GITA FOR CHILDREN
PART-17

Continued from the previous issue….

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Chapter - 7

1. Krishna says to Arjuna, ‘Having given you the assurance that I shall certainly protect you if you repose faith in Me, let Me now describe how I pervade this Universe.’

2. ‘Arjuna, I am not only Eternal but also Formless and beyond both Space and Time. Space and Time have meaning only when there is Creation. I create the Universe according to My pleasure, and I dissolve it when I feel it is necessary. Space and Time are born at the instant of Creation and cease to exist when the Universe is dissolved. However, I the Creator always exists.’

3. ‘When I create the Universe, I basically project Myself on to Space and Time. I cannot be directly seen but I can be experienced by humans if they make the effort. People may not be able to see Me in a physical sense but they certainly can FEEL My presence.’

4. ‘I manifest in Creation in a million different ways, as I shall explain in detail later. Everything you see and experience in the Universe is merely an aspect of Me. In other words, there is nothing but God everywhere and in everything, both seen and unseen.’

5. ‘What I have just described may be called Manifest Divinity. There is a higher aspect, Unmanifest Divinity, that transcends Space and Time. This Unmanifest Divinity is known by various names such as Brahman, Atma, Absolute Reality, Pure Consciousness, and so on. Don’t be scared by all these names! Just think of the Unmanifest as God, and keep Him always in your mind.’

6. ‘As you know, there are both inanimate and animate entities in the Universe. Minerals, ocean, mountains, etc., are inanimate while insects, birds, animals and humans of course are animate.’

7. ‘Just as a house is built by assembling bricks, so is all matter in the Universe made up of atoms. Thus, atoms are the building blocks of matter. No wonder then that atoms are to be found everywhere, from here to the very edge of the Cosmos.’

8. ‘Living beings too are made up of atoms but there is something very special about them; they have this mysterious thing in them called life. No one can see life directly or touch it but everybody can experience life. You can also see life in other beings not only through their actions but also through their growth and decay.’

9. ‘This life-principle is sometimes called Jiva, and is an aspect of Unmanifest Divinity. Earlier I described a living person as the Atma “trapped” in a cage or the body. The embodied Atma is also called the Jivatma. Thus, Arjuna, you are a Jivatma.’

10. Arjuna asks, ‘ Krishna what about You? Are You also a Jivatma?’

11. Krishna replies, ‘No way! I am special; I am the Paramatma! Don’t ask Me for the difference right now! I shall come back to that later perhaps.’

12. ‘Getting on with what I was telling you, let Me now describe how I pervade the Universe. To start with I must remind you that everything in the Universe has come out of Me and Me alone. In other words, I am the Creator. Don’t get fooled by the fact that right now I have a body like yours, and eat, walk, talk etc., like humans do. In fact, this is how humans get deluded by appearances where Avatars are concerned.’

13. ‘Let Me stress that I am not only the Creator but in fact the Ultimate Ultimate, if you will! There is nothing beyond Me!! Remember that.’

14. ‘In the physical Universe, I pervade everything that you can think of. I am, for example, present in all the five elements – sky, air, fire, water and earth. But here I must caution you. To describe Me as being present in this or that is only a limited way of looking at things. It is more appropriate to say that God IS the sky or the ether, God IS air, God IS fire and so on. In fact, everything in the Universe IS God!’

15. Arjuna asks, ‘ Krishna, if everything in the Universe is God, then why don’t people see God everywhere?’

16. Krishna replies, ‘Ah, that is because God disguises and hides Himself to see if you can find Him! It is a game He likes to play! Consider a garland with many beautiful flowers. Can a bunch of flowers form a garland all by themselves? You need a connecting thread don’t you? Yet, when you see a garland, is that connecting thread visible? No! I am the foundation and the basis for the physical and manifest Universe. Can you have a house without a foundation? It is the same thing here; and like the foundation of a house, I remain hidden!’

17. ‘However, this does not mean My presence cannot be felt or experienced. Let us say you are very thirsty and your throat is absolutely parched. You see a clear stream with cool water flowing in it. You drink that water to your heart’s content and find it very refreshing. But you do not know that the sweetness of that cool and fresh water is Me! It is I, latent as sweetness in that water that brings joy to you.’

18. ‘Another example. It is a hot and humid day and you are perspiring heavily. Suddenly there is a gust of cool breeze and you feel relief. Arjuna, I am that breeze, giving you that refreshing experience.’

19. ‘I am the brilliance of the blazing fire and the radiant blue of the sky. Time being short, I won’t give more examples, though I can go on and on till the end of Time! It is enough for you to know that all excellence and beauty in the Universe flows directly from Me. If you see a very intelligent person, know for certain that this person’s intelligence is not his own but flows from Me. Your brother Bhima is very strong; you know that; but do you know that his strength is really a tiny part of My strength, reflected via him?’

To Be Continued...

-Heart2Heart Team

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