HE ATTAINS PEACE ON KNOWING ME — It is never to be forgotten that, in the Geeta whenever Lord Krishna uses the first person singular, he does not mean the mortal framework of the son of Devaki, but indicates the Self in the individual — the Eternal Principle, Sri Krishna Paramatman. The Self is the real vitality behind the ego (Jiva) which functions in identification with the matter-envelopments and feels that it is the doer and enjoyer. The term “Yajna” has been already explained earlier. In its Geeta implication, Yajna is the self-dedicated work which one performs in any field of activity. “Tapas” means all self-denial and practices of self-control which the ego undertakes in order to integrate and revive its own capacities to seek its real identity with the Eternal.
The Self is certainly the “Maheshwara” — the Lord of all lords, the God of all gods. Here the Ishwara is to be understood as the controller of all fields of activities: activities of perception and expression. Each one of them is considered as presided over by various faculties, and they are termed as devas, meaning “illuminators.” The faculty of seeing illumines the field of the eyes and thus gives the knowledge of forms and colours; the faculty of hearing illumines the field of the ears and thus provides the knowledge of sound, and so on. The Self is in fact the Lord of all these individual lords governing, controlling and ruling over the various fields. Therefore, Lord Krishna as the Self confers upon Himself the title of “Sarva-Loka-Maheshwarah.”
In our ordinary experiences in the world, a man who has kingly powers is very difficult to approach, and the King of kings, a personality striking awe and reverence in the heart of the ordinary man, becomes almost unapproachable to the ordinary people. Therefore, the Lord has to qualify his title of “Sarva Loka Maheshwarah” with the epithet that he is at the same time “A FRIEND OF ALL LIVING CREATURES.”
The term “knowing” is not objectively knowing Krishna, in the sense in which we come to know a flower or a fruit, but here the term “knowing” is to be understood as “realising.” Spiritual experience is the realisation of the Self to be the one great ruler within, who presides over all the activities within the body-politic, who is the One, at whose altar the perfection-seeking ego surrenders all its spiritual activities, and as a tribute to Whom, the seeker brings all his self-denial and asceticism.
“KNOWING HIM TO BE NONE OTHER THAN KRISHNA, THE INDIVIDUAL REACHES THE GOAL OF PEACE, THE ETERNAL SANCTUM OF PERFECTION.”
