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Commentary by Jayaram V
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17. Know that to be imperishable by which all that is pervaded; for none can bring about the destruction of this indestructible substance. |
Reality must always and eternally be real in order to be considered as truly
real. Reality is "is not", but to be and always. If an object exists today and disappears
the next day, can it be called real when it is not existing? The waves on the ocean
shores come and go, raise and fall. They are there one moment and disappear the
next. Does a particular wave is real the moment it has plunged itself into the ocean
for an eternal rest? A tree majestically standing in the front yard of the house
today is struck down by a lightening tomorrow. The child hood of the aged and the
matured is full of pleasant experiences but today only a memory. Is their childhood
now real except in memory? The mankind has a history of perhaps a million years.
Its past is buried in the labyrinths of the benign earth. Whether their history
is anymore real?
The material universe is perishable. Every thing in it is made of some perishable
substance. Each of them has a beginning and an end. The physical universe is a grand
stage in which the objects enact their drama of continuos transformation from one
form into another, one state into another. The stars, the sun, the moon, even the
earth have to disappear some day perhaps into some frighteningly self-absorbing
atomic soup. The human body on death cannot just disappear into itself. It has to
disappear into some thing else which is more enduing than the body itself. The same
is true with the consciousness. It must disappear into some greater consciousness
capable of absorbing it. And the material universe itself has to some day disappear
into something else because it cannot continue in the same form. And when that happens,
it should disappear into some greater power that has greater capacity and endurance.
Logically, for the comprehension of the human mind, it is appropriate to say
that the universe is made of up of several levels, layers or grades of reality.
Each level has its own qualities, nature of existence and specific period of endurance.
Some realities are momentary, like the waves, the flash of the lightening, the thoughts
in the mind, the images on the mind's screen etc., Some other realities are more
enduring like the life on earth, the cycle of the seasons, the flow of the rivers,
the monuments of human creation and so on. The existence of the heavenly bodies,
of the evolved souls serving in the higher worlds, is still more enduring. But however
enduring they may be, they too have to perish some day or the other. They all have
a well-defined beginning and an end. They are subject to the laws of creation and
destruction. They are all made of destructible substances and have to meet their
ends.
The only reality, the ultimate reality, the highest reality, that survives and
continues, without a beginning and an end is the divine existence, the all-pervading
supreme existence, which alone is worthy enough to be termed as "Reality"; the imperishable
Reality of Realities made of the indestructible substance. It is behind all known
visible and transient reality, connecting every thing in an invisible way to its
own indivisible Self.
Bhagavadgita Chapter 2 Verses 1- 21
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