Gita 08.22 – Everything is in Krishna and Krishna is in everything
Bhagavad Gita 8.22 Here Krishna is explaining how one can attain the supreme destination and the supreme person.
Bhagavad Gita 8.22 The Purusha Sapara, that supreme person, Bhagavad Gita 8.22 A person can be attained by bhakti. What kind of bhakti? Ananyaya, which is pure. Then next two lines describe the nature of that person.
Bhagavad Gita 8.22 One within whom all of existence is situated. Bhagavad Gita 8.22 And he is within everything. So everything is inside him and he is inside everything.
The context here is Krishna in these three verses, 8.20 to 22, is talking about the distinction between the material and the spiritual worlds. The material worlds he talked about from 8.17 to 19. Now he is talking about the spiritual world.
This is the last verse of that section. And he is stating that the spiritual world is eternal, indestructible, the supreme destination. It is Krishna's supreme abode.
These are the points which he made in the previous two verses. And now in this verse, 8.22, he is stating that that abode can be attained by devotion. Now, paradoxical description that Krishna gives over here.
Bhagavad Gita 8.22 Inside him. Bhagavad Gita 8.22 All living beings, all of existence. Now if everything is situated inside him, then he must be huge, colossal.
But if he is that way huge, then how do we make sense of the next part? He pervades everything. That means he is inside everything. Sarvam means everything.
Normally if I am inside a house, then the house is not inside me. Because my size is either bigger than the house so that I contain the house or my size is smaller than the house so that the house contains me. We cannot have it both ways.
That's what we would normally think. But then how do we make sense of this? Is it a contradiction? No, it's a paradox. A contradiction refers to two statements that are opposite and that are almost impossible to reconcile.
Whereas paradox is the phrasing of two statements together which though not immediately explainable are satisfactorily reconcilable. And in fact reconciliation can deepen our understanding of both. So the reconciliation here is that Krishna manifests in multiple forms.
So for example as the Maha Vishnu, he is greater than the greatest. Everything is emanating from his body. So he is, so everything is inside him.
But as Shirodaksha Vishnu who later on expands as the Antaryami, he is inside everything, inside even the microbes. The microscopic body of the Atma has its Atma present inside somewhere in the body and next to that Atma is the Paramatma. And Antarastha Paramanu Chayantarastham that is present inside the Paramanu.
So that means he is present at the highest, biggest level of reality and he is also present in the smallest level of reality. He pervades all of existence. He sustains it and he extends beyond it.
The Isha Upanishad also talks about something like this when it says तथ एजति तन्ने जति तग्दूरे तद्वान्तिके तध अंतरस्य सर्वस्य तदु सर्वस्यास्य बहयतः So it says that the first two lines are not so much relevant for us but the last two lines तध अंतरस्य सर्वस्य that he is inside everything तदु सर्वस्यास्य बहयतः and yet he is also outside everything. So one of the keys to understanding the seemingly contradictory descriptions of God's glories is to recognize that he is supreme. That he is supreme means that he also has the capacity to go beyond the limitation of localization that characterizes us.
Localization means that if we are present at one location then we are not present at another location. So for example, if I am present in India then I cannot be in Australia if devotees want me for a program there. Sometimes we all have the situation where we are needed at different places.
A working mother may be needed in the office as a part of the job and she may be needed at home because there is a family issue, family crisis maybe. So then we feel torn. So we all are vulnerable, susceptible, crippled by, limited by rather by the problem of localization.
We, our existence at least at a physical level is limited to a particular local. Now God is not limited by localization. In fact one of his defining attributes is omnipresence that means far from being localized he is the opposite.
There are yogis who can be present at multiple places at the same time but they also have limitations. Usually those yogis have to do all the yogi forms of the same things. In some cases some yogis especially mystical powers may be able to expand more.
The Bhagavatam 9 canto describes how Shobhare Rishi manifested in 50 forms, expanded as 50 Shobhares and satisfied the 50 pincers and he got satisfaction from those 50 pincers who became his wife. Of course later on despite having such indulgence he became dissatisfied and he renounced the world. But the point is that even he could not expand in multiple forms which are all different.
There are 50 forms which all look like Shobhari Mani and what to speak of a presence everywhere. So that is unique to God. God can be present wherever he wants in the universe.
At the same time he is also such a person who is normally inconceivable to human perception who is beyond not just perception but also conception. How can we conceive someone who is simultaneously so huge and so small? That person's glory can be appreciated and he can be attained through devotion. When we submit ourselves to him and follow his instructions and strive to love him by the practice of Bhakti Yoga, then gradually our consciousness expands and we learn to appreciate his glories by his grace.
His same omnipotence which we could not understand earlier, now he uses his omnipotence to grant us cognizance of his omnipotence. Thus we understand his inconceivability at least to some extent by his mercy. Thank you.