The Bhagavad-Gita of the Indians.
(The Song of the Godhead and the Doctrine of Divine Being.)
Franz Hartmann, M.D.[1]
Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl[2]
This document incorporates live notes. Click on a superscripted endnote number in the text to jump to its corresponding endnote; click on the superscripted endnote numeral in the endnotes to return to the original text reference.
Translator’s notes (Robert Hutwohl):
The Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text, is a symbolic dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna on a battlefield. It explores the eternal struggle between the divine and material aspects of human nature, offering wisdom on self-realization and the path to higher knowledge. The text emphasizes the imperishable nature of the soul and the importance of distinguishing between the eternal and the transient.
The text explores the concept of reincarnation, emphasizing that it is not the rebirth of the personal self but the re-revelation of the spiritual individuality in a new form. It highlights the importance of self-knowledge and the path of Yoga, which involves connecting the human soul with God through practice and selflessness. The text also underscores the need to transcend egoism and self-delusion to achieve true individuality and spiritual enlightenment.
The Bhagavad Gita teaches that everything is one, manifesting in countless forms. God, the eternal essence, is beyond human comprehension but is revealed through nature and its three qualities: Tamas (ignorance), Rajas (passion), and Sattva (goodness). The enlightened individual transcends these qualities, achieving union with the divine and realizing their true essence.
The Bhagavad Gita explains the three fundamental qualities of nature: Sattva (pleasure), Rajas (action and knowledge), and Tamas (ignorance). These qualities influence human nature and destiny, with Sattva leading to divine realms, Rajas to earthly realms, and Tamas to lower forms of existence. The text emphasizes the importance of self-realization, love for God, and the transformative power of action (karma) in achieving spiritual growth and ultimately merging with the divine.
End
If we consider the religious life of humanity, we find three classes of believers. First, those who have no concept of religious matters and therefore believe that all religion is mere fraud and deception. They see only the hard shell of the nut and want nothing to do with it. These include many so-called materialists, atheists, and “freethinkers” whose freedom of thought consists in thoughtlessness. The second class consists of pious enthusiasts and fantasists who cling only to literal beliefs and superficial customs. They love the shell and have made it their plaything. The third class consists of those who have outgrown external forms, who have discovered the core in the shell and the spirit of true religion in their religious system. The Bhagavad Gita [bhagavad gītā] was written for such people. It is a part of that Indian heroic poem called the Mahabharata [mahābhārata], and in it the struggle between the divine and the material and sensual in man, between the god-man and the bestial, suffering-ridden man, is symbolically depicted.
The Bhagavad Gita is probably the most widely read, yet least understood, religious book in the world, although in Europe it is hardly known outside the circles of “Orientalists” and philologists, who have been far more concerned with its words than with its spirit. What the Bible is to the Christian mystic, the Bhagavad Gita is to the truth-seeking Brahmin and Buddhist. an inexhaustible source of wisdom and a guide on the path to higher knowledge and a higher life. It is the book which the penitent striving for sanctification reads daily from his earliest youth until his death, and upon whose contents he meditates. It contains not only the highest religious secrets, but also a multitude of scientific explanations, the contemplation of which would significantly broaden the modern world view. In particular, however, a deeper study of the Bhagavad Gita would be of benefit to Christian theologians and missionaries and would reduce their religious intolerance, as they would thereby be able to come to the realisation that everything true that is contained in Christian teachings can also be found in Indian teachings, and that the Brahmanic and Buddhist teachings, far from being opposed to true Christianity, actually confirm it and give it the intellectual foundation it requires today.
In its external form, the Bhagavad Gita presents an episode from the great battle that took place for possession of the kingdom of Hastinapura between the descendants of the Kurus, the Kauravas, and the Pandavas [pāṇḍava-s], after Yudishtira [yudhiṣṭhira] had lost his kingdom, his possessions, and even his wife Draupadi [draupadī] in a game. The two armies met on the sacred field of Dharmachetra [dharmakṣetra], the former possession of the sages. Arjuna appeared with Krishna [kṛṣṇa] on the battlefield to fight. As he contemplated his enemies, he found among those he was to kill his closest relatives, teachers, and friends. Then the bow fell from his hand, and he refused to fight. He would rather die himself than kill those who were dear to him, and without whom life had no value for him. He turned to his master Krishna and lamented, crying out:
“Since I, O Lord! Now know those I am to kill as my blood relatives,
I feel unnerved, my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth, and my heart stands still.
My body trembles, my hair stands on end,
My arm grows weak, and the bow I drew falls from my hand.
Like feverish heat, fear penetrates my limbs; I can hardly stand
upright anymore; my thoughts themselves
are confused, my life seems to flee,
And I see nothing before me but pain and woe.
Nothing good, O Keschav!, can come from this,
When relatives slaughter one another.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I see here grandfathers, fathers, sons,
teachers and friends, brothers-in-law and relatives.
I do not wish to kill them, Lord of the world!
Not even if they thirst for my blood,” etc.
Now Krishna begins his admonition, and this fills the following seventeen chapters of the book.
Apart from the fact that a battlefield at the beginning of a fight, when two armies are hostile to each other, is not a suitable place for long philosophical discussions, everything else also indicates that this narrative, like that of the “New Testament” in the Bible, refers less to a historical event that supposedly took place sometime in the past, but rather to eternal, constantly repeating inner processes, and is therefore to be understood symbolically, but is no less true for that. For example, the word “Hastinapura” [the city of elephants] does not mean an earthly place, but the realm of heaven and the realization of God; the “Kurus and Pandavas” represent the human soul powers, virtues and vices, inclinations and desires; Yudishtira is the person immersed in the material, Draupadi [is immersed in] the higher region of the soul; the “battle chariot” is the human body in which man dwells on this earth. “Arjuna” means man himself, and “Krishna” means his spiritual leader, the savior of the world. This struggle between light and darkness, between the heavenly man of “Paradise,” born of light, and the earthly man, who is the product of animal evolution, similar to what Darwin, among others, taught, we find symbolically represented in all great religious systems. In Christianity, it is the struggle between the Archangel Michael (the higher “I”) and the “Dragon” (the transient self), whose jaws are avarice, whose breath is passion, and who moves on the wings of desire. In Persian, it is Ormuzd, the god of light, who wrestles with Ahriman, the god of night and material things. In all mythologies, the same eternal truth is found, albeit presented in different forms, not to amuse people or satisfy their scientific curiosity, but to inspire them to undertake this struggle themselves and to vividly demonstrate the necessity of learning the art of self-control. While most such allegories limit themselves to mere representation, leaving it to the reader to discover their secret meaning for themselves (something not everyone is capable of doing), the Bhagavad Gita and the other Vedas offer us a scientific foundation that, if properly understood, excludes all superstition and misunderstanding. This is perhaps what delighted even the embittered Schopenhauer and moved him to write in his Parerga (II. S. 427):
“How one who, through diligent reading, has become familiar with the Persian-Latin of this incomparable book (the Oupnekhat), is deeply moved by its spirit! How every line is so full of serious, definite, and consistently converging meaning! From every line, deep, original, sublime thoughts emerge, while a high, holy solemnity hovers over the whole. Everything here breathes Indian air and a primal, nature-related existence. And, oh, how the spirit is here purified of all the early-instilled Jewish superstition and all these indulgent philosophies. It is the most instructive and sublime lecture possible in the world (except for the original text); it has been the consolation of my life and will be that of my death.”
Alexander von Humboldt also writes that he thanks God for allowing him to live long enough to read this book. — Were we to compare the Bhagavad Gita with any other work of German theological literature, we could conveniently place it alongside Thomas von Kempen’s “Imitation of Christ,” for in this, too, we find the same ideas upon deeper study, although they too can only become clear to those who have raised themselves to the clarity of pure perception, while they are and remain incomprehensible to the mindless skeptic. For those who shy away from the light and are irretrievably sunk in materialism, neither the one nor the other book has any value; but for those who wish to ignite the divine spark in their soul, so that it becomes a flame whose light illuminates the path to the consciousness of their immortality, the key to understanding the great mystery, the riddle of man, is contained in both the one and the other.
What follows is the actual content of the Bhagavad Gita, in which Krishna teaches the various methods by which man can attain the knowledge of his divine existence; for although the path of truth and self-knowledge is only one, there are nevertheless different paths to attain it, the path of light.
Above all, Krishna seeks to teach Arjuna the distinction between the imperishable and the perishable and to make him understand that the soul in its true nature is indestructible, and that the things which cling to the personality are only self-created ideas and consequently delusions.
“The wise do not mourn for that which lives,
nor for death—Never was there a time
when I was not, or you were not.
Those earthly rulers, too, were always;
And never will the time come in the future
when only the one who truly lives
will cease to be. Just as in life
childhood is followed by youth and then old age,
so perishing always follows creation
in the vessels the spirit inhabits.
That which is immortal in the human heart
is ever revealed anew in bodies.
. . . . . . . . . What is true
remains real forever, and what is not real
can never be in truth . . . . .
Just as a person casts off worn-out garments
in the evening and chooses a new one
in the morning, so the human spirit casts off
the decayed husk of flesh,
and inherits anew another house of flesh.
The essence is not injured by weapons,
not burned by fire, not drowned by water; it is not dried up by the wind.
That which is born must eventually die,
The end of death is rebirth.
. . . . . . . . In eternal being
everything is contained invisibly.
Then it comes to light, and in the end it returns
To where it came from.”
As we see, what is being discussed here is not a reincarnation of the transient, personal human being, but a re-revelation of his spiritual individuality in a new personal manifestation, the character of which depends largely on the inclinations and talents this spirit has acquired in a previous life. This is not the place to delve deeper into the doctrine of reincarnation; however, it may be briefly indicated that it is also contained in the Christian creed; for when it says there, “I believe in a resurrection of the flesh,” it means the same thing as when the Buddhist says, “I believe in a reconciliation of the skandas [skandhas],” i.e., those psychic elements, inclinations, talents, etc., which I now possess and which will belong to the personality which my spirit will build and overshadow in the next life, and which, because they are transient, are symbolically designated as “the flesh,” in contrast to the spirit.
However, all this is nothing but theory for anyone who does not know themselves in their innermost being. In truth, no one knows anything with certainty other than what they themselves have experienced, learned, and recognized. The path to this divine self-knowledge is called “Yoga” and consists not in theory or knowledge alone, but in the associated practice. “Yoga” comes from Yog = to connect, and means the connection of the human soul with God. It would thus correspond to the word “religion” if this word, like so many other similar words, had not been so often misused and confused with “churchism” that it has almost lost its true meaning. Yoga is the art of controlling oneself through the divine spirit awakened to consciousness within us, not only preventing the outbursts of our passions, but becoming master of all our emotions and thoughts, and ultimately even of the functions of the body. Every practical practice of religion, if it is carried out selflessly and without ulterior motives, is a yoga exercise. It demands a complete abandonment of egoism and self-conceit. It is taught in all religious systems. Thomas von Kempen’s book “The Imitation of Christ” is, like the Bhagavad Gita, a yoga teaching, and it would not be difficult to insert almost every passage in it with a corresponding passage from the Bhagavad Gita.
“No goal is missed and no hope
remains unfulfilled. Nothing is lost. Even
a little faith helps against great fear.
There is only one Law, but many
are the laws of those who are not
themselves steadfast; they are difficult to follow.
The speech of fools sounds very ingratiating,
when they praise the wise sayings of the Vedas.
They know the letters, but not the spirit,
and believe that empty sound is enough.”
Renunciation of the delusion of individuality, or rather, transcending self-delusion, is the foundation of the teachings of yoga. One should do nothing in spiritual matters to gain any personal advantage, neither in heaven nor on earth, for the development of individuality is conditioned by transcending the individual. Whoever wishes to enter into freedom must abandon limitations. Whoever cares only for themselves, i.e., for their personality, cares for nothing. In those who care for the well-being of the whole, without regard for themselves, universal love, universal knowledge, and omnipotence can be revealed. This is what is meant when it is said that one should accomplish nothing out of one’s own desire, but everything in the name, i.e., in the power of God, whereby it is, however, above all necessary that the divine power enter the consciousness of the inner person. We should relate everything to God as the ultimate goal, and the more we submit our personal will to the divine Will, which is the Law, the more the will of God can be revealed in us.
We could compare a person’s personality to a vessel, and their individuality to a light shining within it. The more the vessel expands or the clearer it becomes, the more it is illuminated, the more its rays penetrate into infinity. But the more selfish a person is, the more their true individuality diminishes. The development, strengthening, and perfection of individuality is the goal of human existence and can only be achieved by overcoming the desire to fulfill special interests. This does not involve giving up individuality and sinking into nothingness, but rather overcoming personal inclinations and awakening to the awareness of impersonal existence in God. Few will understand this.
“The wise man
does not seek merit or reward for his works,
he is exalted above all self.
Thus he slowly, little by little, ascends
to freedom from the bonds of bodily life,
to the seat of bliss.”
Arjuna, like many others, cannot understand this teaching; he believes that if he does nothing “himself,” his duty will not be fulfilled. He does not know whether it is better to simply surrender to knowledge or to action. Then Krishna explains to him that true knowledge can only be attained through becoming, and this only through action, which can only be perfect if it arises from the knowledge of the truth; in other words, that theory and practice complement each other. Only that which has its origin in the force of goodness working within man, and not from man’s conceit, is truly good. When man renounces his selfhood and surrenders himself to the divine, he no longer acts in his own right, but God is the cause of all good deeds performed by man. This is the ancient teaching for which Michael de Molinos was imprisoned and many saints persecuted, and which is still misunderstood today by quietists and others who selfishly seek salvation in idleness. For it is not a matter of daydreaming and enthusiasm, nor of curiosity and speculation, but of the awakening of true spiritual-divine Self-consciousness, without which no true contemplation, no entry into the inner sanctum of the soul, is possible. He who does not feel it will not understand it.
“There are two paths, I tell you, O Prince!
That open before you; two of the paths of wisdom.
One leads you to the goal through works,
Which reason teaches you; the other path,
The path of faith, is the spiritual path,
Which through devotion leads you to the highest.
Yet the two are one.”
All this is explained in the following chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna teaches non-desire and purity of soul as the highest virtue; as it also says in the Bible: “Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.” And what higher knowledge could a person aspire to, but to recognize God, the source of all existence, in whom everything is contained? Where there is unity of heart, enlightenment is not far away. Therefore, Gautama Buddha says: “Put aside all evil and purify the heart; this is the entire religion of the enlightened.” But to accomplish this, it is necessary to gain a correct understanding of the true nature of man and the principles of which he is composed, as well as of his position in nature. These explanations constitute the scientific part of the Bhagavad Gita, and these teachings are neither contrived nor the result of speculation, nor were they obtained through communications from gods or spirits, but rather they emerged from the personal experience of the oldest and greatest sages and philosophers. What a person does not know from within himself is nothing more than theory, and theory is not, as many believe, the goal, but merely the means to the goal, which is becoming. What one learns “by heart” is only external; true knowledge arises from “inward” learning.
The first teaching we encounter in the Bhagavad Gita is that everything is essentially only One, even though it manifests itself in countless different manifestations. Whether we call this One “Parabrahm” or “God,” “the Absolute,” “Reality,” “All-Love,” “Omnipotence,” “All-Consciousness,” or by any other name is irrelevant. Names are only designations for the particular forms of perception under which the eternal One appears to us. Neither matter, nor force, nor consciousness are separable; none exists in itself. They are only designations for different manifestations of the One, which the human intellect cannot grasp and for which it has no adequate name, but which the Indian calls OM (Amen). He is the essence of everything and consequently of ourselves; and union with God and the knowledge of God (Theosophy) consists in the awakening in man of the consciousness of the eternal One, through which man himself attains knowledge of his inherent true essence. Then he no longer needs an external savior.
God did not create the world just once and then rest; he is still creating it. Nor does he create it himself, for his innermost being is rest. However, his power (the eternal Word) tirelessly continues to create, namely through the creative forces in nature, the Elohim of the Bible.
“Nothing binds me; I have nothing to achieve,
And yet I work without ceasing;
For if I did not work ceaselessly,
Those who follow my guidance would be deprived of the light on the path to salvation.
If I were to abandon them, it would be their ruin.
If I were to fall into sinful sleep for even a moment, these worlds would
perish.”
So too should the wise man work in God and with God, without wanting to achieve anything in his own right or to gain any advantage from it:
“Just as the fool strives with great diligence,
who strives for the fulfillment of his desires,
so should the enlightened one zealously
accomplish his work, free from the delusion of self,
bearing only the good of the whole in his heart.”
God in his own essence (in himself) is eternal rest, Self-knowledge, and bliss (sat-chit-anandam [sat-cit-ānandam]); nature is the revelation of his omnipotence. He is thus also the innermost essence of nature, and nature is not divine and perfect only because ignorance and passion, which oppose the will of God, reign within it; just as a human being only appears as a divine being when his divine nature has overcome his animal nature and has become manifest in it.
God in himself is not revealed to our senses; yet, in all revealed things, the unrevealed can be spiritually known. He is the life, light, and consciousness in all things, and that which gives all things their perfections. If one removes from a thing everything that is not God, only God remains. There are therefore two worldviews: the so-called “materialistic,” which believes that the life of things is a product of dead matter, and the religious, which considers life in all living things to be an effect, albeit an indirect one, or reflection, of the Spirit of God in the universe. Each person may consult his own reason as to which of the two is correct; but what God speaks in the hearts of the enlightened is recorded in the Bhagavad Gita. He says:
“I am Brahma! I, the One and Only
And Imperishable. In my Self
I am Adhyātman, the Supreme Spirit,
The Soul of the Soul. What springs from me is called karma; but when I manifest myself
In various beings, I am called Adhibhūta, Lord of the world;
And I am Adhidaiva when I am seen
In my capacity as the Creator
Of all; but Adhijaina, Lord
Of sacrifice, I am in this body,
In which I speak to You, Holy One!
For all hearts beat towards me,
And whoever departs from life thinking
Only of me alone, having
become free from the bonds of the flesh,
enters the existence of my highest being.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I am the spirit that dwells in the depths of the soul,
In every being, unfathomably,
The beginning, middle, and end of things,
Their origin, existence, and their demise.
I am the active agent in the realm of forces,
The sun’s radiance in the heavenly choir of suns;
The storm god when the winds roar in space,
The bright moon in the mighty host of stars;
The tree of life among all trees,
And among the enlightened, the light;
The radiance in all things that shine,
The goodness in good human hearts,
In every thing, the origin of all being;
For I am everything; without me there is nothing.
Although, in essence, everything is God, we must nevertheless distinguish between God and nature, i.e., between the spirit and its revelation, or in other words, between essence and appearance; for the world in itself (considered without God) is only Maya, i.e., idea or illusion. Essence remains eternally the same and is unchanging; appearance comes and goes; the world of appearances is, as it were, a dream of the Creator, and just as man has his periods of waking and rest, so too does the world spirit have its periods of inner rest and outer activity, its periods of creation (Manvantaras) and “nights” (Pralayas), and on every morning of creation the world of appearances emerges from the unmanifest, only to enter again at the end of the world—not into “nothingness,” but into the unmanifest, the essence of the Godhead.
Everything in nature is arranged according to measure and time. Day and night, the seasons, ebb and flow, alternate regularly; the human heart sends its currents in regular pulses through all parts of the body; the heart of our planetary system similarly has its pulses, each lasting approximately 11 years[3]; and the entire solar system, as well as the entire universe, has its definite periods of birth, youth, maturity, old age, death, and reincarnation. But the Spirit of God outlasts everything, the creation and the passing of worlds, and with it man, in whose soul the consciousness of the Spirit of God has awakened.
According to the ancient sages’ calculation of time, the duration of one world period (Manvantara) is 308,448,000 years. Fourteen Manvantaras and one Satya Yuga correspond to one “day” of Brahma [R.H.—kalpa in human years] and encompass a period of 4,320,000,000 of our years. In fact, from the beginning of the evolution of our solar system until now (1899), 1,955,884,600 years have passed. It is commonly said that during the night of creation, Brahma “sleeps”; this is not to be understood as meaning that God sleeps; rather, he [neuter] simply does not appear as Creator (Brahmā) during this time; he exists in his capacity as Creator only when he begins to create. God himself does not sleep; nor does a human being who has become conscious in the mind of God. Nature and the body sleep, but not the mind. Thus, the Bhagavad Gita also states regarding the enlightened human being:
“. . . . . . Where for others
only darkness reigns, he sees the bright day
in his soul; what to the unenlightened
seems like bright daylight, that is for him,
who sees through it with the clear eye of the spirit,
the deep darkness of ignorance.”
God is beyond human comprehension; for a God whom a human being could comprehend would no longer be God, but rather less than a human being, since only the high can comprehend the low and the great the small; but not vice versa. Nature, on the other hand, is knowable by humans because the spirit of God in humans stands higher than nature. What is eternal and divine in humans can comprehend the eternal and divine; the perishable intellect, on the other hand, comprehends only that which is perishable.
According to the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, the entire material world and everything in it is composed of three basic elements: Tamas (stupidity [darkness]), Rajas (passion), and Sattva (goodness). These three could also be called matter, force, and consciousness. They are the three qualities of nature inherent in all things; however, the spirit is superior to nature and its three qualities. The more Tamas predominates in a being, the more material it is; if Rajas predominates, it is full of energy, and if Sattva manifests itself in it, it has knowledge of existence. All these three bind the spirit to the physical world and are the source of “good” and “evil”; only the spirit that rises above these three qualities of its own nature is superior to good and evil. He is then no longer a “human,” but the Absolute itself. “Good” and “evil” are relative concepts, and how could something be good or evil that no longer has any relationship to anything? Thus, God, considered as the Absolute, is not “good” either; only by revealing himself to us in his quality as the source of all good does he appear “good.”
»Sattva (consciousness), Rajas (passion)
and Tamas (ignorance) are the three powers of nature.
They all bind the fallen spirit to this physical world.
Of these, Sattva, which is pure and luminous, binds the sinless soul through pleasure and bliss,
which comes from the knowledge of its goodness.
But Rajas, closely related to desire,
the source of selfishness and passion,
seizes the soul through the power of the works,
which a person performs in his own right.
Tamas, stupidity and ignorance,
the product of unknowing darkness,
a nothingness that yet rules the entire world,
it binds the soul through sleep and indolence.
Thus Sattva rules through the feeling of pleasure,
Rajas through thirst for action and thirst for knowledge.
And Tamas through the blind folly that
resists the light of knowledge.”
These three elements, symbolized by “earth,” “fire,” and “light,” constitute not only the nature of man, but also of the universe; in the mineral kingdom, Tamas predominates; in the animal kingdom, Rajas (egoism); and in the human kingdom, Sattva (love of the true, the good, and the beautiful) should predominate.
A knowledge of the three fundamental qualities of nature is of great practical use, not only for this world, but also for our future destiny. It helps us judge each thing according to whether it arises from one or another quality. For example, a certain virtue, renunciation, or the like, is quite different depending on whether its motive is stupidity, selfishness, or the knowledge of truth. Furthermore, after the separation of the soul from the body, every being returns to its origin: the spirit to God, the body to the earth, and the soul (the inner man) to that which corresponds to its own essence.
“And when the soul leaves this world,
When sattva is ripe within it, it enters
To the divine world of light, where those dwell
Who sought the good and found it.
But when the body dies, as long as rajas
holds rule within it, the path leads
To the realm of fire, where the place
For earthbound beings is found.
And when man dies, filled with the night of tamas,
Stubbornly closing himself off to the light of faith,
He abandons his human rights,
And, debased, becomes lesser beings.
But whoever is loyal to me, in firm faith,
Devoted to me and loves me above all else;
I will set him free from the forces of nature;
He enters into me, into Brahma’s being.”
All this is difficult to understand as long as the key to its understanding, the theory of the composition of man and the universe, remains a mystery. A detailed discussion of this, as well as the theory already touched upon, would require the writing of entire volumes, and we can therefore only briefly mention it.
Four states of consciousness can be distinguished in man, and whoever examines himself will ultimately find neither more nor less. That which lies nearest to us is our personal, changing everyday consciousness; above this we find the consciousness of the inner man; high above this the God-consciousness and above this the universal consciousness, the Absolute, which encompasses and fills everything. Each of these states of consciousness is a reflection of the next higher one. Indian teachings present this to us by comparison: A ray of sunlight falls on a clear mirror and forms a glow that is not much less luminous than the sun itself. This glow is then reflected by a metal plate opposite the mirror and from there falls onto a wall, where it appears only as a weak and indirect reflection of the sunlight. The sun represents the deity, the mirror the Logos, the plate the inner man, and the wall the personal, earthly man. Our task is to pass from the outer to the inner man, from this to the God-man, and from this “Son” of God to the “Father.” This means that man, who has become perverted and unnatural, must first become natural before he can become an image of God, and only then can he merge into the Divine, i.e., enter Nirvana.
God is not distant from man, nor is he divided into beings. He is the unity that cannot be fragmented. Just as the one sun shines on different surfaces of water and yet its image appears in each as a whole, so too does the one God reveal himself in many hearts. Creatures are nothing other than “vessels” in which the Spirit of God is to be revealed. Nor does this Spirit require any “development”; it is perfect in itself; but the forms do require development and refinement by the Spirit, so that the Spirit can be revealed in its perfection in them.
“O son of earth! The substance you see is Kshetra (“the vessel”),
a play area it is,
In which the forces of life move;
That which perceives is Kshetrajna [kṣetrajña] (or “spirit”).
I am the soul that is contained in all things, that perceives and perceives;
And true knowledge is only that,
That recognizes in itself what it is.
God is, and is not, in all forms.
The ruler, yet he is unlimited;
The powers of heaven are the ruler’s hands;
All-seeing is his eye, his feet
Stand everywhere; it is he who illuminates the world, sustains it, and encompasses it.
Glorious in all senses, power, yet bound to nothing, master of every work;
He is the all-sustainer, who in the end
destroys the world and creates it anew.”
Since man, as the son of God and the product of nature, is a whole, all divine powers and all forces of nature are contained within him and can be manifested within him. Likewise, everything that can be found in man is present in the universe. In the great (macrocosm) as well as in the small (microcosm), we find the same seven principles, the “seven planets” of the alchemists; no more and no less; namely: The material principle, the etheric basis of all forms, the life principle (prana) [prāṇa], the principle of instincts and desires (kama) [kāma], the thought principle (manas), the cognitive faculty or intellect (buddhi), and the divine spirit (atma) [ātmā]. Since every thing can only absorb that which is of its own kind, in man too the body is nourished by the products of the earth, the vital force by the universal life principle, the passion by the universally prevailing passions, the intellect by the realm of ideas, true knowledge by the light of wisdom in the universe, and the spark of God in the heart is fanned by divine love. And the more man attains true knowledge, the more free his will becomes and the more capable he is of attracting the divine to himself, of absorbing it, and of being nourished by it. Whoever sacrifices himself to God, God sacrifices himself to him.
“The blessing of the gods descends upon him who worships them. The food you seek will be given to you as the reward for your sacrifice.”
Thus, God offers Himself as a sacrifice in the heart of the one who offers Him his Lord as a sacrifice, and this sacrifice too can only be made in the heart through the power of God.
“God is love, God is the sacrificial lamb;
It is He who sacrifices; and in the sacrificial fire
He himself is there, feeding the fire.
He sacrifices in God and lives in God,
He who only remembers God in the sacrifice.”
It would go far beyond the scope of this article to consider the composition of the universe as described in the Bhagavad Gita and the Vedas. This has already been done in H. P. Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine”[4] and in the works of Sankaracharya,[5] and we only have room to consider the doctrine of karma.[6]
The word “karma” means “action.” Goethe says: “In the beginning was the valley.” All being and becoming occur not through empty imagination, nor through intellectual speculation, nor through a will that fails to materialize, but through action. According to Indian teachings, every person is in character precisely what they have become through their previous actions, whether in their present or a previous existence. Their reward and punishment lie in this. Deeds become habits, and habits become the essence of the person. The punishment of a person who makes a habit of stealing is that they become a thief; the punishment of a person who commits cruel acts is that they become a devil. Likewise, the reward of noble actions lies in the ennobling of the human being’s essence. Since in the end every being returns to that from which it came, everyone can imagine for themselves the fate of souls after death. Five paths are described there. One is the path to hell and destruction, a state of torment and misery; the other leads to animalization and the animal womb; the third to the realm of shadows, the realm of ghosts and earthbound souls; the fourth to reincarnation in human form; the fifth to the world of the gods, the heavenly realm. But he who has overcome himself and everything enters divinity, Nirvana; that is, we are all already there, and it is nothing more important than our truly recognizing this. The ideal is only real for us when it is realized within us through action and thereby comes to our knowledge.
“So fight bravely. Surely you too
Will reach me if your heart and mind
Remain firmly focused on me;
For everyone who surrenders himself completely to me
And serves no other gods
Enter the highest existence through me.”
But who could surrender completely to the Divine and constantly think of God, except one who carries the love of the Divine in their heart and is filled with it? “He who feels and sees God in himself and in everything is the true seer.”
“But most of all I love those who
elevate me above all, whose life
is love. I love them above all else
And I nourish them with my love.”
Thus, the Bhagavad Gita culminates in the ancient teaching, which Christianity has also adopted, but which is not yet practiced everywhere, and which includes everything else: “Love God above all else, and your neighbor as yourself.”
Note:
[1] The Bhagavad-Gita of the Indians. (The Song of the Godhead and the Doctrine of Divine Being.) Franz Hartmann, M.D. [Die Bhagavad-Gita der Indier. (Das Lied von der Gottheit und die Lehre vom göttllichen Sein.) Franz Hartmann, M.D. Theosophischer Wegweiser 1, no. 1 (October 1898) 177-197 [[Also: The Bhagavad Gita of the Indians. Franz Hartmann (Torbole, Lago di Garda). Wiener Rundschau 3, No. 15 (June 1899), 350–359 [Die Bhagavad Gita der Indier. Das Lied von der Gottheit und die Lehre vom göttlichen Dasein.]] [Translation from the German by Robert Hutwohl, ©2025]
[2] [R.H.—For correct spelling of the Sanskrit words, I have referred to The Bhagavad Gītā by Annie Besant and Bhagavan Das, The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, India, Sixth Edition, 1973.]
[3] [R.H.—This is also the cycle of Jupiter and the cycle of sun spot activity.]
[4] Die »Secret Doctrine«, W. Friedrich, Leipzig, 1848.
[5] Sankaracharya “Tattwa Bodha.” Translated from Sanskrit by Dr. F. Hartmann.
[6] “Lotusblüten,” Volume IX.