Class summary for Dec 16, 2025 - BG Chapter 7 - shlokas 7- 9

Summarised by: Yamini. 

Gyana is knowledge of the divine.Vignana is the intimate experience of the divine. Sankhya Yoga talks about the universe which is made-up of para and apara prakruthi. Brahman is indivisible also referred to as satya and Maya, also referred to as mithya, is indivisible and refers to attributes like sound, taste, color. Maya is called prakruti, it has a beginning and ending and it  cannot be destroyed. It just takes different forms. For example mud pot can be destroyed but the mud itself cannot be. 

Eshwara is Brahman + Maya( para+ apara).

Cosmos begins as 1+1. Only Eshwara exists at that point. Apara prakruti divides into 8 parts.

Those 8 parts are subtle earth, subtle water, subtle fire, subtle ego, subtle intellect etc.

Then comes the 1+ many. There are many drops of atoms out there and many sand particles etc, but they all come from the same prakruti. Without the 1 the many cannot exist.

The para and apara prakruti can be described with an example of water in a pot.The reflection of the sun in the water in a pot is para prakruti, the water and the pot themselves are apara prakruti. The pot stands for the body , water stands for the mind and the reflected sun is the ego. A person identifies himself with that ego , but when the pot breaks, the water seeps away, but the sun is still shining, but the reflection is gone.

Aparayam same as Apara prakriti.Krishna says “I am the prakruti itself and I am the reason why everything else exists and that's how you experience everything “

The aparakriti can be sensed, touched, measured etc by our senses, but prakriti cannot be because it is indivisible. 

Animals do not have intellect, only instinct. When they are hungry eat, when they are tired they sleep. Humans have intelligence which prompts us to ask question after a point about our existence in this world, why we are here, what is our purpose in life? 

Karma sanyasa yoga or the sankhya yoga are very hard topics to understand. But we can only understand them by practice and contemplation. There is an easy path and a not so easy path. Always pick the not so easy path, because the easy path leads you to easier and easier paths.”The path to hell is paved with good intentions”. When we are put in a position to work for a company that is doing something bad, we start thinking we are doing only to support the family. That is the good intention. Then the responsibilities increase and needs and wants increase and you keep doing the same thing going deeper and deeper into it. We end up thinking supporting ourselves that everybody is doing it. So what is 1 less person doing it is not going to make any difference. In chapter 2 Krishna tells Arjuna that If he runs away, they are going to quote him as an example to be coward. We have to lead by example. An action is worth a million words. Children do not listen to anything the parents say. They only copy their actions. Simple example is when the phone is ringing, we tell them to tell the other person we are not there. When they hang up the phone, the idea has been plotted in the kids mind that lying is ok.No matter how many times we tell them lying is bad, they will understand that it is ok to lie.

Verse 7, 8 and 9:

Bhagavan says he is the underlying energy of everything, like the thread on a pearl necklace.

It is invisible but holds the necklace together. 

Bhagavan compares himself to the taste of water. The water itself does not have any taste, but water is what carries the taste of everything. It helps us taste what we put in our mouth. For example if the tongue is completely dry, we cannot taste anything. Meaning, Bhagavan is the underlying force that helps carry the worldly activities.

He also compares himself with the radiance of the sun and the moon, the sacred syllable Om in the Vedic mantras. The fragrance of the Earth, the brilliance in fire , the life-force in all beings, and the penance of the ascetics.

As in Martin Luther kings words, even if we are the sweeper, we should do our job with the same dedication as Michelangelo showed in his paintings or Beethoven in his music.

Similar to the story were Krishna was asked to take care of the slippers for a yagna , just to insult him, but he ended up doing it with such dedications that all the attendees were mesmerised at his dedication and stopped at the entrance itself.

Austerity is something that you can't measure, It is para prakriti. The lower prakritis can be equalled to the puppets, and the Brahman to the puppeteer. Although all the senses are present in the world like pleasant smells, enchanting music or sweet food, the ability to sense those can only happen due to brahman

Discussion: When lord says he Is the life principles, is he talking about the consciousness or prana. : It is the vital sheath around us.

Cosmos is the biggest sheath, the deeper and deeper you go we come down to the vital sheath around us. Even if we loose a nail or a leg, we are still human. So the body is not what “me” is . Then we go a little deeper to pranamaya kosha, although it gets harder to negate, the deeper and deeper you go and negate our existence at each kosha, we finally understand the brahman within us.

We have to be very careful when we read Dvaita and Advaita because the way they define terms are different. It is better to pick one and follow until we completely understand.

There are 5 types of sheaths, annamaya kosha, pranamaya kosha, manomaya kosha, vignanamya kosha and anandamaya kosha. Pranamaya kosha is the bridge between annamaya and manomaya kosha. 

Within pranas also there are 5 types of pranas. So it is better to follow one terminology to understand.

Why the Saints are not burned but go into samadhi : They say for person that is not self realized, they enter the body again, but for a self realized person that is not the case because they have gone through brahma randhra.

It is said that even from the samadhi, they  still emanate their energy, but we have to be receptive enough to receive it.

Purusha can also referred to as Brahman and Prakriti is Maya. 

When we start negating the existence of each of the prakriti by itself we will ultimately realize 

the reason behind the existence of all and that is the para prakriti. 

Gurudev’s Videos:

Pearls cannot stand together to become a necklace. There has to be a thread running through them which is not visible. The thread is your brahman that is holding everything together while physically we are perceiving things, emotionally we are feeling, intellectually we are thinking.

A number of individuals fighting together with the same aspiration becomes a community of society. Although it consists of different people with different bodies , beliefs and ages, the underlying invisible emotion is what brings the all of them together. Otherwise there is no difference between a corpse and a human.