Gita 14.04 The seed-giving father is also the soul-attracting liberator

Transcript

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thank you come into existence tasam brahma tasam brahma mahad yonir they come from the brahma mahad yoni, from the womb of material nature which is mentioned earlier aham bija pradahapita I am the seed giving father bija pradahapita Krishna is going to go into the intricacies of the modes of material nature soon and before he goes into those intricacies he is focusing he is stressing what is his relationship with it all he is not simply the teacher of the modes of material nature, how the modes work there can be many teachers in the history Krishna is something much more he is the source of all of existence and he is the source of the the living entities which come into this world now Krishna has talked about how he is the source of everything at several earlier points for example in 10.8 he has said aham sarvasya prabhavo matta sarvam pravartate iti matva bhajante mam budha bhava samanvita so he says aham sarvasya prabhavo that I am the source of all material and spiritual existence uttaha sarvam pravartate from me everything emerges and iti matva bhajante mam budha bhava samanvita those who know this are wise he has also said that both matter and spirit are his energies in 7.4 and 5 he has said that bhumirapo nalovayu khammano buddharevachah ahankarityamme bhinnaprakritirashtadham apareyamitas tvanyam prakritim viddhime param jivabhutam mahabaho yayedam dharyate jagat so he has said that apareyam that the earth, water, fire, air mind, intelligence and ego these are the elements that comprise material nature and then the living entities which are the superior nature are also his energies and the material elements are his 8 components of his inferior material energy para and apara so in this way krishna has talked about how he is the source of everything so here he is specifically stating that in the process of the souls existing within material existence in that process also he is the source so and he is the source of all living beings all species whatever bodies they get from the womb of material nature it is I who am the seed giving father so in the previous verse the stress was on that it is material just like to understand a child you may want to know the mother of the child and the father of the child so you could say that text 3 focus on the mother of the child mamayo nirmah brahma tasmin garbham dadhameham sambhavah sarvabhutanam tato bhavati bharatam focus is on what is the womb in which the living entities get their forms that is material nature and in this verse the focus is on that he is the father in language often it is said that we should focus on that which is the conclusion but in a sentence often the most important part is given either in the start or at the end so that people’s attention is maximum at that time or rather people’s attention is maximum at that time when we are at the beginning or at the end and according that’s when we should give the significant part so aham bijya pradahapita I am the seed giving father Krishna is stressing over here so he is the father of all living beings there is the doctrine of human exceptionalism or which is also talked about as speciesism wherein the human species is considered to be the considered to be special in the judaeo-christian tradition where they think it is only humans have souls or rather it is only humans who have souls of the kind that can know god and other living beings do not have such souls now this understanding is not accepted by our tradition by the vedic tradition they say that all living beings have souls it is human beings who have some specially evolved souls by which they can perceive god the difference between humans and non-humans is not in the nature of the soul it is in the nature of the nature of the covering on the soul so what differentiates humans from animals is not that they have a different soul but that they have a different covering on the soul a thinner covering this Krishna has talked about in 3.38 when he has said that there are so as a fire is covered by smoke as a mirror is covered by dust or as a embryo is covered by a womb similarly the living entity is covered by self-centered desire so the way we move forwards in our spiritual growth is by in the human form by thinning this layer of covering by moving forwards towards Krishna by making this covering as thin as possible so that is possible in the human form where covering is also thin and it can be just as Prabhupada says that by expert handling the smoke can be run away with and the fire can blaze forward so now Krishna is very inclusive he says that all living beings and another point is that also he says in both 3rd and 4th verse that what they get is the body Krishna is not talking about the creation of the soul at all the soul is pre-existing Krishna is saying I am simply through the process of my union with material nature my impregnation of material nature what manifests is the body not the souls this is also the fundamental difference between Christian ideology Christian doctrine which holds that souls are created during the process of union between man and woman Krishna says no souls are impregnated into material nature and then thereafter material nature has this particular process of the union of species if there is sexual reproduction and if there is sexual reproduction there is another way in which it occurs but the point is that Krishna Krishna is talking about the manifestation of the forms and the stress of aham bija pradahapita it is I who am the seed giving father the significance of saying this here is that which will be brought out in the conclusion in 14.26 when Krishna will say that actually by devotion to him one can go beyond illusion one can go beyond material nature one can go beyond the things that beyond the three modes of material nature so it is he who has who has placed us here now of course it does not mean that it is it is he who is responsible just like a king may place a prisoner in a jail or a king may place a mentally disturbed person in an asylum but that does not mean that the king is responsible for the persons going to the mental asylum that person’s own conduct is responsible but still the point is that the king has placed there but the king can also take him out of there and after analyzing the three modes, Krishna will towards the end stress this point that it is he who can liberate the souls from material existence the setup the philosophical, ontological setting up for this ultimate redeeming role of Krishna is done by stressing his impregnating role thank you