Gita 07.24 – To deflect a clear critique of impersonalism is to violate both the meaning and the context
Thank you now he talks about another case of someone who surrenders but to something other than him the impersonal manifestation he talks about that here they think that I was impersonal before but I became personal now to think like this are they do not know bhava, motion bhava can also mean nature in this case it means nature they do not know my supreme nature imperishable I am beyond existence I am transcendental but he is much stronger in reproaching those who go towards the impersonal brahman because he says they are lacking in intelligence Krishna uses word buddhi many times in the Bhagavad Gita manas 17th verse he says fixing the buddhi on them and here it is abuddhaya so I have no intelligence difference is just a decrease of intelligence it's almost like an absence of intelligence that is the strength of this word abuddhaya those who think like this what do they think about me? Krishna says that I was unmanifest before and now I have become manifest they do not know param bhavam jananto so param bhavam they do not know my transcendental nature those who think that Krishna was impersonal before and now become personal their conception is that it is not Krishna who is transcendental it is the unborn within Krishna the all pervading absolute impersonal which has temporarily taken a personal maniform so it is that impersonal absolute that is to be that is our objective so Krishna says no param bhavam jananto mama they do not know my param bhava mama what is my nature what exactly do you mean by my supreme nature? Krishna clarifies abuddhaya uttama so the word abuddhaya indicates that those who think that Krishna was impersonal before and has now become personal they don't understand that actually Krishna is himself the all pervading absolute and he is avyaya, he is imperishable so if he is avyaya that means there was never a time when he was not there so it is not that he was impersonal and became personal, no, he was always a personal god mama avyaya anuttamam and therefore our conception is formless absolute when it comes in contact with matter it undergoes various transformations, the brahman in contact with ignorance manifests as matter, as prakriti brahman in contact with rajas manifests as jiva and brahman in contact with eshwar, brahman in contact with sattva manifests as eshwaram so god is nothing but a manifestation of the absolute in contact with and therefore contaminated by the impersonal, by material matter, material nature Krishna is saying no, transcendental Krishna is unambiguously demonstrating here, asserting here pre-imposition from impersonal is try to deal with this verse's implications actually the implications are devastating clearly calling them abuddhaya so they try to do away with these implications by saying that avyaktam vaktimapannamanyantema muddhaya, they try to argue they try to, in Sanskrit we don't have commas, that kind of punctuation we don't have but they try to place a, they try to understand what they, how they try to misinterpret it, avyaktam, they put a comma after that, although I am unmanifest vaktimapannamanyantema muddhaya people think that I am manifest and those who think like this are unintelligent so they try to reverse the meaning of this verse, the problem with this interpretation is that Krishna has in this very verse stated that those who surrender to him mam prapadyate, 7.14 they will go beyond maya so he is not saying that they have to surrender to something beyond him, actually in this very chapter if you see the consistent theme is, that those who should know him, mattah parataram nanyat kincid astidhanjayat, there is no truth higher than me you have to surrender to me to go beyond maya, that was 7.14 and then 7.19 said that those who surrender to him they are jnanavan they are mahatma Krishna is unambiguously clear here it is he who is the ultimate goal and further if you see at the end of this chapter last verse 7.13 he will say those people at the time of death if they remember like this they will attain the supreme destination what Krishna is saying is that supreme destination can't be attained unless someone can actually come close to him, someone can actually become devoted to him, understanding him to the highest reality, so the consistent message of the Bhagavad Gita is that it is Krishna who is transcendental it is Krishna who is beyond nature, the idea that Krishna is so clearly referring to himself avyaktam vyaktimapannamanyante try to say that I am unmanifest people worship me in manifest form it's a complete, it's not only semantically indefensible but it is also contextually indefensible meaning of that particular verse it doesn't make sense and further in terms of the context of the whole chapter also it doesn't make sense now he is referring philosophy of impersonalism philosophy holds the highest reality is impersonal now impersonalism has you could say two broad divisions there is Brahmavad and there is Mayavad and this verse 7.24 as well as in 9.11 and 12 Krishna talks about Mayavad, 3, 4, 5 in 9.12 he talks about Sumanandhi reproaches in very strong terms he is saying abuddhaya in 9.11 he will talk about them as mudha avajanintimam mudham manushyam tanum ashritam you think that I have descended in human form, they are mudha and then he says moghashyam moghkarmanam moghgyanavichetasah rakshasimha surimchaiva prakathimmohinimshitah in 9.12 he says that all their endeavours were excessively with failure moghashyam moghkarmanam that their desires their desires, whatever aspirations they have aspirations for liberation moghgyana cultivation of knowledge moghkarmanam their performance of pious work all of it will prove in vain because they have turned away from Krishna rakshasimha surimchaiva in very strong condemnation, he says that they are demoniac nature prakathimmohinimshitah they take shelter of the mohini prakathi, of the deluding nature that soon Krishna will contrast that mohini prakathi with daivi prakathi in the next verse mahatmanastumaparthah daivim prakathimashitah avajantyananyamanasokyatvabhutadimauvayam mahatmanastumaparthah indeed they are mahatmas who are mahatmas understand his supreme position daivim prakathimashitah they take shelter of his divine nature avajantyananyamanasokyatvabhutadimauvayam they worship him ananyamanasokyatvabhutadimauvayam meaning that they don't get distracted even to the impersonal manifestation avajantyananyamanasokyatvabhutadimauvayam he is the source of all living beings and he is imperishable similar adjectives here as he has used earlier in 7.24 he says mamavayamanuttamam and there he says bhutadimauvayam bhutadi the source of all living beings in fact the word bhuta can also refer to existence bhutadi will refer to the source of all existence it is he who is the source of all existence he is also the source of the impersonal brahman and thus it is he who is the highest reality so here krishna concludes overview of different kinds of people based on their disposition towards him so at the lowest extreme are those who defy him the uppermost extreme at the peak and nadir nadir is the lowest bottom so at the nadir are those who defy him at the peak are those who devote themselves to him those who move forward to devote themselves to him also are there in that direction and in between are the god worshippers first and then the alpamedas and below them are the impersonalists who are abuddhaya in the future verses krishna will make some general observations about very important, general not in the sense of unimportant or commonplace general in the sense of overall after this specific typographic division, taxonomic devotion, classification krishna will how souls are in illusion and how they can come out of illusion.