I AM THAT WHICH IS THE SEED OF ALL — In all the above descriptive phrases, indicating through analogies the nature, place and function of the Self in the scheme of the perceptible world of forms, thoughts and ideas, it was constantly suggested that the Self is the “Source of all creation.” In order to hammer this idea into the dull-witted so that no student of the Geeta might overlook and ignore this wonderful idea which is the essence of all Knowledge-spiritual, Vyasa, again and again, makes Krishna repeat this essential truth, in a hundred different suggestive expressions.
The analogy of the seed and the tree is an inexhaustible theme for the meditators to contemplate upon. Under favourable conditions, the dormant life-content in the seed can manifest itself, and, ere long, the germinated seed can grow out to inconceivable heights and may thereafter look as though it has no relationship to the very seed from which it has sprung up. One who is viewing only the finite world of plurality — and mourning under the sledge-hammer of change and constant death — may not find in Samsara anything to remind him of the Divine, Infinite and Blissful, as the Source from which the finite and sorrowful Samsara has burst forth into expression.
The ‘seed-condition of the Universe’ is equivalent to the dormant condition of the tree before its manifestation among the two lobes of the dicotyledonous seed. Under favourable conditions, of course, the primary-shoot and the root-system will emerge, one ascending upwards to be the tree and the other burrowing down into the soil, to be the roots. The entire Universe of names and forms, in its condition of dormancy, remaining in seed-form, is the “state-of-pralaya,” conceived by and accepted in our Upanishads. This cosmic dissolution becomes more intelligible to us when we notice it happening in ourselves. In the state-of-sleep, our individual temperament, character, capability, education, culture, decency, etiquette, etc., all are in a condition of dormancy. In short, in sleep our personality-peculiarities remain in a seed-condition. When these vasanas, after an interval of restful poise, get impatient to express themselves, they emerge, and when the conditions are favourable, each of them manifests itself fully.
The restful state of the TOTAL-mind-intellect, and therefore, of all the vasanas in all of us in their condition of rest, would be the TOTAL-pralaya and, at that time the whole Universe merges back to become the “seed.” This is an illuminating example of the poetic way of expression used by all our ancient seers. This pregnant condition of the potential energy, which, after a time and under suitable circumstances, will emerge to express itself, is termed by the brilliant seers of Upanishads as the State-of-Hiranyagarbha. To translate this marvellous term as the “Golden Egg” is one of the blasphemies unconsciously committed by the Western translators who have thereby outraged the beauty of our scriptures. “The womb of all things and beings,” is all that is indicated by the term, Hiranyagarbha.
The Lord is here identifying himself with the Total-causal-bodies of the world, meaning the “total-vasana” in all the creatures, and therefore, as Ishwara, He declares that the Self is the One-great-seed from which the Tree-of-Samsara has emerged and will, in future, emerge for an infinite number of times.
By the statement “I AM THE SEED OF THE UNIVERSE,” the students of the Geeta might, during their reflection, come to a wrong conclusion altogether, inasmuch as in the outer world the seed itself dies to become the tree. Similarly, the Lord, while creating the world, might have destroyed Himself! To remove this misconception, Krishna says here, “NONE CAN EXIST WITHOUT ME, NEITHER THE MOVING, NOR THE UNMOVING.”
Not only is the Lord the Seed of the Universe, but even after its germination and growth, the ‘tree’ is also sustained by the Self. The ocean is the ‘seed,’ no doubt, of all waves, that arise on the sea’s surface. And yet, when all the waves germinate as it were, and grow up, none of them can stand apart from the Source, from which they arose. Where there is no ocean, no waves can stand, and wherever there are waves, they cannot sustain themselves except upon the grace of the ocean.
The cosmos rises up from the PRINCIPLE OF IGNORANCE that seemingly veils the Truth. This avidya (ignorance) also exists, drawing its potencies, however delusory they may be, from the Total-Source of all projections. This IGNORANCE of the Self, we know, is the ‘seed’ from which all the experienced worlds of the Universe have risen up. If the Awareness in us, Absolute and Eternal, were not to ‘illumine’ the very IGNORANCE for us, the ignorance-produced sighs and sorrows, and the perceptions of plurality will not at all be available for us; we would not have been aware of them.
Thus, just as water is the cause for starting the germination in the ‘seed,’ and again, it is water alone that can nourish and sustain the tree, even after the tree has expanded itself to its greater dimensions, so too, the Divine Self, which, by its magic-touch, thrills the seed of samsara to germinate and thrive, is Itself the nourisher and the sustainer of its dimensions at all times.
When we are told that ten sample-pieces of ornaments have all emerged from one mass of gold, and when this statement is reinforced by a pertinent codicil that, without gold, none of these sample pieces can ever exist by itself even for a moment, it becomes evident that all of them are nothing but gold. Drawing a parallel, the Lord tells us that He is the very seed from which the entire multiple Universe has risen; and this partial statement of truth is complete when it is amended by the statement in the second line that “NONE CAN EXIST WITHOUT ME.” Lord Cotton can say, “all the samples of cloth that are manufactured and used in the world have come from Me”: then it will be only true if Lord Cotton completes his statement by saying, “No sample of cloth can ever exist without Me, the Cotton-Essence.”
DRAWING TOGETHER THE VARIOUS LINES OF ARGUMENTS MADE SO FAR, KRISHNA NOW WINDS UP THIS SECTION OF HIS DISCOURSE IN THE FOLLOWING THREE VERSES:
