7.26 वेद know? अहम् I? समतीतानि the past? वर्तमानानि the present? च and? अर्जुन O Arjuna? भविष्याणि the future? च and? भूतानि beings? माम् Me? तु verily? वेद knows? न not? कश्चन any one.Commentary Persons who are deluded by the three alities of Nature do not know the Lord. As they lack in the knowledge of His real nature? they do not adore Hi. But the Lord knows through His omniscience the beings of the past? the present and the future. He who worships the Lord with singleminded devotion knows Him in essence. He has knowledge of His real nature.
Contemporary scholarly and practical interpretations for modern seekers.
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Modern
# BG 7.26
In all the religions of the world, God is regarded as omniscient, yet only in Vedanta is there a satisfactory exposition of omniscience. The Bhagavad Gita holds a special place as a reference text of the Upanishads, wherein it is made clear what omniscience truly means.
The atman is that conscious principle which illuminates all the modifications of mind and intellect. Our knowledge of the external material world comes only when the senses perceive objects, as a result of which object-like modifications arise in the mind. The function of the intellect is to classify these modifications and determine the nature of the object. The modifications of mind and intellect are ever illuminated by the eternal, conscious nature of the atman.
The light of the sun illuminates all objects in the world. When my eyes or ears illuminate form or sound, I say that I see or I hear. In brief, to know an object means to illuminate it, and to illuminate means to make it known. Just as the sun may be called the eye of the world, for without it our eyes would be mere useless globes, so too the atman may be called the eternal knower of all everywhere. The omniscience of the atman becomes clear in the Lord's statement: "I know all beings of past, present, and future."
Here it is worthy of note that the atman is not merely the knower of the present, but has been the illuminator of all objects, feelings, and thoughts that have passed since beginningless time, and shall remain the knower of all beings to come throughout eternity. A fan moves by electricity, yet the fan cannot impart motion to electricity. A person observes stars through a telescope, yet the telescope cannot observe that observing person. How then can anyone know the witnessing atman, who bestows consciousness upon the senses, mind, and intellect? Lord Sri Krishna, from this perspective of the atman, says: "Although I know all beings everywhere and always, no one knows Me."
From the ultimate perspective described in Vedanta, the atman cannot even be called the knower or witness. Just as it would be logically incorrect to say that the sun illuminates the world—we do not see objects in the darkness of night, so we attribute to the sun the function of illuminating them in the day; yet from the sun's perspective, which is eternally luminous, there is no moment when it does not illuminate and bless all things—so too it is equally meaningless to say that the sun illuminates the world as it is to say that I am now very busy breathing. The knower-ship of the atman is conditioned, that is, acquired through the limitation of maya. The atman manifested in maya, which is predominantly of the nature of pure sattva, or Brahma, is called Ishvara in Vedanta. Lord Sri Krishna is the embodied form of truth, the incarnation of God, and therefore His declaration of Himself as omniscient is entirely fitting.
Yet, unfortunately, the self-centered mortal being, looking at the world through the narrow aperture of a limited, circumscribed mind and intellect, fails to recognize the harmonious rhythm of the cosmos. Only that person who can break the bonds of self-created ignorance and achieve unity with the universe can truly understand and experience the perspective of Sri Krishna. That person who successfully achieves unity with the cosmic mind and lives thereby becomes the Krishna of his own age and of the ages to come.
If the atman is the illuminator of all conditioned knowledge, then what are the obstacles that prevent the realization of the atman? The Lord says: