Gita 15.13 The existence of multiple factors congenial to our existence points to transcendence

Transcript

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Thank you Krishna is speaking here about how those with knowledge can see him, see actions related with him in this material world and he explains that Gama Visha Gama the earth, I enter into Bhutani Dharami in this way O Jesus, with my strength I sustain the earth that sustains all living beings Pushnami Chaushadi Sarva that I sustain that I that I nourish the vegetables Pushnami Chaushadi Sarva Somo Bhut Parasatmakham becoming the moon so here Krishna is speaking to Arjuna and the point he is stressing is that actually none of us is in ourselves self capable of self existence without anything from anyone else we depend on things beyond us for our existence and those things include many things which are beyond our control so for example when we depend on grains for eating I work hard and I cook my own I cook my grains and I eat them that’s fine, I may say that but that doesn’t mean that actually I alone produce the grains because for the grains to grow we need a lot of things to go with it for the grains to grow we need food we need their food that is soil that contains minerals we need sunlight which helps them to do photosynthesis we need water for example now rains, we can’t control that so even if we work hard to produce the grains that we eat, food we eat actually we alone are not the producers there are factors beyond us which are vital for our existence without them we will not be able to exist, we will not be able to continue and thus it is essential for us to recognize that the Lord is our goal He is not just our ultimate goal which we understand Him to be when we become spiritually conscious but even for those who do not accept Him He is the sustainer because things we chase for things we crave for those things are frequently not in our control quite often things that we ourselves have not recognized that we alone cannot produce them so we need a solid perspective we need the eyes of knowledge which Bhagavad Gita is providing over here by which we can see that our very existence depends on the congeniality of factors that are beyond our capacity to understand the specifics of the examples that Krishna gives may or may not be comprehensible for us but beyond the specifics are the universal principles and those universal principles are that we are not capable of self-dependence in our self-existence because of that we need help from something beyond us for our existence and recognizing that is the beginning of spiritual knowledge if we consider how is the earth being sustained in its planetary orb well at one level we could say that it is sustained by its own by the force of gravity but then the force of gravity what is it? where does it originate from? for many millennia, for many centuries actually after Newton postulated the force of gravity its origin remained unknown and it was only when we recognized that this origin needed another explanation so gravity was more a observation and a mathematical postulation rather than a description for an observed phenomenon than an explanation of an origin it is a description of a phenomenon rather than an explanation for a phenomenon Einstein then came up with the idea that gravity is the result of the bending of the curvature of space-time but that only raises further questions how did the… space-time be curved? so at a foundational level the very existence of the phenomena that ensure our existence is not explainable by the factors within existence that means to the extent we recognize that we at our core are spiritual beings then we understand that we are parts of a whole we are eternal parts and the whole is maintaining us always even if we realize it or we don’t realize it that whole maintains us by giving us the provisions for living and most importantly by giving us the purpose for living and that will be talked about in 15.15 when we talk about the indwelling presence of Krishna here there is an underlying divine arrangement for whatever we or whatever is required for our existence and it is appreciation of that underlying divine arrangement which is what will enable us to become more spiritually conscious so without getting caught into the specifics of the divine arrangement we can focus on the universal principles that our self-existence is not self-dependent we are not capable of self-dependence for our self-existence and the existence of the factors necessary for existence points to something beyond material existence to an organizing intelligence beyond material existence so the specific mechanism say of how the moon nourishes food food grains or vegetables that may not be known to us those who are actually hands-on farmers they often say that the patterns of the growth of agriculture is shaped by whether the moon is present at night or not science gives explanations material science it gives explanations that work but beyond a working model they are not absolute explanations so the more science has advanced its knowledge the more we come to know how little we know and how much more there is to know so from the earth we may have thought that ok the space is very big but when you go out of the earth’s atmosphere and then observe from there and understand that space is far far bigger than what we had thought from our earth so the expansion of our knowledge in terms of getting the capacity to know about how to go into space that expansion of our knowledge has revealed to us the expansiveness of knowledge how much is there to be known so by that same principle you can also understand that actually for us it’s not so it’s actually a sign of scientific humility rather than scientific arrogance if we remain open to the fact that there may be some explanation of how vegetables are nourished by food grains and even if we don’t have the specific explanation we can focus on the generic principle that our existence requires things beyond our existence beyond our dependence for our sustenance thank you