Gita 08.18 – Matter becomes unmanifest, but material form is destroyed

Thank you Bhagavad Gita 8.18 … … … … … … from that manifest … everything becomes manifest … … … everything becomes manifest … … … … … … … … … … … … everything becomes unmanifest Krishna is continuing his description of the comparative analysis of material and spiritual worlds in text 17,18, 19 he talks about the material world and 20 to 22 two he will talk about a spiritual world in this section in the previous verse krishna has stated that sahasra yuga paryantam aharya brahmano viduhu rathrem yuga sahasrantham teho rathra vidho janah so he's given the mind-boggling like length of the day of brahma and the night of brahma so here krishna has in the previous verse told about how the life of brahma is for so long and then what happens after the life of brahma ends that he's talking in this verse and two conceptions are brought together in this analysis one is the conception of creation and destruction and the other is the conception of manifestation and unmanifestation so normally the idea of creation and destruction means that something comes into existence and then goes out of existence something is destroyed means it no longer exists whereas manifestation and unmanifestation that conveys the idea that something is existing but is not existing is existing sometimes in a perceivable form and is sometimes existing in a non-perceivable form so at first glance the ideas of creation and destruction and that of manifestation and unmanifestation seem to be talking of different things either there can be creation destruction or there can be manifestation and manifestation can both of them go together it seems difficult if something is destroyed then it is not exactly unmanifested it has gone out of existence and krishna uses the terminology of manifestation and manifestation quite clearly when he states that from the from the unmanifest state things come to the manifest state so on one side he uses that terminology and another side he also uses the terminology which is usually translatable as creation and destruction so here what is happening is there the end of is there at the end of the cosmos or at the end of the day of brahma is there destruction or is there simply unmanifestation so actually this depends on again on what is our frame of reference if we are very enamored by material forms then that is actually the destruction of the form is a destruction of destruction in one sense but actually in another sense it is not destruction because the object itself continues to exist so but in a different form so if we are infatuated with material forms then what happens is destruction but if you are concerned with material energy then there is manifestation and unmanifestation when we say matter is temporary and so we should not be attached to it actually that is not exactly correct because matter also in one sense is eternal what is temporary is material forms and we are not just attached to matter in an abstract sense we are attracted to material forms and it is this attraction to material forms that is a problem it is this attraction to material forms that leads us to entanglement is this attraction that actually sentences us to captivation by illusion to sinful action and to the consequences that keep us in suffering illusion and further perpetuated material existence so by understanding that this unmanifest and manifest will go on in a cycle and this cyclic view of material nature is one of the defining characteristics of dharmic religions the abrahamic religions often have a linear world view where history according to them is progressing linearly towards the progress till the coming of jesus and then it is progressing further linearly towards the second coming of jesus after which everything will be hunky-dory but we see that nature is cyclic we see the days the time the days are followed by nights are followed by days the seasons are cyclic the planetary motions are cyclic so even our measurement of time in units is cyclic because it reflects the cyclicity of nature so therefore what we need to recognize is that there is literally nothing new in under the sun or even above the sun because the sun is also a part of the material world and whatever is happening here it is simply the manifestation and manifestation of the material forms so sometimes when we see some new more attractive form we are enjoying a particular sense object but after a little bit of indulgence we become a little disappointed then we feel that maybe we should have some other sense object to enjoy and as we enjoy that object after some time that starts feeling boring that starts losing taste and we want something else something else but when we understand the cyclicity of material nature we understand that actually there will be nothing new under the sun and for finding something new i need to redirect my consciousness towards the spiritual level of reality.