Bhagavad Gita – Chapter V Part 3

• nadatte kasyacit papam na
• caiva sukrtam vibhuh
• ajnanenavrtam jnanam tena
• muhyanti jantavah.

Purport:
The Sanskrit word vibhu means the Supreme Lord who is full of
unlimited knowledge, riches, strength, fame, beauty and renunciation. He is always satisfied in Himself, undisturbed by sinful or pious
activities. He does not create a particular situation for any living
entity, but the living entity, bewildered by ignorance, desires to be
put into certain conditions of life, and thereby his chain of action
and reaction begins. A living entity is, by superior nature, full of
knowledge. Nevertheless, he is prone to be influenced by ignorance
due to his limited power. The Lord is omnipotent, but the living
entity is not. The Lord is vibhu, or omniscient, but the living entity is
anu, or atomic. Because he is a living soul, he has the capacity to
desire by his free will. Such desire is fulfilled only by the omnipotent
Lord.

And so, when the living entity is bewildered in his desires, the
Lord allows him to fulfill those desires, but the Lord is never
responsible for the actions and reactions of the particular situation
which may be desired. Being in a bewildered condition, therefore,
the embodied soul identifies himself with the circumstantial material
body and becomes subjected to the temporary misery and happiness
of life. The Lord is the constant companion of the living entity as
Paramatma, or the Supersoul, and therefore He can understand the
desires of the individual soul, as one can smell the flavor of a flower
by being near it. Desire is a subtle form of conditioning for the living
entity. The Lord fulfills his desire as he deserves: Man proposes and
God disposes. The individual is not, therefore, omnipotent in fulfilling his desires. The Lord, however, can fulfill all desires, and the
Lord, being neutral to everyone, does not interfere with the desires
of the minute independent living entities. However, when one desires
Krishna, the Lord takes special care and encourages one to desire in
such a way that one can attain to Him and be eternally happy. The
Vedic hymns therefore declare: “The Lord engages the living entity in pious activities so that he may be elevated. The Lord engages him in impious activities so that he may go to hell.”

“The living entity is completely dependent in his distress and happiness. By the will of the Supreme he can go to heaven or hell, as a
cloud is driven by the air.”

Therefore the embodied soul, by his immemorial desire to avoid
Krishna consciousness, causes his own bewilderment. Consequently,
although he is constitutionally eternal, blissful and cognizant, due to
the littleness of his existence he forgets his constitutional position of
service to the Lord and is thus entrapped by nescience. And, under
the spell of ignorance, the living entity claims that the Lord is
responsible for his conditional existence. The Vedanta-sutras
also confirm this: “The Lord neither hates nor likes anyone, though He
appears to.”

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:

When, however, one is enlightened with the knowledge by which
nescience is destroyed, then his knowledge reveals everything, as the
sun lights up everything in the daytime.

Purport:
Those who have forgotten Krishna must certainly be bewildered, but
those who are in Krishna consciousness are not bewildered at all. It is
stated in the Bhagavad-Gita,. Knowledge is always
highly esteemed. And what is that knowledge? Perfect knowledge is
achieved when one surrenders unto Krishna, as is said in the Seventh
Chapter, 19th verse: After passing through many, many births, when one perfect in knowledge surrenders unto Krishna, or when one attains Krishna
consciousness, then everything is revealed to him, as everything is
revealed by the sun in the daytime. The living entity is bewildered in
so many ways. For instance, when he unceremoniously thinks him-
self God, he actually falls into the last snare of nescience. If a living
entity is God, then how can he become bewildered by nescience?

Does God become bewildered by nescience? If so, then nescience, or
Satan, is greater than God. Real knowledge can be obtained from a
person who is in perfect Krishna consciousness. Therefore, one has to
seek out such a bona fide spiritual master and, under him, learn what
Krishna consciousness is, for Krishna consciousness will certainly drive
away all nescience, as the sun drives away darkness. Even though a
person may be in full knowledge that he is not this body but is
transcendental to the body, he still may not be able to discriminate
between the soul and the Supersoul. However, he can know every-
thing well if he cares to take shelter of the perfect, bona fide Krishna
conscious spiritual master. One can know God and one’s relation-
ship with God only when one actually meets a representative of God.

A representative of God never claims that he is God, although he is
paid all the respect ordinarily paid to God because he has knowledge
of God. One has to learn the distinction between God and the living
entity. Lord Sri Krishna therefore stated in the Second Chapter (2.12)
that every living being is individual and that the Lord also is individual. They were all individuals in the past, they are individuals at
present, and they will continue to be individuals in the future, even
after liberation. At night we see everything as one in the darkness,
but in day, when the sun is up, we see everything in its real identity.
Identity with individuality in spiritual life is real knowledge.

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:
When one’s intelligence, mind, faith and refuge are all fixed in the
Supreme, then one becomes fully cleansed of misgivings through
complete knowledge and thus proceeds straight on the path of
liberation.

Purport:

The Supreme Transcendental Truth is Lord Krishna. The whole
Bhagavad-Gita centers around the declaration that Krishna is the
Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the version of all Vedic
literature. Para-tattva means the Supreme Reality, who is under-
stood by the knowers of the Supreme as Brahman, Paramatma and
Bhagavan. Bhagavan, or the Supreme Personality of Godhead, is the
last word in the Absolute. There is nothing more than that. The Lord
says. Impersonal Brahman is also supported by Krishna:
Therefore in all ways Krishna is the Supreme Reality. One whose
mind, intelligence, faith and refuge are always in Krishna, or, in other
words, one who is fully in Krishna consciousness, is undoubtedly
washed clean of all misgivings and is in perfect knowledge in every-
thing concerning transcendence. A Krishna conscious person can
thoroughly understand that there is duality (simultaneous identity
and individuality) in Krishna, and, equipped with such transcendental
knowledge, one can make steady progress on the path of liberation.

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:
The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision
a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a
dog-eater [outcaste].

Purport:
A Krishna conscious person does not make any distinction between
species or castes. The brahmana and the outcaste may be different
from the social point of view, or a dog, a cow, and an elephant may
be different from the point of view of species, but these differences of
body are meaningless from the viewpoint of a learned transcendentalist. This is due to their relationship to the Supreme, for the
Supreme Lord, by His plenary portion as Paramatma, is present in
everyone’s heart. Such an understanding of the Supreme is real
knowledge. As far as the bodies are concerned in different castes or
different species of life, the Lord is equally kind to everyone because
He treats every living being as a friend yet maintains Himself as
Paramatma regardless of the circumstances of the living entities.

The Lord as Paramatma is present both in the outcaste and in the
brahmana, although the body of a brahmana and that of an outcaste
are not the same. The bodies are material productions of different
modes of material nature, but the soul and the Supersoul within the
body are of the same spiritual quality. The similarity in the quality of
the soul and the Supersoul, however, does not make them equal in
quantity, for the individual soul is present only in that particular
body whereas the Paramatma is present in each and every body. A
Krishna conscious person has full knowledge of this, and therefore he
is truly learned and has equal vision. The similar characteristics of
the soul and Supersoul are that they are both conscious, eternal and
blissful. But the difference is that the individual soul is conscious
within the limited jurisdiction of the body whereas the Supersoul is
conscious of all bodies. The Supersoul is present in all bodies
without distinction.

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:
Those whose minds are established in sameness and equanimity
have already conquered the conditions of birth and death. They are
flawless like Brahman, and thus they are already situated in
Brahman.

Purport:

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:

A person who neither rejoices upon achieving something pleasant
nor laments upon obtaining something unpleasant, who is self-
intelligent, who is un-bewildered, and who knows the science of God,
is already situated in transcendence.

Purport:

Sanskrit working:

English Wording:

English Translation:

Such a liberated person is not attracted to material sense pleasure
but is always in trance, enjoying the pleasure within. In this way the
self-realized person enjoys unlimited happiness, for he concentrates
on the Supreme.

Purport: