In order that the students may not misunderstand this mystic symbolism, and take the Tree too literally, the Geeta acharya owns that ‘ITS FORM, AS SUCH, IS NOT PERCEIVED HERE.’ The Tree-of-life, as described in the previous stanzas, evidently represents the entire field of manifested life. The subtle Principle of Life manifests through us, in different planes and in a variety of forms — as perceptions of the body; as emotions and feelings of the mind; as ideals and thoughts of the intellect; and as mere non-apprehension of the causal-body. All these vehicles and their experiences, manifesting in the Infinite Life, in their totality, constitute the Ashwatth a-tree spreading out into all quarters. Naturally, therefore, Lord Krishna says that very few have the comprehensive vision to see them all as such in one gaze.

Not only are the different vehicles and their expressions not recognised as such in their entirety, but very few of us in the world come to recognise “THEIR END OR THEIR BEGINNING, OR THEIR EXISTENCE.’ The Tree-of-life springs from the ‘ignorance’of Reality (Avidya) and it ends on the “realisation of the Self” (Vidya), and it exists only so long as the mental demands and desires (vasanas) function. These subjective implications are not generally perceived, or recognised, or understood, by the majority of men.

The manifested world constituting the Ashwattha-tree can be cleft ‘BY THE STRONG AXE OF DETACHMENT.” The world of matter is inert and insentient. The experience of life gained through it is known and lived only because of the play of Consciousness upon it. As long as the wheels of a car are geared on to the machine, the vehicle moves. In case we can clutch the motive-power off from the moving wheels, the vehicle must necessarily come to its own natural motionless condition. Similarly, if Consciousness is withdrawn from the body-mind-intellect vehicle, its play of perception-emotion-thought must necessarily halt. This clutching off of Consciousness from the inert matter vehicles is detachment. With the axe of detachment, Krishna advises Arjuna, to cut down the tree of multiple experiences.

At our present level of conscious-existence we are apt to protest against this advice, because, to us detachment from these three vehicles is a complete retirement from the worlds of perception, from the realms of emotion, and from the fields of thought. In fact, we know no other world to tread, and therefore, intellectually, we reach but a state of utter nihilistic nothingness. This is a despairing situation indeed. But Krishna adds, almost in the same breath, “THEN THAT GOAL SHOULD BE SOUGHT AFTER, TO WHICH MEN GO AND DO NOT RETURN AGAIN.”

On the whole, the tone of suggestion and the manner of expression in these two stanzas clearly indicate that the students who seek the Divine in themselves should learn to withdraw more and more from their usual dissipations with perceptions, feelings and thoughts, and must, in “the still moments of meditation, contemplate upon the Higher — the Source from which the Ashwattha-tree itself draws its sustenance and nourishment.

Had this advice been merely given out and left at that, it would have been, at best, only a poetic vision, or an impossible suggestion. As a practical hand-book of instructions to man on how to live nobly and grow out of his instinctive weaknesses, the Geeta has to show the seekers some practical methods of self-improvement at every stage. And this is accomplished when the stanzas are closed with a prayer: “I SEEK REFUGE IN THAT PRIMEVAL PURUSHA WHENCE STREAMED FORTH THE ANCIENT CURRENT.”

The stanza indicates that when our personality has, to a maximum degree, retired from its extrovert pursuits, the intellect is to be consciously turned, in an attitude of love and surrender, to the goal — the goal from which the stream of Consciousness flows to the matter-vehicles facilitating them to play their parts. In short, HALT the manifestations of life, and seek the Eternal Life, the Source of all expressions of life. What this primeval Purusha is and how one is to conceive It is the theme of the entire chapter.

WHAT SORT OF SEEKERS REACH THE GOAL? LISTEN:

Tatah, thereafter; tat, that; padam, State of Visnu; parimargitavyam, has to be sought for, i.e. realized; gatah, going, entering; yasmin, where, into which State; they na, do not; nivartanti, return; bhuyah, again, for worldly life. As to how It is to be sought for, the Lord says: Prapadye, I take refuge; tam, in that; adyam, Primeval-existing from the beginning; purusam, Person, who has been mentioned by the word State; eva, Himself. The search has to be carried on thus, i.e., by taking refuge in Him. Who is that Person? That is being stated: Yatah, from whom, from which Person; prasrta, has ensued, like jugglery from a magician; purani, the eternal; pravrttih, Manifestation, the magic Tree of the World. What kind of persons reach that State? This is being answered: