Gita 12.02 Closeness unites more than oneness

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Bhagavad Gita 12.2, Shri Bhagavan Vacham, Krishna is speaking and he states, Those who fix their mind on me, being constantly engaged us, with transcendental faith, they are most intimately united with me. This verse is a direct answer to the question that Arjuna asked in 12.1. So, Arjuna was asked, Arjuna asked rather that, O Krishna, there are two kinds of spiritualists, those who are always engaged in bhaktas and they worship you, those who focus on the impersonal, unmanifest.

Who among them is closest to you? Who among them is united with you? These people are most intimately united with me, Krishna is saying. So, in this reply, Krishna makes it very clear who he is referring to. So, he talks about those who worship him.

That means he is talking not about just anyone and everyone. He is talking about people who are devoted to him, who worship him, whom Krishna called as bhaktas tvam upasit, but he passed it him. So, Krishna is telling the devotees, they are, yukta is connected or engaged in yoga, yukta tara is very well engaged, very well connected, yukta tamo is totally engaged, most intimately united.

As Srila Prabhupada puts it, te me yukta tamo mataha. So, Krishna has pointed to this, the devotees being intimately united with him earlier, when he said that, ye bhajanti tumaam bhaktya maite te shuchaapyaam. In 9.29, he said that, samoham sarvabhuteshu na me dveshosti na priyaha, that he is equal to all living beings, he is not partial to anyone.

At the same time, he also stated that, actually, although he is not partial to anyone, still, he gives himself to those who give themselves to him, themselves to him. Ye bhajanti tumaam bhaktya, those who worship me with devotion, maite te shuchaapyaam. So, Krishna says, maite, I am in them and they are in me, te shuchaapyaam.

So, Krishna is not just saying that, I am, I am closely connected with them, he is saying that, I am in them and they are in me. This is, I am in them and they are in me, this is not referring to an ontological interpenetration. It is not that the two become one, because if the two became one, there would have been no reason to talk about, talk about I and you at all, I and they at all.

The very fact that Krishna talks about him and they, that indicates that there is understanding that the two continue to exist as distinct beings, but their hearts become interconnected, interlocked, interwoven, interpenetrated. So, so much so that the devotee lives inside Krishna and Krishna lives inside the devotee. So, normally, when two people are close to each other, we can talk about two people standing close to each other, hugging each other and that is one level of closeness.

Another is closeness in terms of emotional proximity, emotional affinity, emotional intimacy. And when two people are close to each other, they are thus closer in terms of emotional proximity, then their thoughts, their desires, they are very similar to each other. And even when they have some separate thoughts and desires, those are in harmony with the overall spirit of relishing and strengthening their mutual relationship.

The same way Krishna says that those who are devoted to him, those who worship him with devotion, they are most intimately united with him. So, in the impersonal notion of merging, I think that one enters into the being of God as if we are physical creature or we are physical things and this physical thing will enter into another physical thing, which is the absolute truth, Brahman. But neither are we at our core physical things nor is the spiritual reality a physical thing.

Of course, the higher spiritual reality manifests in a concrete form as Krishna, but still Krishna is a living loving person and at the same time, he is also the all-pervading absolute truth and thus it is he who is. So, the Lord is the greatest of our being, greatest being and when we devote ourselves to him, he is the highest spiritual reality. And by the process of bhakti, we become most intimately connected with him.

That absolute truth is unapproachable by any means other than devotion. And when we approach him with devotion, we go closer to him than by any other means. We may say that when we merge into him, don't we go close to him? Actually, in merging, there is neither we nor he that exists.

So, in that sense, going close to him doesn't come into the picture because there can be two people who can be close to each other when there are actually two people existing. But there are no two people existing, then there is no question of the two people coming close to each other. So, similarly, in the impersonal conception of life, there are no two people at all.

There is just one person who is, there is just one being and that one being is simply consciousness without any conscious observer or any conscious observed. A thing is consciousness. So, actually, there is just oneness, there is no closeness.

Closeness is possible when there is something to be close to. Now, when our very identity is dissolved, then there is no question of really of we becoming happy. When there is closeness to someone whom we love, then we can become truly, deeply, eternally happy.

And that is what we all should aspire for, to the best of our capacity. We are at our core, eternal spiritual beings and bhakti creates a bond of love by which we go eternally close, in fact, the closest to the supreme spiritual being. And thus we relish life's greatest.