I AM SEATED IN THE HEARTS OF ALL — If there be thus an Infinite Omnipotent Power that manifests Itself as the different things and beings in the world, how can a seeker make his pilgrimage towards It and meet this Great Divine? Lord Krishna says that He lives in the Hearts of all living creatures. Here the HEART does not mean the physiological “heart” but it is the metaphysical HEART. The term HEART, in philosophy, means “mind which has been trained to entertain constantly the positive qualities of love, tolerance, mercy, charity, kindness, and like.” A peaceful, joyous mind, settled in tranquillity, alert and vigilant to receive higher intimations, is called the “heart.” The Infinite ‘DWELLS IN THE HEART’means, though He is present everywhere the Lord is most conspicuously self-evident, during meditation, in the HEART of the meditator.

FROM ME ARE MEMORY KNOWLEDGE, AS WELL AS THEIR ABSENCE — The Consciousness Divine has been declared above as revelling in the heart of every living creature. This Light-of-Life seems to have no particular justification to exit since all perceptions are through the body, all feelings are through the mind, all thoughts are through the intellect. The Geeta here declares what exactly is then the special grace of Consciousness. It is the light of Consciousness that illumines all our experiences in Life. From this Supreme alone all memories, knowledge, as well as forgetfulness, come to us. Memory is constituted of our experiences of the past, stored away in our understanding which guide our present and future activities. All education and knowledge that we have at this moment are memories from the past. Unless we are aware of these memories, they will not be available in our present life. Reacting properly to the present sets of stimuli and thereby gaining fresh and vivid experiences, is the process of widening our field of knowledge. And all these processes are possible only in the Light of Life.

Acquisition of new knowledge presupposes our capacity to give up our earlier false notions. Imperfect knowledge gets weeded out when a person is cultivating new knowledge. A capacity to forget is an essential pre-requisite in acquiring fresh knowledge. This stanza explains that all these subjective activities, mental and intellectual, arise from and are maintained by the Conscious Principle, the Lord-Himself.

IT IS I THAT IS TO BE KNOWN BY ALL THE VEDAS — In all the scriptures of the world, including the various portions of all the Vedas in India, Krishna says, this Infinite Consciousness is the one common factor that has been extolled and adored. To realise this is to reach the goal-of-life, the fulfilment of existence. The Consciousness that revels in the hearts of all living creatures is the non-dual Immortal Reality, the All-pervading and It is the only substratum for the pluralistic world of experiences.

I AM INDEED THE AUTHOR OF VEDANTA, AS WELL AS THE KNOWER OF THE VEDAS — Since Consciousness alone is the Eternal Reality, and everything else is a projection upon it, the very essence in everything, as expressed in the Vedas also, is this Consciousness. The seeker who listens to the Vedas reflects upon their wisdom, and ultimately comes to experience the fulfilment of his life, is also at no stage anything other than the same Consciousness.

In short, it has been said that the Consciousness is the Light in the Sun; it is the same Consciousness that fertilises the earth; the Consciousness as moonlight supplies food-value to the plant-kingdom; it is Truth Itself, as the body-warmth that presides over the assimilation of the food within the body, and supervises the process of life’s transactions with the world outside; and it is the same Light of Consciousness that makes it possible for us to gain experience, to store away knowledge, and to replace ignorance with better knowledge.

The Eternal Principle which thus expresses Itself as the phenomenal powers — which, with their activities make it possible for life to exist on the surface of the earth, and which helps the higher life to grow and expand into wisdom — is the very theme indicated in the Vedas as the Eternal Reality, and to know it and to bring It under our experience is to know the Infinite.

Till now the earlier verses have enumerated the glories of Narayana, the Blessed Lord, as manifested through the various vehicles such as the Sun, the moon, the earth, the body, the mind and the intellect. Now, in the following verses, Lord Krishna points out the True Nature of the Infinite as the unconditioned (Niru-padhika), All pervading (Sarva gatah) and Eternal (Nityah). This Infinite Reality transcends all intellectual concepts, such as the finite and the infinite — as the perishable and the imperishable.

CONSIDERING THE RELATIVE WORLD OF EXPERIENCE, BHAGAWAN SAYS:

And aham, I, as the Self; san-nivistah, am seated; hrdi, in the hearts, in the intellects; sarvasya, of all creatures. Therefore, with regard to all the creatures, mattah, from Me, from the Self; are Smrtih, memory; jnanam, knowledge; and their apohanam, loss. The knowledge and memory of these creatures who perform good deeds come from Me in accordance with the good deeds; similarly, the loss, deterioration, of memory and knowledge of those who perform evil deeds comes from Me in accordance with the evil deeds. Aham eva, I alone, the supreme Self; am the vedyah, object to be known; sarvaih, through all; vedaih, the Vedas. I am also the vedanta-krt, the originator of the Vedanta, i.e., the source of the traditional school of the teachings of Vedanta; and aham eva, I Myself; am the veda-vit, knower of the Vedas, the knower of the teachings of the Vedas. In the verses beginning with, ‘That light in the sun which…’ (12), etc. have been stated briefly the majesty of God, the Lord called Naravana, which arise from special limiting adjuncts. Now then, the succeeding verses are begun with a view to determining the real nature of that very Lord as the Unconditioned and Absolute, by distinguishing Him from the limiting adjuncts, (viz) the mutable and the immutable. In that connection, after dividing into three parts [The two limiting adjuncts-the mutable and the immutable-, and the supreme Self.] all the teachings of the preceding and the immediately succeeding chapters, the Lord says: