Karma Sanyasa Yoga
Chapter 5, Verse 15
nādatte kasyacit-pāpaṁ
na caiva sukṛtaṁ vibhuḥ
ajñānenāvṛtaṁ jñānaṁ
tena muhyanti jantavaḥ
The omnipresent God Almighty receives neither the sin nor the virtue of any. Knowledge is enveloped in ignorance; thereby creatures are bewildered.
Here, the word ‘vibhuḥ’ stands for God Almighty with attributes, but devoid of form, omnipresent in His creation.
Krishna says that God doesn’t receive the virtue or the sin of anyone. He is above the duality. Even though all actions performed by man happen through His energy, it is only His energy, it is not fully Him. Everything happens through His Shakti, His Will. Through His Will, He gives man the knowledge and the energy to act, and He places each one where they have to be, due to their past karmas. Yet He is completely free from this. Even if He is doing all this through His energy, at the same time He is completely separate from it. He is not bound by the laws of karma, nothing can affect Him, nothing can touch Him. Here Krishna was reminding Arjuna that when one rises to that state, when one reaches this perfection of God-Realisation, one is also above the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’.
God doesn’t receive anything, the ‘good’ or the ‘bad’, because He is above the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’. If someone is above something, this means that what is below him doesn’t affect him, no? Like that, all the ‘good’ that one is doing, all the ‘bad’ that one is doing, is happening only in this worldly reality, on the ground floor. But when one rises in spirituality and attains Realisation, one looks at everything from the perspective of the Divine Reality, from above, without being affected by it. Even though everything is created by His own Reality, His own energy, His own Prakriti Shakti, He as the Divine, He as God is above His creation. He is not touched by the law of karma; nothing affects Him, neither the ‘good’ nor the ‘bad’. That’s why He is God.
Very often people think that God is only ‘good’ and doesn’t have any imperfections inside of Him. But how can He be God, if He doesn’t have any imperfections? He is the source of everything! He has all the ‘good’ inside Him and He has all the imperfections inside Him. And He is also above all these qualities! That’s what makes Him God, because He is beyond this duality, beyond His own Will; beyond His own creation. In the Lord’s prayer we say, “Lead us not into temptation.” Here God is acting as the One who creates temptation, meaning that He is also above it. So we pray to Him, “Lead us out of temptation.” Lead us out of ignorance! When one perceives that the true nature of everything is part of the Divine and that God is the only reality, one is not bound by anything. One becomes like Him.
When knowledge of the Self arises, then ignorance is removed. But if one jumps into ignorance and lets oneself be overruled or deluded by the outside reality, one falls prey to ignorance. Then one is blind, one falls and creates karma. What makes the karma manifest? What makes one always stay in the cycle of birth and death is this ignorance of the Self, because one doesn’t surrender to God. One claims that one is doing everything. Then arrogance and pride take over and one becomes blind.
Here Bhagavan Krishna says, “Even in all My actions, in whatever I do, I am always separate from it. It doesn’t affect Me! The law of Nature doesn’t affect Me! Even if I have created Nature the way it is, I can bend it and change it at My Will.” In the previous chapter Krishna says to Arjuna, “I am not bound by any scriptures! I am not bound by any writings which declare where or how I will incarnate.” Yadā yadā hi dharmasya – “Whenever there is a decline in dharma I will come, I will manifest Myself. It is not prescribed that I will incarnate at such and such a time. It was never written that I will
come and manifest Myself in this body or in that body, in this country or in that country. I am not bound by any of these limitations. Human beings, the unwise, are bound by these limitations, whereas the ones who are completely centred in the Divine are free. As I am above everything, I am not touched by virtue or by sin. Likewise, the ones who are completely surrendered to Me and have attained God-Realisation are also above Nature and are not touched by anything, they are ever free.”
Bhagavad Gita
