Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9, Verse 8 (BG 9.8) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

The Consciousness of Brahman expressing itself through the collective subtle body (mind and intellect) is called Ishvara, the Creator. That same Brahman, distinguished by the conditioning of an individual subtle body, is called the embodied soul or jiva. Just as the one sun is reflected in a vast, clear, and tranquil lake and also in a muddy pond filled with turbid water, yet the difference in these reflections is due to the difference in the waters themselves. This example clarifies the distinction between the jiva and Ishvara. Just as it would be appropriate for the sun in the sky to say that the steady and radiant reflection in the lake and the wavering and dim reflection in the pond are caused by me, in the same way Shri Krishna, the embodiment of Brahman, declares: I am the conscious Self of both the Creator and all created beings. The collective subtle body as a conditioning is the lower nature of Brahman. At the beginning of a cosmic cycle, the desires latent in this lower nature manifest, and at the end of the cycle, all beings merge back into my nature. The act of infusing consciousness into nature is the grace of Brahman, through which nature grows and takes the form of the cosmic tree. If the supreme Consciousness that is Brahman does not identify with nature (maya) or express itself within it, then nature, being inert by its own nature, cannot create any being. This entire multitude of beings in the form of desires, I repeatedly create. Once the consciousness of the Self is present, all beings cannot remain unexpressed, for they are subject to nature and not independent. In Vedantic philosophy, the sages generally describe the origin of the universe from the collective perspective, which causes some difficulty for beginning students of Vedanta. However, the student who attempts to understand its meaning from the individual perspective can easily comprehend the creation of this universe. When examined from this individual viewpoint, the statement of Bhagavan Shri Krishna is proven true. Without the identification of the Self's consciousness with mind and intellect as aspects of the lower nature, we cannot have the emergence of a distinctly characterized jiva who experiences the sufferings of worldly life. We have already seen that in the state of sleep, in the absence of identification with mind and intellect, both an extremely wicked person and a great soul are alike. Yet in the waking state, both express their own nature, though the same Self-consciousness manifests in both. The wicked person cannot behave like a virtuous one even for a moment, nor will the virtuous one behave like the wicked, for both are incapable of acting otherwise due to their nature. This entire drama of the creation and dissolution of all beings is enacted upon the stage of the immutable, eternal principle of the Self. I repeatedly create it. The law of karma is beyond dispute: as the action, so the fruit. If the Self is the doer of the actions of creation and dissolution of all beings, does it then become bound by the chains of dharma and adharma? To this, Bhagavan responds—