Verses 7.6–7.9🔗

Iam the thread,’ He says. ‘I am the thread, the sūtra, the technique on which all Existence is strung.’ mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya I mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ sūtre maṇi gaṇā iva II 7.7 ‘O Dhanañjaya, conqueror of wealth, there is no truth superior to Me. Everything rests upon Me, as pearls are strung on a thread.’ He declares powerfully—‘mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ—In Me is strung everything! sūtre maṇi gaṇā iva—Everything rests on Me as pearls strung on a thread.’ He declares with complete clarity that He is the thread of everything. What a beautiful analogy! That is why He is the sūtradhāra, the controller and director of the Cosmic play!

Nothing moves, nothing can move without Him. Nothing can be created, sustained or destroyed in the absence of His energy. People often ask me why I call myself ‘Swami’. They question me as to why I dress up in these ways and allow myself to be photographed. I tell them that I do not even identify with this body. This skin itself is alien to me. There is no difference between this skin and other coverings? So how does it matter? I look at myself the way you look at me, as a witness! Or the way you and I look at an idol. If this body is dressed well, I feel good—the same way you feel good seeing it dressed up, that’s all.

I am just a witness. God—An Idea? For you, God is a mere concept; He is just an idea. It is another play of your mind. You think of God and attribute various concepts to Him. You talk about Him in the same manner in which you would talk about a friend or relative, perhaps more glowingly or less glowingly depending on your inclination at that point in time. To you, your identity and your identification with your body-mind is real. Without this identity you are lost. If someone does not recognize you, you suffer. The moment someone praises you, you are in the seventh heaven. Your identity is your reality.

‘I’ is what makes you alive. To me, God is reality. I live with God every moment. The body, mind and the body-mind identification does not exist for me. It is only a concept! Therefore, when I refer to myself, I refer to that body-mind the same way that you refer to it. I too call it Swami or whatever! I cannot move a finger without permission from Existence, from that Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, that cosmic Kṛṣṇa. You may think, ‘This sounds nonsensical. He says he is enlightened and then he says there is nothing that he can do; he can do only as Existence dictates.’ Nonsense or not, this is the truth.

Whether you understand it or not, whether you accept it or not, this is the truth. What makes me move, talk, see and do all that you do is only what the Universe dictates. My disciples know that when someone with deep faith in me comes with a problem, I say, ‘I’ll take care.’ If it is someone who is yet to develop that deep faith, I say that I shall meditate or pray to Nityānandeśvara (Lord Śiva gracing as chief deity at Nithyānanda ashrams) for them! They go away happy to hear that. When I say, ‘I shall Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 513 take care,’ there is nothing special that I do.

I just pass it on to Existence. It is for Her to take care. Because I have that immense faith in Her, She always obliges! Things happen. People know that the energy beads that they wear, the string of rudrākṣa beads or sandalwood beads, is not a mere rosary. It is their hotline to connect to Existence. There have been so many people who share their experiences with the rudrākṣa. When someone is desperately in need of help of some sort, they simply hold onto the rudrākṣa beads and pray. The results are always instantaneous. All this has nothing to do with me although they hold onto the rudrākṣa thinking of me.

It has to do with Existence. The moment I feel that it is a result of my penance, it will stop happening! There is nothing that ‘I’ can do. There is nothing that this energy can do. That is what Kṛṣṇa talks about here. The great Master says, I am not what you see. I am not the energy that is manifested. It is not this six-foot Kṛṣṇa with a flute and peacock feather that makes things happen. It is the formless energy beyond Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa (Kṛṣṇa, the being in body, son of Vāsudeva). It is Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa (the Cosmic energy). Whenweseeanecklaceorgarland,dowenoticethethread,thesūtra? If it is a pearl or diamond necklace we may get it threaded in gold, but still we rarely notice the thread.

We delight over the pearls or diamonds, yet never think about the thread that holds them together, unless it snaps and all the pearls and diamonds spill on the floor. Then, we blame the thread! Kṛṣṇa says, He is the unseen thread—sūtre maṇi gaṇā, without which no rudrākṣa can exist. He says He is the unseen essence—mayi sarvam idaṁ protaṁ, without which there can be no substance. He says He is the unseen ultimate energy without which there can be no Universe— mattaḥ parataraṁ nānyat kiñcid asti dhanañjaya. Have you ever wondered how this Universe operates? There are billions of planets like ours, millions of solar systems, thousands of galaxies and many Universes.

There is nothing that anyone can see that is controlling this Universe. We need traffic lights and policemen to control traffic on our roads. In the Milky Way there are no policemen to control the movements of planets and stars. Yet they move unerringly! Can you imagine the intelligence that controls multiple Universes? How is there such discipline and order in that seeming chaos that no one is in charge of? No one is responsible, or is someone? On the other hand, within this small body of ours we try to control everything. We control the food we eat, how much we exercise, how much we play, etc. Yet we can predict nothing about it.

Despite all the order that we impose, there is chaos sometimes! Control does not bring about order; it never can. Freedom brings about order. Chaos is freedom. Chaos is choice. The ultimate chaos is the cosmic Kṛṣṇa; He is also the Ultimate order too. Kṛṣṇa illustrates what He said earlier with specific examples. The beauty of Kṛṣṇa’s teaching in the Bhagavad Gītā is the depth to which He goes to make everything crystal clear to Arjuna. He makes no assumptions, takes nothing for granted. It is as if Arjuna is a child and He is the parent or teacher. For the Lord of the Universe to take the trouble to ensure complete understanding shows the depth of His compassion.

I explained earlier that in the five natural elements, the essence of ether is sound, of air is touch, of fire is form and heat, of water is taste and of earth is smell. Kṛṣṇa explains that He is the essential quality in each of these elements; also that He is the praṇava mantra—primordial sound—‘Oṁ’ and the radiance of the Sun and Moon. Life, any form of life in this and any other planet, cannot exist without this energy of cosmic Kṛṣṇa. But living within this energy field we lose sight of this energy. We become energy-unconscious. Kabir, the mystic poet said hauntingly, we are like fish that are immersed in life-giving water yet cry out saying, ‘We are thirsty.’

Kabir advises: Fool, become aware! You cannot be a fish in water and be thirsty! This is an incident from Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa’s life. Rāmakṛṣṇa asks his disciple Vivekananda, ‘Narendra (his pre-monasteral name), what would you do if you were a fly and you sat on the edge of a pool of divine nectar, amṛta?’ Jñānavijñāna Yogaḥ Listen, Cognize And Radiate 515 Without hesitation Vivekananda responds, ‘I shall sip from it, of course.’ Rāmakṛṣṇa says, ‘Fool, you should fall into that pool and drown! How can you fear drowning in life-giving nectar?’ We are afraid, always afraid. We have no trust in ourselves and therefore no trust in Existence. If God were to come in front of us in any form other than what we recognize as Him, we would ask for His identification card!

Our intelligence is limited to visualizing Kṛṣṇa in His yellow dress with His flute and a peacock feather stuck in His hair. If Kṛṣṇa comes covered in ash, with a snake around His neck, the Kṛṣṇa follower will throw stones at Him saying, ‘That is Śiva. I do not worship Śiva.’ There are people who claim to have imbibed the Gītā, understood every word the Lord says, and yet have questioned me as to how I can worship Śiva in the āśram when I say Kṛṣṇa is the ultimate! It is for these people that Kṛṣṇa goes into such depths to explain that He is everything and above everything. He is the Creator—Brahma, the Sustainer—Viṣṇu and the Rejuvenator—Śiva. He is not either or; He is all and above all. I Am Eternal