The Science of Religion for Mankind - Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta: Yatharth Geeta

CHAPTER 15: THE YOG OF THE SUPREME BEING

CHAPTER 15: THE YOG OF THE SUPREME BEING

Accomplished sages have striven to explain the nature of the world by various analogies. While some have described it as the forest of worldly life, others have represented it as the ocean of mortal existence. In a different context the same has been called the river or abyss of worldly life. Sometimes it has also been compared to the hoof of a cow. Apparently they all imply that the extension of the world is only so much as that of the senses. And the stage at last comes when even this fearsome “ocean” dries up. In the words of Goswami Tulsidas, the mere naming of God dries up this ocean.Yogeshwar Krishn, too, has used “ocean” and “tree” as epithets for the world. He has said in the sixth and seventh verses of Chapter 12 that he soon delivers his loving devotees, who contemplate him-the manifest God-with firm concentration, from the gulf of the mortal world. In the present chapter he declares that the world is a tree which yogi who are seeking for the supreme goal have to cut down.

1.  ‘‘The Lord said, ‘He who knows the Peepal (Fig) tree that the world is, with its roots above and branches below and which is said to be imperishable, and of which Vedic verses are the foliage, is a knower of the Ved.’’’

The root of this everlasting Peepal-like world is the God above and its boughs are the nature below. A tree does not even last till the symbolic tomorrow, but the tree of the world is indestructible. Two things are immortal according to Krishn. The first of these is the everlasting world and then beyond it there is the eternal Supreme Spirit. The Ved are said to be the leaves of this tree of the world. The man who observes this tree well along with its root and is aware of its reality is an adept in the knowledge of Ved.

The man who has perceived the truth of the world-tree rather than one who has merely perused holy books, is a true knower of the Ved. Study of books only provides a motive for proceeding in that direction. It may well be asked at this point why the Ved are needed instead of leaves. Vedic verses, which generate well-being, are useful because they motivate from the very point when after a great deal of wandering about a Soul goes through his last birth which is like the final shoot of a tree. This is the turning point where the straying ceases and the seeker begins to proceed confidently towards God.

2.  ‘‘Its branches nourished by the three properties extend high and low, objects of the senses are its shoots, and its action-engendering roots stretch below to the world of men.’’

The boughs of sense-objects and their enjoyment, nourished and cultivated by the three properties, of the treelike world spread everywhere above and below, even going back into the earth and sprouting new shoots.They extend from the worms and insects below to the godly state and creator above, but they can bind only those who are born as men according to their past actions. All other births are only for the enjoyment of sense-objects; only human birth is subject to bondage in keeping with action. And-

3.  “Since its form is not to be seen here as such and it has neither an end nor a beginning, nor a secure foundation, this immensely-grown tree should be cut down with the axe of renunciation.”

The world-tree does not have a firm existence because it is changeable. So it has to be felled with the axe of total abandonment. It has to be cut down, not worshipped as it usually is because of the superstitious assumption that God resides in the roots of this tree and that its leaves are the Ved.

However, since this tree has grown from God’s own seed, can it be cut down? In fact, the meaning of this cutting down is escape from nature which is accomplished by renunciation. But what is to be done after the tree has been cut down?

4.  “Then that goal should be sought for, after arriving at which one does not have to turn back again, with a sense of total submission to that primal God whence all worldly life is born.”