Gita 09.19 – Krishna manifests all around us to give us the chance to choose him

Thank you. The most confidential knowledge. Which of course is.

Devotional service. Bhakti yoga. In this chapter Krishna.

Is talking in this section about. How. He is.

The parvati principle. That underlies. Or controls.

Or permeates everything. And this particular verse. 10.19. He says.

This is I. Who give heat. Now. The sun.

Does two functions. Give heat and give light. So Krishna has earlier.

Talked about. I am the light. Of the sun and the moon.

In 7.8. When he is talking about. How he is the essence of everything. And he has also talked.

He will also talk. Reiterate that point. In 15.12. When he says.

Chant. Chant. Chant.

So. That light of the sun. Which illumines the whole world.

That comes from me. And so does the light of the moon. And of fire.

Krishna says. So there he is talking about. The illuminating.

The capacity of the sun. Now. Here he is talking about.

The heating capacity. And he says, even that comes from tapamyaham. So not all sources of light are hot, some are cold, and the heat, not just the light, but the heat of the sun is also important as a source of energy.

So that source of energy is also coming from Krishna. And then we know the heat of the light is associated with another phenomena, that is rains. So, it is the water and then rains come.

So then he is saying, aham varsham nigranami utsul jami ca. It is I who hold back rains and it is I who give rains. So, nigranami utsul jami ca.

Now, on what basis does Krishna do this? When does he hold back rains, when does he give rains? Actually, that all is in reciprocation to the karma of the people at a particular place. So here Krishna is actually referring to Indra's functions of holding and giving rains. But Krishna will later on say in the 10th chapter, devanam asmi vasam, that I am actually Indra among the gods.

So Indra manifests Krishna's opulence and Indra works under Krishna's control. So, at least when Indra is now infatuated by power and pleasure, at that time Indra is an instrument. At those uninfatuated times, Indra is an instrument of Krishna's will.

So, it is that action of Indra, which is ultimately coming from Krishna, which is being referred to over here. Nigranami utsul jami ca. And then he says, amritam jaiva vidyus ca, sadasa ca marjuna.

So, amrita. So I am immortality, I am the bestower of mortality. And I am dying, and I am dead, and I am the person who, as Krishna later in the 13th chapter, prabhavishnu ca, he says I am the devourer and I am the creator.

So, now there is amritam jaiva vidyus ca. Now, how is Krishna both deathlessness and death? That means, actually, the stay of the living entities in material existence is ultimately a function of Krishna's supreme will. Although, of course, it is by their desire that the souls are in material existence, but even when they want to go ahead in material existence, or they want to get out of material existence, either way they can't do it themselves.

It is their will that is the initiating factor, but they can't execute that will on their own because the soul is radically different from matter, and the soul by itself does not even know how to control matter. It is Krishna who provides the soul with the material body, and Krishna creates a system by which the soul can interact with the body. So, by saying Krishna also guides the soul to liberation in the source of desires.

So, Krishna is the person who manifests in reciprocation to our desires, and he manifests either as death or as immortality. So, how does he manifest? As we know the example which Prabhupada gave of a cat, that same cat appears as a kitten, seems like a reservoir of love to the kitten, and as a source of terror and death for a mouse. So, similarly, Amritam chaiva madhya-stha, sad-asad chaaham arjuna, the words sadhana-sadha have been explicated quite a bit by the religious commentators, and the confusion that can result is primarily because sad can refer either to the eternal or it can refer to the real.

We know that it is not just the eternal that is real, even the temporary is real, although it is temporary. So, sad-asad can in that sense refer to the temporary or the eternal and temporary, or it can refer to real and unreal. So, when it refers to temporary and real, so temporary and eternal, it refers to Krishna's material and spiritual energies.

So, it is Krishna who is manifesting as the material energy around us, and we are also at one level, Krishna. We are his separated parts. He is present in us also.

So, it is he who is manifesting as the existing entities and as in-sentient matter, or he can manifest as reality and illusion. That means that it is he who is the source of the path to reality, and it is he who is the source of the path to illusion. Again, that will be on the basis of how he reciprocates, or how we desire and accordingly reciprocates.

So, that Krishna who so thoroughly pervades, controls all of existence, and who so sensitively reciprocates with our desires, that Krishna is manifesting as the holy name, and every time we chant attentively, we call fervently to Krishna, we are actually choosing him. We are choosing Amrita instead of Nityo, and this way we are going closer and closer to Krishna. So, we are meditating on the glory of the person whom we are calling, and the intimacy with which that person is reciprocating with our call by manifesting as the holy name.

So, by meditating on the glory and the intimacy, we can bring gravity into our chanting, and by that gravity, by that seriousness, serious attentiveness, we can attract Krishna's mercy which can purify and flood our heart gradually with pure love for him.