Yog of Knowledge and Action
Chapter 4, Verse 5
śrī bhagavān uvāca
bahūni me vyatītāni
janmāni tava cārjuna
tānyahaṁ veda sarvāṇi
na tvaṁ vettha parantapa
The Lord says: Many are My lives that are past, and yours also, O Arjuna; all
of them I know, but you know them not, O scourge of your foes.
Krishna says to Arjuna, “Don’t think that our existence is only since we were born here. We existed before that. We are both without beginning or end. We are eternal. All these lives we have been together, we have incarnated together many times, it’s not just now that we are together."
Although Krishna’s eternal aspect is Narayana Swarupa, He has manifested in this world in many forms, as all the Avatars: Matsya, Kurma, Varaha, Narasimha, Vamana, Parashuram, and Rama. In this incarnation, He is the son of Vasudeva, so He is named Vasudeva Krishna. “These are all My aspects, and the one that you see in front of you now is a recent one.” He gives this spiritual teaching on his previous manifestations to Arjuna, reminding him that whenever He manifests Himself, it is always for the benefit of humanity, to uplift mankind.
He says, “I gave this knowledge to Surya dev, Surya Narayana. In My supreme aspect, as Narayana, I revealed it to the Sun-god so that he could pass this knowledge on to his future generations.” Christ also says, “Before Abraham, I existed. Before this creation, I existed. There is no beginning to Me or end. Even when I manifest Myself, there is no beginning to Me. And even if I appear to die, there is no death.”
When Bhagavan Krishna says to Arjuna, “I remember all our past lives, but you don’t remember”, He is reminding him of His omniscience, of this infinite knowledge of the Paramatma; He is showing Arjuna that He knows all, whereas humans don’t have this knowledge. He says, “Arjuna you don’t remember your previous incarnations, where you had to do a certain dharma, because you now identify so much with the outside world, with the body, the mind and the intellect.” Like I said earlier, when desires arise, this supreme knowledge disappears. Then one becomes like an animal. One loses one’s true nature, one’s ‘original nature’, as it is called in Christianity. Krishna says, “Arjuna, I will reveal to you that we were always together.”
It is not a coincidence that you are sitting here listening to the Shreemad Bhagavad Gita. It’s not a coincidence that God called you on the spiritual path; I’m not referring only to the people who are sitting here, but to all the people who long for the Divine around the world. This longing is not something that suddenly happens in one lifetime. You can’t say, “Oh, I’m born! I’m here! Now I’m longing for God!” No. You have had this longing for God through many lifetimes. Now you are receiving the good punya from the ‘good’ you did in your past lives. That’s why you have been born here as a human being, having the Grace to advance spiritually, advance towards God Consciousness.
This punya has brought you here and has given you this opportunity. You all come from different countries, and different places: South Africa, United States, Poland, Russia, Czech Republic, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Serbia, etc.; and most of you don’t have any physical connection to each other! But spiritually you are all connected! You are all one family. It is this spiritual connection that you have all had for many lives that has brought you together. Not only in this life: this life is just a continuation and a reminder for you to awaken. Mahavatar Babaji always sees you all as you used to be, in your original, pure state. That’s why He gave you the Atma Kriya Yoga. He said, “Here, take this! I’m giving you this. Use this!” That’s why I’m also talking with you about the Gita. Krishna is saying the same thing to Arjuna, “Awake, my dear! Know that what is happening now is just a continuation of what we were doing previously. And if you don’t reach the Ultimate in this life, we will surely meet again later on.
But try to do it in this life! It is possible to do it in one life. You don’t need ten lifetimes.”
In His Narayana Swarupa, Lord Krishna Himself, in the first aspect of His Divine manifestation, gave this knowledge to the Sun-god, who gave this Enlightenment to the first man, Manu. At the beginning of creation, everything was perfect! It was the Golden Age, when there was no delusion, when everyone was centred in the Divine Consciousness. Arjuna has lost the memory of his past lives and also of all the previous manifestations of the Lord. However, since the Lord incarnates by His own Will, nothing is hidden from Him. The Lord always knows all His lives; for Him there is no past, present or future. He knows all the Jivatmas and whatever is related to them. In this particular verse, the Lord is reminding Arjuna of their last incarnation together as Nara and Narayana. He says, “What we are doing right now on this battlefield, is a continuation of what happened when we incarnated as Nara and Narayana.”
Nara and Narayana were Arjuna and Krishna, respectively, in a previous life. Here Krishna reminds Arjuna why they have reincarnated and why this war is going to happen, “It is due to things that we did not finish in our previous life! I will remind you of that.” Nara and Narayana were manifestations of Lord Nrsingadev (also known as Narasimha). At that time, when Lord Nrsingadev manifested Himself, He killed the demon Hiranyakashipu. Once He had killed the demon Hiranyakashipu, it was the end of that incarnation of Lord Narayana.
However, also at that time, there was another demon, by the name of Sahasrakavacha. He had done great penance to Surya Narayana, the Sun-god. As the story goes, all the demons have always asked for immortality. But someone who is darkened in the mind can’t attain immortality. Only when one is free like Arjuna, will one attain immortality. This demon asked, “Give me the boon of immortality.” But he knew that whoever had asked for this boon, had not gotten it. Even his last friend, Hiranyakashipu, had been killed by Lord Nrsingadev. So, he thought, “Okay. I can do better than Hiranyakashipu. I will ask for the blessing that I will have a thousand kavachas, a thousand armours on me. And whoever tries to kill me and break one of these kavachas, will die. Furthermore, to be able to break one of these armours, one has to fight with me for a thousand years and do a thousand years of penance.
Of course, the Lord knew about this. So the two sages, Narayana and Nara, were manifested from the head and body of Lord Nrsingadev, respectively. Narayana is the Supreme Lord Himself and Nara represents mankind. When the time came for them to kill the demon, Sahasrakavacha, Nara tried to kill him, but was defeated and died. Narayana, through His yogic power, brought Nara back to life. He said, “How will we kill him? It seems impossible. Whoever tries to kill him will die, due to the blessing that Surya Narayana gave him.” So they alternated with each other. One would fight to break one kavacha for one thousand years, then would go into a deep meditation for a thousand years. Then, for the next thousand years, they did it the other way around: one time it would be Nara fighting the demon, and the other time it would be Narayana. This continued for several million years. Here we are talking about divine years. In human years, this appears to be very long; but in God’s time, it happens very quickly. So don’t be confused by these thousands, or millions of years.
After millions of years, there was only one kavacha, one armour left. When Sahasrakavacha saw that he was going to die, he appealed to Surya Narayana. He asked the Sun-god, “Please protect me!” At that time the great deluge, the pralaya, came and he ran away to hide. Lord Narayana ended that incarnation and said, “We will come back again to finish this!” Then later on, Sahasrakavacha was born as Karna, Nara was born as Arjuna, and Narayana was manifested as Krishna.
I would not say that He was ‘born’ as Krishna, but that He manifested as Krishna, incarnated as Krishna. That’s why Krishna says, “Arjuna, our relationship dates from a long time ago, and what we are going to do now, is just finish what we started! And it is a must for you to do this! That’s why I am telling you that you have to do this! There’s no other way.”
When you are in tune with the Divine, the Divine reveals to you your true dharma of life, why you have incarnated on Earth. Then all the illusion, all the other dharma which you have thought about, disappears! Only then, you have true knowledge of how to serve the Lord. Only then, can the Lord reveal Himself to you. Therefore, Arjuna should not entertain any doubt about the Truth of the Lord when He says, “I gave this knowledge to the Sun-god. I existed before everything was created or manifested.”
Bhagavad Gita
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