7.1 Devine Knowledge

1.

While concluding the previous chapter, Shree Krishna stated that the best yogis are those who exclusively focus on God and serve Him with great dedication. This gives rise to a few questions, such as, how can one get to know the Supreme Lord? How should a devotee worship Him and meditate upon Him?

Although Arjun had not asked these questions, yet the Omniscient and kind Lord began to answer. Here, Shree Krishna has used the terms mad-āśhrayaḥ, meaning "with your mind focused on Me" and śhṛiṇu, which means "listen." He is asking Arjun to listen to Him attentively.

2. Jñāna is the knowledge learned by applying the mind, senses, and intellect. In contrast, vijñāna (wisdom) is the knowledge gained through spiritual practice, it is a direct experiential realization; and should not be misunderstood for intellectual knowledge. An example to explain this is honey kept in a sealed jar. We have heard that honey has the sweetest taste that is incomparable to any other sweet. But unless we open the jar and taste it, we will not get the experiential realization of its sweetness.

Likewise, the Guru gives us jñāna, which is the theoretical knowledge of the scriptures. Yet, we need to practice sadhana as per the acquired jñāna, which would consequently purify our mind. Only then, vijñāna (wisdom) knowledge, through self-realization will be attained.

Once Sage Ved Vyas intended to write the Shreemad Bhagavatam: a scripture that would describe God, His glories, nature, and as the object of devotion. But he did not wish to write it only based upon his jñāna. Therefore, first he engaged himself in bhakti to attain the experiential realization, which is vijñāna. He wrote.

"Through bhakti-yog, Ved Vyas fixed his mind upon God without any material sentiments, and thus attained the complete vision and realization of the Supreme Divine Personality along with His external energy, Maya, which was under His control." Inspired by this realization, he wrote the epic scripture.

In this verse, Lord Shree Krishna affirms to Arjun that He will bestow upon him the theoretical knowledge regarding the Supreme Divine Personality. He will also illuminate his mind with the required wisdom. Once this knowledge is acquired, there will be nothing remaining for him to know.

3. The word siddhi has numerous connotations and meanings. As per the Sanskrit dictionary, a few of them are: attainment of supernatural power, accomplishment, success, performance, fulfillment, solution of a problem, completion of cooking or a task, healing, hitting the mark, maturing, supreme felicity, beatitude, an unusual skill or faculty, perfection.

In this verse, Shree Krishna has used siddhi for perfection in the spiritual path. He says, "Only a tiny portion of the innumerable souls are fortunate to get a human birth. Amongst them, only a minuscule strive for spiritual perfection. And even among those perfected souls, ones who are aware of My divine glories and paramount position are very rare."

How is it that even perfected souls are unable to know God? The reason is without bhakti or loving devotion, it is not possible to realize the Supreme. Spiritual aspirants of karm, jñāna, haṭha yog, etc., cannot know God unless they include devotion in their practice. Shree Krishna has stated this fact several times in the Bhagavad Gita:

"Although He is all-pervading and all living beings are situated in Him, yet He can be known only through devotion." BG 8.22.

"O Arjun, by devotion alone, and by no other means, can I be seen as I am, standing before you. In this way, can you know Me, receive My divine vision, and enter into the mysteries of My understanding." BG 11.54

"Only by loving devotion does one come to know who I am in truth. Then, having come to know My personality through devotion, one enters My divine realm."

Therefore, such spiritual aspirants who do not include devotion in their sadhana attain only limited theoretical knowledge or jñāna. And devoid of vijñāna the experiential knowledge, they are unable to know God or the Absolute Truth.

Shree Krishna has stated in this verse that only one among numerous humans knows Him in truth. In the next verse, He moves on to describe the material and spiritual dimensions of His energies.

4. The energy that composes this material world is incredibly complex and fathomless. To make it comprehensible to our finite intellect, we have classified it into various categories and sub-categories. Modern science propagates matter to be a combination of elements, and the 118 elements discovered so far, are sectioned under the Periodic Table.

However, the Vedic philosophy and the Bhagavad Gita present a profoundly different classification of the material world. Matter is considered as part of God's energy and called prakṛiti. It is further divided into eight forms, as listed in this verse. It is amazing how insightful the knowledge in these ancient scriptures is in comparison to the developing trends in modern science.

Albert Einstein was the first to propound the concept of Mass-Energy Equivalence in 1905. In his Annus Mirabilis papers, he stated that it is possible to convert mass into energy and numerically presented it by an equation E=mc2. His Theory of Relativity replaced an earlier concept of the universe made of solid matter. Both these theories were challenged in 1920 by Niels Bohr and other scientists with Quantum Theory, which proposes a dual particle-wave nature of matter. Ever since, the scientific community has been on the lookout for a single field or Unified Field Theory, which could expound on the relationship between matter and all forces of the universe.

More than 5000 years ago, long before the development of modern science, Lord Krishna had disclosed the perfect Unified Field Theory. He said to Arjun, "All that exists in the universe has manifested from My material energy." Just one material energy has extended itself into myriad shapes, forms, and entities of this world. The Taittirīya Upaniṣhad has elaborated on this:

The material energy in its primordial form is called prakṛiti. God glances at it when He wishes to create the world. His glance agitates and creates mahān. (There is no equivalent word for it in English, as modern science is yet to discover such a subtle level of energy) Mahān further manifests into ahankār even this is unknown to modern science. Ahankār, in turn, forms the pañch-tanmātrās or the five perceptions of – taste, touch, smell, sight, and sound. And from these, the five gross elements— space, air, fire, water, and earth manifest.

Lord Shree Krishna includes the mind, intellect, and ego along with the five gross elements as different manifestations of His material energy. In this verse, He states that all these eight elements are simply parts of Maya, His material energy. In the next verse, He describes another of His superior energy; the soul energy