Bhagavadgita -Radhakrishnan 11

The Bhagavadgita -S. Radhakrishnan

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY 4. Ultimate Reality The interest which inspired Plato's instruction to the astronomers of the Academy "to save the appearances," made the seers of the Upnisads look upon the world as meaningful. In the words of the Taittiriya Up., the Supreme is that "from which these beings are born, that by which they live and that into which, when departing, they enter." According to the Veda, "He is the God who is in fire, in water, who pervades the entire universe; He who is in plants, in trees, to Him we make our obeisance "It is impossible to say what God is in Himself and it is more exact to speak of Him by excluding everything. Indeed He is nothing of that which is . . . above being itself." again and again," "Who would have exerted, who would have lived, if this supreme bliss had not been in the heavens ?" The theistic emphasis becomes prominent in the Svetdsvatara Up. "He, who is one and without any colour (visible form), by the manifold wielding of His power, ordains many colours (forms) with a concealed purpose and into whom, in the beginning and the end, the universe dissolves, He is the God. May He endow us with an understanding which leads to good actions.". Again "Thou art the woman, thou. art the man ; thou art the youth and also the maiden ; thou as an old man totterest with a stick, being born. Thou art facing all directions. " Again, "His form is not capable of being seen ; with the eye no one sees Him. They who know Him thus with the heart, with the mind, as abiding in the heart, become immortal." He is a universal God who Himself is the universe which He includes within His own being. He is the light within us, hrdyantar jyotih. He is the Supreme whose shadow is life and death.