Among many contributions that Sri Krishna made is the enunciation of a theology consistent with the Veda(s). The theories of the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad created the cosmology with the vedic trinity of mana, vAk and prANa creating a basis of life. Sankhya was able to explain the worldly conduct by making the dualism theory of purusha and prakRti. There lacked a theory merging the latter two to originate the initial life. From the infinity concepts of the Upanisad, Sri Krishna conceived an all-wise and all-intelligent Being, who he thought could be responsible for the design of the universe. Without getting into how such a Being came to be, Shri Krishna enunciated that not only that such a Being existed, but that such a Being could reincarnate in times of need in the universe. The Being could appear on his/her own volition when the universe might need restoring order in various times. So becomes the theology of our universe according to Sri Krishna.
The theology bases on the manifestation of the original life form that the Vedas labeled the term Atman. This original life form is the source of all subsequent life forms and hence by design is a part in all manifested life forms. This original life form survives and operates in all life forms by virtue of its universality it has been labeled as paramAtmA, while the individual manifested life forms are labeled jIvAtmA. The jIvAtmA is afflicted with mortality while its paramAtmA part is beyond death. In a higher sense, we can conceive that the destruction is only to the body; the life force itself remains immortal. It is the jIva that perishes, the Atman is imperishable. From this point of view both jIvAtmA and paramAtmA are not different; both have the quality of infinite regeneration.
The intelligent part of life has been labeled purusha in Sankhya. Taking the cue from there, SriKrishna conceived an entity that he called Adyapurusha, the primitive purusha, the earliest Being that contained the most primitive and the most original intelligence. In Sri Krishna’s thinking, each life’s play is a function of its endowed intelligence which gets colored by the bias due to our implanted prakRti. If we succeed to dive through our prakRti we can access the effulgent intelligence called Buddhi that is inside each of us. This Buddhi is beyond our svabhAva and is not afflicted by anything local. The realization of this Buddhi is the testimony of the original Adyapurusha that existed and exists in us. He called this process as Buddhiyoga. Buddhi conceived by Sri Krishna is not produced from prakRti as in Sankhya. We can think of it as cosmic intelligence and hence is beyond any personal bias. (We distinguish between the two by scripting a capital B in transliteration.)
Sri Krishna theorized that the universe must operate on rules and such rules must have been conceived by the original rule giver, the Adyapurusha. In the local domain our earth is part of the solar system and hence the local ruler VivasvAn, the Sun would have received the rules from the original rule giver. The rules that maintain the life and society are called dharma, a necessary constituent in running the universe. He claimed that such rules do get forgotten in time and need reestablishment periodically. The period interval is determined by an evolutionary time scale called yuga. His final point was that he himself was embodied on the earth to reestablish the rules, such being the play of the Adyapurusha in each yuga. Such embodiment would be called purushottama and he claimed to be the purushottama in the prevailing yuga.
The embodiment envisaged in the previous statement is the principle of yoga that Sri Krishna preached. He theorized that the dharma for the sustenance of the universe is always there but is liable to distortion as a function of time. Periodic cleansing of the distortions is done by an embodied incarnation that may appear for the role. Sri Krishna claimed he had the perfect yoga and hence had the complete knowledge while other human beings were not in complete yoga. His enormous wisdom and intelligence were vouched by the wise men and women who lived during the time. He preached that a state in perfect yoga is an achievable state and he advised all to strive towards it in order to gain peace and stability. Thus in the process he did not exclude himself from all, but he claimed that he knew the dharma while others might strive to learn it. By doing so he gained the authority to preach such that others might follow. He did bring stability in the society during his time and established an order which is now considered a faith religion, labeled as Hinduism in later time.
As a matter of fact, the Adyapurusha is in all creatures and so each manifestation is a divine object. The task is the discovery of the divinity within. Through such discovery, one realizes that the knowledge of the entire universe does indeed exist in each object; but the object would not be aware of it. It is possible that the human beings are evolved enough to have the perceptual capacity to meditate such that the divinity is realized. Once we liberate ourselves from our local limitations of existence, we can enter into a higher realm when we can relate to every object equally and we would refrain from any value judgment. All objects would indeed appear alike and there would be no disparity in our perception of the universe. In such a state, our senses would feed us information objectively, not biased by what we wish to sense. Adding an understanding from Sankhya this would mean that we would go beyond the influence of our guNa(s) and we would become nirguNa. The state of Adyapurusha is nirguNa, he is the creator and is the giver of the guNa(s).
The question comes what does the principle of Adyapurusha do when we live in the world and do our duties. Here Sri Krishna makes the most original contribution that the humans or the creatures only play a role, but the real action is engineered and acted upon by the design of the Adyapurusha. So, all the activities in the universe are not only cosmic in origin, they are also cosmic in execution; they only appear to be acted by the creatures. Each creature is endowed with a svabhAva and has a destined role to perform in accomplishing a pre-determined result. The design of the Adyapurusha is so complete that it knows all the steps, knows the results, and knows the means to achieve the results. In order to carry on such execution, it prepares the universe for the arrival of an incarnation in yuga intervals. Sri Krishna claimed that he was indeed the stipulated incarnation in his time.
We will next discuss what dharma would mean in this theology. Sri Krishna excelled in analyzing individual duties as we live our life in society. We will take up such topics.
Let Sai bless all.
Bijoy Misra