Swami Gober's Bhagavad Gita Commentary: Introductory Essay - 34

The Brahma of Screw-Ups

Know thou that action comes from Brahma, and Brahma proceeds from the Imperishable. Therefore, the all-pervading (Brahma) ever rests in sacrifice.

Bhagavad Gita, chap 3, ver 15

This is one of those particularly meaningless verses of the Bhagavad Gita, though in one of the essays here we give it a novel interpretation. A very interesting aspect of this verse is that it is not clear in which sense Krishna uses the word Brahma here. There are two Brahmas in Hinduism, one is the creator God, Brahma, one of the Hindu trinity of Gods, and the other is the Supreme Brahman, an abstract principle denoting the ultimate reality of the universe. Only the Brahman is known as the imperishable, all-pervading reality, and the trinity God Brahma has nothing particularly to do with It. Just a few verses before, Krishna talks about the Prajapati Brahma, the creator God, so we would suppose this verse is referring to him, but then it brings Brahman into the mix, and mixes it up! Leave alone trying to make any meaning of this verse, we don’t know which Brahma Krishna is talking about in the first place! Just in case people start arguing that this verse actually refers to the absolute Brahman, I would like to point out that the Absolute does not proceed from anywhere!

One unique thing, among many other unique things, that the Bhagavad Gita did was to create a hybrid of Upanishadic and Puranic approaches to religion. These are the two major streams associated with popular Hinduism. The first stream is the philosophic and mystical stream flowing from the Upanishads. The second and vastly more popular one has its roots in the mythology and the Bhakti philosophy of the Puranas. The mythology of these Puranas is supposed to be of a vaguely semi-symbolic nature, reflecting the Bhakti or devotional/dualistic philosophy. The bhakti philosophy shares some good amount of common ground with the non-dualistic philosophy of Vedanta, nevertheless these are two totally different outlooks of the world, one is rational, intellectual and scientific, the other is superstitious, idol-worshiping, hugely derivative and totally idiotic, albeit with enormous appeal to the masses.

The common people back then as well as now usually wouldn’t even know the name of the God of the Upanishads, the Brahman. Even I myself first came across this name for the ultimate Truth in Vedanta only when I was in college, and took good time to digest it. It was rather shocking to realize that I had been Hindu all my life and didn't know the name of its real God, quite apart from the silly hosts of its pantheon. Although I had previously heard the term ‘Brahm’ in the recitations of the Bhagavad Gita, I confused the term with 'Brahma' – the creator God of Hindu trinity, nonetheless not the supreme all-powerful one as in other religions. Although Brahman and Brahma are both looked upon as the creative power from which the universe originated, these two are completely different and should not be confused. Regardless, the confusion happens naturally in the general perception owing to identical names.

Brahma, although he is supposed to have created the world is treated almost equal to much lesser gods such as Indra, the god of heaven. As can be seen in this verse that is sung in praise of Krishna sometimes at the inception of the recitation of the Bhagavad Gita, “Salutations to that God whom Brahma, Indra, Varuna, Rudra and the Maruts praise with divine hymns….” Brahma is a very impotent God, and is considered far inferior to Shiva and Vishnu, the other two of the trinity. Imagine, being the Creator of the Universe, he has to stand in queue and sing praises of Krishna! I don’t know if this kind of nauseating palaver makes any kind of sense to anyone.

The tendency toward mix-up between Brahma and Brahma can also be clearly seen in a very familiar invocation prayer to the Guru:

Gururbrahma gururvishnurgururdevo maheshwarah;

Guruh saakshaat param brahma tasmai shree gurave namah.

Guru is the creator (Brahma); Guru is the preserver (Vishnu); Guru is the destroyer (Maheshvara); Guru is verily the Supreme Absolute. To that Guru we prostrate.

This Brahma and that Brahma are not related, in fact the Absolute Brahman is related to none of the trinity. He, or rather It, belongs to a different thought system, almost a different tradition from the predominantly mythological religion that fabricated the Hindu trinity and a whole lot of inane stories around them. Now, the Absolute Brahm is absolutely everything that exists, because nothing exists which is not him. Even a stone lying by the roadside is the Brahm, so what is the point in equating Guru to the Brahm particularly? But such inanities are regular accepted parts of the popular Hindu culture that does not even attempt to distinguish between the essential and the grossly drossy. We can hold the Bhagavad Gita responsible for spreading such and much more confusion.

Hinduism is the most philosophical of religions, or is supposed to be so, but it has ended up by being a religion whose followers are the most thoughtless among the followers of all the other major religions. A devout Christian would ponder once in a while about metaphysical issues, heaven, hell, etc., even a Muslim would do so, I suppose. But a typical devout Hindu just goes to the temple, worships Krishna or Siva, and performs others religious rites from time to time, that’s about it! All religions stifle thinking, but ancient mythology-based religions do so in a more direct and unapologetic manner, in the case of Hinduism it tends to brazenly suppress the great thoughts and insights that have flowered right in the midst of its being. The confusion between Brahm and Brahma is not just a coincidence, it is very much indicative of the overlaying of the mythological religion on the mystical religion, suppressing it, stifling it, almost killing it.

Brahm and Brahma are confused anyway, but to spice up things a little bit, the topmost, priestly class of the Hindu society are called Brahmanas! In another totally ridiculous verse in the Gita, Krishna suggests a possible reason for this,

“Om Tat Sat”: this has been declared to be the triple designation of Brahman. By that were created formerly the Brahmanas, the Vedas and the sacrifices.

Chap 17, 23

So from the Brahman come Brahmanas, the Vedas, and the sacrifices. But wait a minute, don’t everything else in the universe originate from the Brahman too? The general idea of Krishna seems to be just prattle away any kind of nonsense that comes to mind as long as you can slip it inside holy sounding Sanskrit verses. ‘Om Tat Sat’ — ‘Om That Truth’ — is a powerful Vedantic concept, but what Krishna does is put it in a crappy mess which is a monstrously shameless propaganda advocating the special divine status of the supercilious Brahmin caste. I have never seen this kind of prostitution of philosophy anywhere, and it is simply inconceivable anywhere except in the Gita! In one line you talk of mystical philosophy, in the very next line, you carry out nonsensical propaganda and link it to the previous line! What can I call it except whoring brazenness!

This second sentence simply has no meaning of any kind, quite apart from the ridiculousness of its basic proposition. Let’s imagine, a Brahmana is performing a sacrificial ritual chanting the Vedas; the Vedas were obviously codified by Veda Vyasa from among a rampant mess of texts available during his time, so they couldn’t have come from the supreme Brahman; the sacrifice is being performed by the Brahmana, it has come just now into being, it didn’t surely originate formerly from the Brahman directly, and the Brahmana himself originated from his mother a few decades ago, he was not formerly created by the Brahman either! This is the kind of mess the Bhagavad Gita is! However, interestingly, if we substitute the creator God Brahma to the Brahman, in the contextual background of this second line, implying all these three emanated from the creator God Brahma, it would make some sense at least; we would then take it in a pictorial, symbolic sense which is the level at which Puranic literature functions, and not in a literal sense of the first statement, which says that Om Tat Sat is a direct indication towards the Brahman. Why Krishna bungles so much between one Brahma and the other and creates a botch out of it is a mystery!

Obviously, Krishna likes to simply screw everything up in his characteristic style. But he is not just content with it. He wants more. Screwing something up is different from screwing something directly, which is what Krishna seems to be more interested in! So although Krishna acknowledges the Brahman to be the supreme reality of the universe at many places in the Gita, in most other verses he seems to say ‘Screw you!’ to the Brahman and refers to himself as the supreme reality of the universe! Further, the trinity God Brahma is referred to as ‘the Lord’ by Arjuna in a verse, while just a few verses down he refers to Krishna as ‘the Lord’!

To top it all, Krishna directly confesses that he has been screwing Brahma for a long time, (though in a slightly more pious language):

Whatever forms are produced, O Arjuna, in any womb whatsoever, the great Brahma is their womb and I am the seed-giving father.

Chap 14, ver 4

Carry on, Lord!