The Bhagavad-Gita — The God Song. Chapter IX: The Secret supreme

The Secret supreme is the Knowledge supreme. It cannot be told. It has to be realised and it can be realised. This supreme Secret is written in letters of gold in the inmost recesses of each divinely human heart. It rejects none, no, not even the one who is dead in sin. He who has no faith in what Krishna says will have no escape from the fetters of ignorance. To have faith is to have a piece of singular good fortune. Like exemplary devotion, faith too needs a personal God and it has one. Faith is not blind belief. Faith is not a blind unquestioning surrender to the sacred books. Faith is the conscious awareness of one’s limitless freedom. Krishna says: “O Arjuna, salvation is not for him who has no faith. Forever he is bound to the sorrows of life and to the pangs of death.” He who walks along the road of faith will see for himself the Truth supreme here on earth. The determination of the seeker’s aspiring heart is his mystic faith. The conviction of the seeker’s revealing soul is his triumphant faith. An ordinary, unaspiring man is buoyed by the worlds of false hopes. But a man of faith always lives in the worlds of forceful affirmation. Cheerfully and unreservedly he heaps more and more fuel of sterling faith at the Altar of God. Needless to say that the flowering of his soul runs apace.

Krishna smilingly says: “The deluded slight Me, my human incarnations, knowing not that I am the Lord supreme of all beings.”

To recognise an Avatar is not an easy thing. Either one has to be blessed by the Avatar himself or one has to possess the gift of inner vision. An aspirant has to prepare himself in order to recognise an Avatar. He has to shun sense-pleasure. He must not be controlled by passions. It is he who has to control his passions. He has to breathe in constantly the breath of purity. Fear he has to tear down. Doubt he has to smite. Peace he has to invoke. Joy he has to imbibe.

To perform abstruse rites and ceremonies is not necessary. Self-giving is the only thing required. He accepts everything with greatest joy. We can start our inner journey offering Him leaves, flowers and fruits. Even the smallest act of offering to God is the truest step on the path of self-discovery and God-discovery. We think. If we offer our ‘thinking’ to God, this very act of offering our thought will ultimately make us one with God the Thought. An ordinary man feels that he thinks just because he lives. But Descartes holds altogether a different view: “I think, therefore I am.” This “I am” is not only the fruit of creation, but the breath of creation. Significant are the words of Bertrand Russell: “Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death.”

If we can discover a true, divine thought, then in no time God will ask or compel time to be on our side. Nothing save time can help us feel the breath of Truth and touch the feet of God. We can own Eternity’s time if we truly want to. Sweet and meaningful are the words of Austin Dobson:

“Time goes, you say? Ah no!
Alas, Time stays, we go.”

We serve. If we serve Him, Him alone in humanity, we become one with His absolute Reality and His universal Oneness. We must not forget that our dedicated service must be rendered with a flood-tide of purest enthusiasm.

Verse 29 is a very familiar and popular one. "To Me all are alike, I know no favour. I know no disfavour. My loving devotees who worship me are in me. I am also in them.” This is an experience that stands out in bold relief in a true seeker’s life, There is no special privilege. Everybody is granted the same opportunity. It goes without saying that a true devotee has already gone through arduous spiritual disciplines. Now if he grows into a genuine devotee and becomes dear and intimate to Krishna, then it should be understood that he is having the result of his past iron disciplines and severe austerities. No pain, no gain. No sincerity, no success. Have aspiration. It will accelerate your progress, inner and outer.

The devotee aspires. Sri Krishna resides in his aspiration. The devotee realises. In his realisation he discovers that Krishna is his eternal breath. A devotee is never alone. He has discovered the true Truth that his self-sacrifice unites him with his Lord. The more he consciously offers himself to the Lord, the stronger becomes their divine bond of union, nay oneness.

Anityam (Not lasting, fleeting); Asukham (pleasureless, joyless). The outer world abides in our earth-bound consciousness. This earth-bound consciousness can be transformed into the Eternal Consciousness through aspiration, devotion and surrender. And the Eternal Consciousness houses perpetual joy. Liberation has to be achieved here in this world. Any man of promise will gladly subscribe to Emerson’s dauntless declaration:

When we look at the world with our inner eye, the world is beautiful. This beauty is the reflection of one’s own divinity. God the Beautiful has our aspiring heart as His eternal Throne. We, the seekers of the Supreme, can never see eye to eye with Nietzsche’s proud philosophy. He utters: "The world is beautiful, but has a disease called Man.” On the contrary, we can say in unmistakable terms that the world is beautiful because it has been illumined by a supernal beauty called Man.

Anityam and Asukham cannot blight the heart of a true seeker. His faith is married to his golden fate.

He sings and sings:

“My eternal days are found in speeding time,
I play upon his Flute of rhapsody.
Impossible deeds no more impossible seem,
In birth-chains now shines Immortality.”