The essential oneness between the MANIFEST that has come out of the UNMANIFEST, and the very UNMANIFEST which is the womb-of-manifestation, has been beautifully brought out by the picture of the river, which has risen from the ocean and is, in all haste, rushing down only to lose its very name and form, and become one with the ocean.
No analogy can be complete in itself. The picture of the river does not show any intrinsic conscious effort on the part of the river to reach the ocean. The living kingdom, with its own free discrimination, it may be doubted, may not act as the inert waters of the river. To show that even the sentient beings are irresistibly drawn towards the mouth of their own destruction, by the whipping hand of instinct, the example of “THE MOTHS PRECIPITATELY RUSHING INTO THE BLAZING FIRE TO PERISH” is given. To Vyasa, the entire nature seems to be an open book-of-scripture, explaining everywhere in all its happenings, the fundamental facts that “the projection of the unmanifest to the manifest-condition is the PROCESS OF CREATION” and that “the manifest merging back to its own heaven of the unmanifest is DESTRUCTION OR DEATH.” That terrible looking monstrous happening called ‘death,’ when approached in a correct perspective and with true understanding, unmasks itself to reveal a gladdening face, ever cheerful and gay.
Arjuna’s mental tension was mainly created by his hasty evaluation of the enormous destruction he would be causing in the battle-field of Kurukshetra. Krishna has to cure him, by lifting him to heights from which he could witness and realise, in one sweeping gaze, the unavoidable phenomenon of death. A close and full understanding of any happening removes the fangs from its threatening hood! It is only when the discriminating intellect of man becomes doped with “ignorance,” that the happenings around him can threaten to smother him down. As the river hastens to the ocean, and the moths into the fire, so too all names and forms must, and most irresistibly do, rush towards the unmanifest. With this realisation, anyone can thereafter face life, fearless of death, since life itself becomes to him a process of continuous change.
THEREFORE DEATH, AS A PLAY-OF-TIME, BECOMES A STINGLESS PHENOMENON. THIS IS GLORIFIED IN ALL ITS FEROCIOUS BEAUTY IN THE FOLLOWING VERSES:
