Gita 09.08 – We are helpless before material natures inexorable cyclicity

Then that will purify us. And that purification will lead to our liberation.

Thank you. Krishna speaks here. My own prakriti avashtabhyah, avashtabhyah means entering into.

I create punah punah again and again. Bhutagramam imam krishnam. Bhutagramam, this whole mass of material matter, of material existence, imam krishnam, entirely.

Avasham prakritir vashat. Avasham, helplessly, prakritir vashat. Krishna is continuing to describe here his inconceivable relationship with material existence.

In the previous verse, he stated that, So, he's been describing the cycle by which, under his supervision, material nature, the material existence, the universes are destroyed, all of existence is destroyed, at the time of cosmic annihilation. And then, and it's again created at the start of a kalpa. Now, in this verse, he's stating, It's my nature.

Krishna has talked about this in 7.14 also, when he says, that it is my maya. So, prakritim svam. Krishna has used the word prakritim svam specifically earlier also in 4.6, when he was talking about the concept of avatar.

So, there it was prakritim svam again, by my own nature. The difference was, there, Krishna is talking specifically about his descent. I manifest myself by my own internal potency.

And this is the next verse, he is talking about yuga, in every yuga. So, there he talks about how, yuga, yuga. That is two verses later, 4.8. But the point is, both are talking about how Krishna manifests within the world.

Now, the difference is very significant, however, with respect to the context. When Krishna descends as an avatar, it is not, his presence is not manifested throughout the period of the manifestation of the cosmos. His manifestation is for a short period, during which he re-establishes dharma, and he empowers those who are following dharma, and he disempowers those who are against dharma.

So, this sambhavami yuge yuge, again and again in yugas appears, he appears. So, God's immanence, there are two aspects of God's relationship with this world. One is his transcendence, which means that he exists beyond material existence, and the other is immanence, which implies that he exists within the material world.

And both are important in their own ways. Here, when Krishna is talking about his relationship with the material world, he is focusing on how he is in control. He is talking about immanence.

So, prakratim svam avashtavya visrujami punha punha. So, entering into all of material existence, visrujami, I create everything, punha punha. So, this is referring, if you consider the concept of the purusha avatars, which is mentioned in sattva tantra, and which Prabhupada quoted in 7.4 in the Bhagavad Gita, So, vishnu stutrini rupani.

Lord Vishnu manifests in three forms. Purusha akhyanya thovidho. He is known as purusha akhyani.

He is known as the purusha manifestation. So, purusha and prakriti are the two fundamental tenets of the Sankhya school of thought. They explain, they analyze material nature in terms of these two.

And Krishna is using the Sankhya concepts and Sankhya terms over here also. As we see the word prakriti coming again and again here. So, there is ekam tu mahatas rashtur.

One is the manifestation of Vishnu, that is Mahavishnu, through whom the mahat-tattva manifests. Dvitiyam tu andh samsthitam. Dvitiyam, the second, andh samsthitam.

He enters into the Brahmanda. This refers to the Garbhodaksha Vishnu who enters into each universe. And within that universe, he lies down in the Garbhodaksha Sagar, which fills up half of the universe.

And thereafter, he enables the existence to move on. And tritiyam sarva-bhutistham. From the navel of Garbhodaksha Vishnu, the primeval lotus appears on which Brahmaji manifests and then through him the rest of the creation happens.

And in this process, Shirodaksha Vishnu is present in every, he enters into every living being s heart. So, that point of the Supreme Lord s manifestation entering into everything that is talked about here, when it is said that So, every time there is destruction, after that there is creation. And this cycle of creation and destruction that happens by the arrangement of Vishnu as he enters into deeper and deeper level of interpenetration into the cosmos.

So, bhutagramam, the word bhutagramam was earlier also used in 8.18 It is manifested and destroyed again and again. So, the point of that analysis was to stress how the material world is perishable, how it is destructible and nobody can avoid its destruction. The point of the present discussion, however, is to stress that the spiritual world, to stress that the supreme being is in control.

He is in charge and it is by his arrangement, by his potency, by his specifically his emanance here that the creation unfolds. So, we might say that who is avasa and who is it that is under the vasha of prakriti. So, the word bhutani has two meanings.

Bhutani can refer to all of existence or it can refer to living beings within their existence. Let us look at the context. So, in this specific context, so this cannot refer to material existence itself because it is said to be under the control of material nature.

So, who is under control of material nature? That is actually the living beings. Now, we may think that we are free but actually Prabhupada gives the example that a dog which is on a long leash may think that I am free and the dog may frolic and dance and run around and if the dog sees a she-dog, the dog may start performing to attract the she, dancing and frolicking to attract the she-dog. But as soon as the master pulls the string, pulls the leash, the dog may be in the middle of a performance in mid-air and suddenly the dog will fall to the ground and be dragged towards the master.

So, like that we are all under the control of material nature. A person might be playing in a cricket match and might just be expecting now I will hit a sixer and take my team to victory and right on that cricket field, the person might get a heart attack and may die at that time. So, avasham prakrutair vashat, we are helplessly under the control of material nature.

Now, we may say oh where is this person got a heart attack for whatever reason we might see and there might be specific reasons for such events like heart attacks or accidents but beyond that we see that we are not the controllers and we are under the control of material nature. Understanding this is very sobering and salutary. Sobering because we get intoxicated by the hopes and the schemes for material enjoyment and to see that our dreams and schemes for material enjoyment are futile, they can be pricked and destroyed at any moment, that is sobering but salutary because then salutary means another positive effect, it turns our consciousness towards Krishna, towards the eternal and the highest eternal reality is Krishna and that is the direction to which that shifting of human consciousness from the temporary to the supreme eternal being Krishna, that is the direction of the discussion here in the Gita also.

Thank you.