Chapter 8 Gita
Concept of Aksharabrahma, the unchanging brahman
In chapter 7, Sri Krishna gives the concept of Adhibhuta and talks about Moksha, the ultimate freedom. After listening to these, Arjuna as a natural enquiry ponders further on the meanings of Adibhuta, Adidaiva, Adiyagna and Adhyatma in the eighth chapter. Arjuna questions SriKrishna on all these and its relation to Karma and how would one handle death.
As a general observation, when I read this question of Arjuna and the translations on these terms like Adhibhuta, adhidaiva etc, I wonder how these lofty philosophical terms were discussed in the battlefield. We do not think of such terms even in traffic jams. One day suddenly the thought occurred to me that these words appear as hardcore philosophical terms today, but at the time of Mahabharata these could have been common terms used and there is a possibility that these terms were very much related to the war situation. Otherwise SriKrishna would not have discussed. Then I started looking at these terms in an angle related to the war and Arjuna’s agony. This whole new perspective fascinated me.
All our activities have energy or power which can be divided into three components.
1) One component is the effort we have to put from our side completely. This should be well thought of, prepared and executed well. If anything goes wrong we cannot find fault with anyone but ourselves. This is the physical contribution called Adhibhuta. What we do is cause and the fruit that it yields is the effect. Bhuta world or physical world is cause and effect related. Even such a simple thing like I eat wrong food and my stomach is upset, I can not blame anybody for that. There is no meaning in saying that God is unkind to me that he gave me health problem.
2) Now coming to Adidaiva, the second component. We take every care to see that from our side there is no negligence in an activity but unexpectedly some accident happens and the project or the activity is badly affected. This is what Krishna calls as Adhidaiva. Normally we blame god saying that god created hurdles to me or problems to me. We tend to say more often that I have done every thing right , I have always been good to others. Inspite of this, why am I punished ? God is unkind to me! I do not deserve this! Why me? .
In general,we understand the word ‘Daiva’ as ‘God’. The concept of daiva or god in Indian philosophy and culture gives a totally different picture. All those things or materials that are within our ordinary daily perception, we refer to them by their names and the same multiplied by a million times we call as God!
One ray of sunlight enters into our house we call as sun ray and a trillion of such rays put together is called as Surya or the Sun god.
A cup of water which can quench our thirst is called as water but zillion times bigger source with great degree of waves hitting the shores all the time and which has given shelter to millions of marine lives, lives much bigger than those on the land, that source is known as Ocean god!
Similarly, when an incident happens in a short time after its cause, we remember the reason for such a happening and we understand it as just a simple incident. But many times, an incident happens and the effect of it is felt after several years or even after several lives. This is referred to as the time god.
Therefore Adhidaiva is the effect of the cause, which we have created several years or lives before. The very nature of the happenings in the physical world is based on this cause and effect connection. Therefore what happens to us is the effect of what we have caused, irrespective of whether we remember the cause or not.
Another example of Adidaiva forces is the children prodigies. The kind of talent and the depth of knowledge that they exhibit, certainly reflects continuous practice or sincere sadhana for more than hundred years. The process of sadhana is forgotten by the individual, however the individual is reaping its benefits now.
In the words Adidaiva also belongs to physical world and no god is trying to do good or wrong to you from any other part of the universe. Adidaiva is in other words, the result of karma we have done in the past(distant) or simply ‘THE KARMIC EFFECT’.
3) Apart from these two, we have a third force within us in all transactions which is called as Adhyatma. This can be easily understood by a simple hypothetical example. Two people are having similar kind of unexpected failure experiences. One will be easily disturbed by the situation and curses and blames people around and the other smiles and excuses the other with large heart. To react, not to react or respond in a different way is the real freedom and divinity of us, and shastras say this is our nature. SriKrishna refers to this freedom to respond as our swabhava. One who realizes this freedom will not anymore complain and blame but will smile and will remain peaceful.
In life of Jesus it is said that when he was being taken to the crucifixion he had initially complained, saying why me and what mistake have I done. But a moment later he said, “Forgive them Oh lord, they don’t know what they are doing”. This is the transformation from ’Son of Mary’ to ‘Son of God’.
Now coming back to the relevance of these terms in the Kurukshetra, War is a indeed very intense situation. It has happened due to their past karma only, whether they remember them or not. Every moment something extreme and unexpected would happen. Arjuna has to participate with complete involvement, but eventually he must be able to detach from it.
This is also the story in everyone’s life. Every moment for us is the death and re-emergence, because a moment that is gone is gone for ever and is not going to come back for ever.
One of the greatest slokas in this chapter or in the whole Gita is, where Krishna says
“Right from the gross physical world upto the world of brahman, the cyclic nature or the cause and effect relationship is present. The final freedom is to transcend this bondage.
To summarise, we understand that gross world is definitely bound by cause and effect connection. It is also true that the subtle world is also bound by this law and this law decides majorly our situations in life. Together with this law of cause and effect, we also are consciousness whose essential nature is freedom. Hence, we can choose to get affected and react to life's situations . By reacting,we are only showing our commitment to lack of freedom. The other possibility is that, we can choose to detach from the situation, pause and respond. This is broadly called as detachment. Thus when we detach ourselves from this physical and subtle world happenings, then we become one with the Divinity . This is a state of being still.
Let us take a beautiful and simple example from nature. A big tree is in the manifested form, whereas the same tree is in the unmanifest form inside the seed. Manifested big tree is the Jagat or stula or Ksharabrahman.The tree in the unmanifest form or sukshma in the seed and this is also Kshara brahman . The quality that transforms beyond is known as Akshara brahman, the unchanging brahman or Karana Brahman.
Hence these concepts of Adibhuta, adidhava and adhyatma is so relevant as we are all involved in karma , the cause and effect cycle. Karma is done in the Manifest or stula ,the intention is in sukshma and both are referred to as kshara Brahman , cosciousness with limited freedom. Hence, we need to be aware to not create negativity both at the activity(sthula) level and at the intention(sukshma) level.
The complete freedom behind all this is the karana brahman. When we practice detachment gradually, we reach the state of stillness inspite of doing the worldly activities. This is the being in Akshara Brahman.
Love,
N V Raghuram