What does brahma mean in Gita 18.54 brahma-bhuta prasannatma?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
ब्रह्मभूत प्रसन्नात्मा नशोजतिन काम्जित, the 1354th Bhagavad Gita. Those were the Brahmandas.
If you look at the complete verse, what it says is, समह सर्वेष भूतेषु बद भक्तिम् लबतेपराम् After that they get bhakti. So now, when we use the word Brahman, the word itself has many different meanings. This is something which can lead to confusion because words in general, in every language, words are multivalent.
Multivalent means what? They have many different meanings. So, for example, the word punch. You can punch someone during boxing.
You can punch someone when they are angry. Now the word punch also refers to alcoholic beverage. You know that? You take a punch.
You have heard about this or no? I am more informed than you about the material world. I was going to make a joke but it did not work then. The point I was saying is, if a son is going to a party, father may warn his son, if you drink a punch over there, you will get a punch over here.
Now what does it mean? The word punch has different meanings. Like the word run, for example. In English the word run has 540 meanings.
I am going for a run. I am running because my car has stopped running. Or because this person is running for president, I am running away from this country.
So what happens is, the same word run can have different meanings. So like that when we use the word brahman, what does it refer to? So the word brahman itself has different meanings. Now literally brahman, it means that it means great.
So brahman refers to the great truth or the great reality. So brahman can refer to the spiritual reality. So for example, we have brahmachari.
Now when you use the word brahmachari, that has got nothing to do with brahma jyoti. Brahma here refers to spiritual. Athato brahma jijnasa.
So then when you use the word enquire about the spiritual. So brahman can refer to spiritual reality generally. Aham brahmasmi and I am spirit.
Brahman can refer generically to spiritual reality. Now brahman can also refer at one level to the all pervading impersonal light. That is the precise word we use is brahma jyoti.
But brahman can also refer to brahma jyoti. Now brahman can also refer to the ultimate reality. Generally when it is used in this way, it refers to Krishna says or Arjuna says about Krishna, param brahma param dhama.
So you are brahma but you are which brahma? You are the param brahma, you are the supreme spirit. But sometimes the word brahma can also refer to the ultimate reality. So the idea is words can have different meanings.
And we have to look at the context to understand which meaning is applicable where. And that context sensitivity is actually very important in normal language also. And so even with all the advancement of AI and other things, if you ask AI to simply translate something, sometimes the context sensitivity is missed out.
Because the one word can have many different meanings and which meaning is used in a particular context, that we have to figure it out. So broadly when we use the word brahma bhuta prasannatma, there brahma bhuta refers to the brahman level of reality. The spiritual level.
So the spiritual level does not necessarily mean the impersonal level. Spiritual level basically means that we understand I am more than the material. So we could say, let me try to make this a little more confusing.
So let’s consider it this way over here. So if there are three levels within the spiritual realm, there is bhagwan, there is paramatma and there is brahman. So now when we use the generic word brahma, brahma can refer to brahman but brahma can refer to this whole spiritual reality also.
Because all this is the spiritual reality. Of course, this is the ultimate spiritual reality, the supreme spiritual reality, the absolute truth that Bhagavan says. So now brahma can refer to all of it, brahma can also refer to one of it.
Now brahma can also refer to the soul that exists at the spiritual level. Now brahma can also refer to this whole spiritual reality itself. So brahma can refer to the individual soul, brahma can refer to the spiritual level of reality, brahma can refer to the brahma jyoti, brahma can refer to the ultimate reality.
Is this sufficiently confusing? So now if you look at that particular verse, brahma bhuta prasannatma na shochati na kankshati So what it refers to is that, that prasannatma is joyful but what is the joy? The joy is basically primarily freedom from hankering and lamenting. So it’s like somebody has terrible arthritis and any movement that they make, it causes them a lot of pain. And then somehow they are just able to become completely motionless, stop moving.
Now when they stop moving, I feel such a relief. Now is that relief real? Of course it’s real. They are feeling real relief, there is no pain over there.
But the problem is, can they just live without any motion for the rest of their life? So the problem is, they may think that the motion is caused, sorry the pain is caused by the motion. It is true at one level. But the pain is actually caused by the disease, the arthritis in the body.
If the arthritis were removed, they could still have motion and they would not have any pain. So like that what impersonalists think is that it is the form, it is the personality, it is the relationships, it is the emotions that cause pain. And there is some truth to that but actually it’s a partial truth.
The actual truth is pain is caused not by emotions, it is not caused by relationship. It is caused by material emotions and material relationships. So diseased movement causes pain.
Natural movement does not cause pain. Healthy movement does not cause pain. So when there are healthy relationships, it does not cause pain.
So the Brahman level is a generic level of reality. So now does everyone go through the Brahman level? It depends on what you mean by that. So why did I go into all these answers? What do we mean by that? If we are referring to does everyone has to get realization of the Brahma Jyoti, that oh there is an ocean of light and I am a part of that ocean.
That is not required. But does everyone have to realize that I am a spiritual being? Yes, we have to realize that.