Essays on the Gita

292 <strong>Essays</strong> on the Gitaexperience. By that Brahman, a phrase which in the Upanishadsis more than once used for the self-existent as opposed to thephenomenal being, the Gita intends, it appears, the immutableself-existence which is the highest self-expression of the Divineand on whose unalterable eternity all the rest, all that moves andevolves, is founded, akṣaraṁ paramam. Byadhyātma it meanssvabhāva, the spiritual way and law of being of the soul in thesupreme Nature. Karma, it says, is the name given to the creativeimpulse and energy, visargaḥ, which looses out things from thisfirst essential self-becoming, this Swabhava, and effects, creates,works out under its influence the cosmic becoming of existencesin Prakriti. By adhibhūta is to be understood all the result ofmutable becoming, kṣaro bhāvaḥ. Byadhidaiva is intended thePurusha, the soul in Nature, the subjective being who observesand enjoys as the object of his consciousness all that is thismutable becoming of his essential existence worked out here byKarma in Nature. By adhiyajña, the Lord of works and sacrifice,I mean, says Krishna, myself, the Divine, the Godhead,the Purushottama here secret in the body of all these embodiedexistences. All that is, therefore, falls within this formula.The Gita immediately proceeds from this brief statementto work out the idea of the final release by knowledge whichit has suggested in the last verse of the preceding chapter. Itwill return indeed upon its thought hereafter to give such ulteriorlight as is needed for action and inner realisation, andwe may wait till then for a fuller knowledge of all that theseterms indicate. But before we proceed farther, it is necessary tobring out as much of the connection between these things as weare justified in understanding from this passage itself and fromwhat has gone before. For here is indicated the Gita’s idea of theprocess of the cosmos. First there is the Brahman, the highestimmutable self-existent being which all existences are behindthe play of cosmic Nature in time and space and causality, deśakāla-nimitta.For by that self-existence alone time and space andcausality are able to exist, and without that unchanging supportomnipresent, yet indivisible they could not proceed to their divisionsand results and measures. But of itself the immutable