everything now he says everything is inside me but I am not inside it what does he mean by this matta eveti, it all comes from me so this means there are 2 different points here which we talked about one is the emanance of God and the other is the transcendence of God so till now Krishna has been talking about his emanance wherein he states that actually he emanance means presence within nature transcendence means presence or existence beyond nature so is God emanant or transcendent God is both he is emanant in the sense that he is present within nature and he is transcendent in the sense that he is present beyond nature and if the question is asked how can he be both, actually that is his inconceivable potency so now he has given us illustrations previous texts, previous 4 texts about how he is emanant in nature and now he is going to give examples about how he he is now, not giving examples rather he is stating the principle that he is transcendent so how exactly is he transcendent he is transcendent he is transcendent in the sense that he is beyond nature he is he is emphasizing that actually Krishna will make it even more clear in the next 2 verses where he will say that those who are deluded by 3 modes cannot see me and then he says in fact those who surrender to me they will be liberated from 3 modes because I control the energy that these 3 modes are run by and I control maya so Krishna if he is only when he is transcendent and only when he is above nature does he have the power to free us from nature he is unbound and so he can unbind us also so here Krishna is emphasizing that when in the previous text he has given some examples of how he is the essence of certain things but now he gives a general principle ye chahiye satvikabhava rajasastamasas chahiye matta e reti it all comes from me nattvaham teshu I am not in it but it is in me nattvaham teshu te mahi it is all in me in this way what Krishna states is that it is our fortune to know that God is so close to us that we can access him every time when we drink water when we drink water and water punches our thirst we can know oh this Krishna who is mercifully manifesting his water and punching my thirst and we can also contemplate how whenever Krishna whenever we see light and it illumines our way this is Krishna so we can feel Krishna's presence sense his merciful accessibility we can feel practically all occasions in life so that is how we can actually draw strength from his emanance but beyond his emanance is his transcendence and we can draw strength from his transcendence by contemplating how he is always available he is always beyond nature he is beyond and that's how he can actually take us beyond if he were in this world then it would be we would not have so much persuasive faith that he would be able to take us out of this world but because he can take us out of the world he can take us out of the world because he is he is the creation he is the creature and he is the supreme lord who exists beyond nature now what we need to do is to recognize that matta eve it all comes from me he is not in us but that means Krishna is saying I am not in this nature that means we shouldn't think that actually because he is he is the essence of everything he is the underlying thread of everything that means he is exhausted in nature no he is never exhausted in nature his existence continues beyond nature so there is pantheism and there is panentheism pantheism means god is nature or god is everything pan usually is your word used to refer to everything so pantheism essentially means god is everything panentheism means god is nature and god is beyond nature also so in this way actually the gita is endorsing something that we could with fair accuracy call as panentheism because it is not just that god is present within nature he is present beyond nature also and because he is present beyond nature he has the capacity to take us beyond nature to liberate us from the clutches of material nature that's the thing Krishna will come to soon enough in the next verses so essentially what he states here is that all states of being come from him and they are in him but he is beyond them.