Know thou that action comes from Brahma, and Brahma proceeds from the Imperishable. Therefore, the all-pervading (Brahma) ever rests in sacrifice. Bhagavad Gita, chap 3, ver 15
This is one of those particularly meaningless verses of the Bhagavad Gita. A puzzling aspect of this verse is that it is not clear here in which sense Krishna uses the word ‘Brahma’. There are two Brahma’s in Hinduism, there is Brahma and then there is Brahma, one is the creator God, being one of the Hindu Trinity of Gods, and the other is the Supreme Brahman, an abstract principle denoting the ultimate reality of the universe. Only the Brahman would be considered as the imperishable, all-pervading reality, and the Trinity God Brahma has nothing particularly to do with It, i.e., the Brahman, which is usually referred to in the neuter gender.
Brahmā the creator should not be confused with Brahman the Supreme Being of the Upanishads, for there is very little relation between them. Brahmā undoubtedly is a later development of the creator and protector god Prajapati so frequently mentioned in the late Vedic texts. (The Religion of the Hindus, Kenneth W. Morgan)
In a verse preceding the one above, Krishna talks about Prajapati Brahma, the creator God, so we would suppose this verse is referring to him, but then it brings the Brahman into the mix, and mixes it up! Leave alone trying to make any meaning of this verse, we do not know which Brahma Krishna is talking about in the first place! Just in case people start arguing that this verse actually refers to the absolute Brahman, I would like to point out that the Absolute does not proceed from anywhere, nor has It anything to do with any stupid sacrifices!
One unique thing among many others that the Bhagavad Gita did was to create a hybrid of Upanishadic and Puranic approaches to religion. As we have discussed elsewhere, these are the two major lines that constitute popular Hinduism. The first one is the philosophic and mystical stream flowing from the Upanishads, the second and vastly more popular one has its origins in the mythology and thebhaktiphilosophy of the Puranas. The mythology of these Puranas is supposed to be of a vaguely semi-symbolic nature, reflecting elements of a thoroughly devotional/dualistic outlook. Interestingly, the dualistic bhakti philosophy shares considerable amount of common ground with the non-dualistic philosophy of Vedanta, still these are two totally different approaches to God; the latter is mystical, philosophical, imaginative and poetic, while the former is superstitious, idol-worshiping, imaginary, hugely derivative and largely idiotic, albeit having enormous appeal to the masses.
Now let me reveal to you a most intriguing and bizarre thing in this context. I will first cite a few lines from Lonely Planet’s guide on India here:
Hinduism has no founder, central authority or hierarchy and isn't a proselytising religion. Essentially, Hindus believe in Brahman, who is eternal, uncreated and infinite; everything that exists emanates from Brahman and will ultimately return to it.
Permit me yet another citation:
In Hinduism, the purpose of life is to achieve union with Brahman. Hindus aim to give up their finite, limited individuality to become part of infinity. Like paths leading up to a mountain, many paths can lead to Brahman, but the peak is the goal — the soul's release from the world — to which all believers aim. (World Religions 101: An Overview for Teens, Margaret O. Hyde, Emily G. Hyde)
And the simple fact of the matter is that nobody knows who this Brahman is! Such a fantastically strange religion, this Hinduism! The Hindus, the common people, do not know their own God; just go to some office or school premises, or anywhere else in India except around the Ramakrishna Mutt Library, and take a little survey on how many people have heard a God by the name of Brahman, and you may hardly find one person out of a hundred who has even a vague idea. Instead, most often you could be questioned back, “Do you mean Brahma, the creator God?” Hindus do not know their own God, but foreigners like those who have written the above books would know! Isn’t that strange!
Even I myself first came across this name for the ultimate Truth in Hinduism only when I was in college, and took good time to take it in. It was rather shocking to realize that I had been a Hindu all my life and did not know the name of its real God, quite apart from the silly hosts of its pantheon which include Krishna. Although I had previously heard the word ‘Brahm’ in the recitations of the Bhagavad Gita itself, as in the term Brahma-Nirvana, I somehow confused this with 'Brahma', the creator God of Hindu Trinity, who nonetheless happens to be not the supreme all-powerful one as in the other religions where Creator usually equals God. (And that is why Hindus would have to say ‘creator God’ and not simply the Creator or God.) Although Brahman and Brahma are both looked upon as the creative power from which the universe originated, these two are completely different and should not be confused. Regardless, the confusion naturally happens in the general perception, on account of identical names, and some overlapping of attributes and functions.
The above-cited Lonely Planet Guide to India goes on to say that:
All Hindu deities are regarded as a manifestation of Brahman, who is often described as having three main representations, the Trimurti: Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva.
Now, I had never heard of this until just now. But, it turns out to be true! I have been a Hindu all my life, somewhat interested in religious matters, in fact obsessed with this Vedantic concept of the Supreme Brahman for so many years now, and yet I did not know that the Hindu Trinity emerged from the Brahman, that is to say, in a unique and privileged sense! Generally, in the popular perception, the Trinity is not supposed to have emanated from anything or anybody. There is a prominent sect in Hinduism though, involving worship of the Mother Goddess which believes that all of the Trinity first came out from their Devi (and later she wanted to have sex with them, it gets all confusing really). I am thus quite familiar with the notion of the Trinity emerging from the Devi, but I could have never even imagined that they came from the Brahman too. (Hopefully, there is no relation between the Brahman and the Devi!) The thing is, my knowledge of the Brahman comes from spiritual works, not from some goosey theological scriptures, so I completely missed out on this aspect. Again I am in a deep shock, right now, not because of having been in ignorance of such a simple fact of Hinduism so far, but at the crass idiocy of these people for debasing the greatest conceptual discovery of all spirituality and mysticism, the Brahman, by dragging it thus into the morass of gods and goddesses. I knew that Adi Shankara was worshiping Shiva and all kinds of goddesses and dancing before their idols, but I just considered it to be some kind of hobby and did not think much of it; indeed, I would have never imagined he could stoop so low as to accommodate these deities into the pristine Advaita philosophy, which is what he seems to have done.
There are essentially only two concepts in Advaita Vedanta, Brahman and maya, the Absolute and the relative — such simplicity and elegance — but these people had to introduce in all these gods even here, into the core philosophy! This whole problem arises because apparently nobody could come to easily accept the simple truth that Hinduism has two quite distinct approaches to God, and they therefore kept making attempts at intertwining these two in some fashion. Still, it is quite fine if the mythology-based religion borrowed some concepts from the philosophy-based religion, but the process happening the other way round is just abominable.
And so the Brahman is in a big mess too, as I have just discovered. As of course is Brahma, the creator God. In the Hindu religion, this Brahma is supposed to have created the whole world, but is so bizarrely treated almost equal to much lesser gods such as Varuna, the god of rain, or Maruts, the storm deities. Imagine that! These people who believed in such grotesquely absurd nonsense, meaning all believing Hindus, seem to be pathetically retarded. The deplorable status of Brahma can be seen clearly in the following verse which is sometimes sung in praise of Krishna at the beginning of a recital of the Bhagavad Gita:
Salutations to that God (Krishna) whom Brahma, Indra, Varuna, Rudra and the Maruts praise with divine hymns….
Brahma somehow happens to be a very impotent God, and is considered far inferior to Shiva and Vishnu, his colleagues in the Trinity circle. Some people really messed very badly with Brahma, I feel pity for this guy. (The people also messed some good deal with the Brahman, but I only feel pity for the stupid idiots who did that!) Imagine, being the Creator of this vast Universe this Brahma has to stand in queue and sing praises of our Lord of the Bugs! I do not know if this kind of nauseating palaver makes any kind of sense to anyone.
Hinduism is the most philosophical of religions, or is supposed to be so, but it has ended up by being a religion whose followers are the most thoughtless among the followers of all the other major religions. A devout Christian would ponder once in a while about metaphysical issues, heaven, hell, etc., even a Muslim would do so, I suppose. But a typical devout Hindu just goes to the temple, worships Krishna or Shiva, and performs other elaborate religious rites from time to time, that’s about it! All religions stifle thinking, but ancient mythology-based religions do so in a more direct and unapologetic manner. In the case of Hinduism it tends to brazenly suppress the great thoughts and insights that have flowered right in the midst of its being and presence. The confusion between Brahm and Brahma is not just a coincidence, it is very much indicative of the overlaying of the mythological religion on the mystical religion, one suppressing, stifling, and almost killing the other. The Bhagavad Gita has great role to play in this too.
Brahm and Brahma are balled up anyway, but to spice up things a little bit more, the topmost priestly class of the Hindu society is called the Brahmanas or Brahmins! Welcome to the party, ye holy men! An excerpt from The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Religions — parentheses in the original —:
The words "Brahma," "Brahman," and "Brahmin" can be intimidating for those encountering Hinduism for the first time. Use great care when employing the words Brahma, Brahman, and Brahmin. These frequently confused expressions can cause unintended offense.
Brahma is a specific creator god who, despite a decline in popularity since the sixth century C.E., is still regarded as one of the supreme deities in the Hindu pantheon. Brahman is a Hindu term for ultimate reality without change, or eternity, and may be conceived as the Supreme Being or single God. (Just to keep things confusing, this word is sometimes rendered as Brahma, but the two concepts are nevertheless distinguishable.) A Brahmin is a member of the prestigious priestly class (caste) in India; to this day, only members of this group are allowed to read from the Veda. (Just to continue to keep things confusing, the word Brahmin is sometimes rendered as Brahman.) (Brandon Toropov and Luke Buckles)
Why on earth are the Brahmanas named after the Supreme Brahman anyway? In another totally ridiculous verse in the Gita, Krishna suggests a possible reason for this,
“Om Tat Sat”: this has been declared to be the triple designation of Brahman. By that were created formerly the Brahmanas, the Vedas and the sacrifices. chap 17, ver 23
So, according to Krishna, from the Brahman came Brahmanas, the Vedas, and the sacrifices. But again the same problem here, does not everything else in the universe originate from the Brahman too? Why Brahmanas and the Vedas in a unique and privileged sense? The general idea of Krishna seems to be just to prattle away any kind of nonsense that comes to mind as long as you can slip it inside holy-sounding Sanskrit verses.
Now, ‘Om Tat Sat’ — ‘Om That Truth’ — is a truly powerful Vedantic representation, but what Krishna does is put it in a flyblown mess which is a monstrously shameless propaganda advocating the special divine status of the supercilious, scurfy Brahmin caste. I have never seen this kind of prostitution of philosophy anywhere! In one line you talk of profound mystical philosophy, in the very next line in the same verse, you carry out nonsensical propaganda and link it to the previous line! What can I call it except whoring brazenness!
In fact, this second sentence of the above Om Tat Sat verse simply has no meaning of any kind, quite apart from the ridiculousness of its basic proposition. Let us imagine a scene of a Brahmana performing a sacrificial ritual, chanting the Vedas. Here, the Vedas are those texts that were compiled and codified by a historical person called Veda Vyasa from among a rampant mess of written materials available during his time (which were however not actually written down, being only handed down orally from generation to generation). The contribution of Veda Vyasa is not disputed by anyone. So the Vedas could not have come from the Supreme Brahman. In fact, in a disquisition that is featured in the next essay, Arjuna uses the term ‘three Vedas’, whereas we have four Vedas in Hinduism, with the Mahabharata itself being endearingly regarded as the fifth. So if these Vedas proceeded from the Brahman, presumably at the time of creation, they could not have subsequently increased in number, right? And then, the sacrifice performed here by the Brahmana — this thing has come just now into being, it did not surely originate formerly from the Brahman directly. And the Brahmana himself originated from his mother a few decades ago, he was not formerly created by the Brahman either! This is the kind of mess the Bhagavad Gita is. However, interestingly, if we substitute the creator God Brahma for the Brahman in the contextual background of this second line, implying all these three emanated from the creator God Brahma, it would make some kind of sense at least; we would then take it in a pictorial, symbolic sense which is the level at which Puranic literature functions, without thinking too much about it. We would not then take it in a serious philosophical sense in which the first statement is made, the declaration that says that Om Tat Sat is a direct indication toward the Brahman. Why Krishna bungles so much between one Brahma and the other and creates a botch out of it all is a mystery!
Conceptually, both the Brahman and Brahma seem to have evolved from the Vedic God of Prajapati, nonetheless moving on completely divergent tracks. The confusion between all these gods and Gods prevailed over 2,000 years before the time of the Bhagavad Gita, during the Vedic age when the whole philosophical and theological thought of the Indian mind was still very much in its infancy and evolving rapidly. There was absolutely no need for the author of the Bhagavad Gita to be so abysmally atavistic and confuse it all up once again. By the latter part of the Vedic times itself, the concept of the Brahman was already formulated in rather clear terms. Here I present an excerpt from Surendranath Dasgupta’s A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1, featuring a passage from Satapatha Brahmana:
The conception of Brahman which has been the highest glory for the Vedanta philosophy of later days had hardly emerged in the Rig Veda from the associations of the sacrificial mind...
But it is only in the Satapatha Brahmana that the conception of Brahman has acquired a great significance as the supreme principle which is the moving force behind the gods. Thus the Satapatha says, "Verily in the beginning this (universe) was the Brahman (neut.). It created the gods; and, having created the gods, it made them ascend these worlds: Agni this (terrestrial) world, Vayu the air, and Surya the sky… Then Brahman itself went up to the sphere beyond. Having gone up to the sphere beyond, it considered, 'How can I descend again into these worlds?' It then descended again by means of these two, Form and Name. Whatever has a name, that is name; and that again which has no name and which one knows by its form, 'this is (of a certain) form,' that is form: as far as there are Forms and Name so far, indeed, extends this (universe). These indeed are the two great forces of Brahman; and, verily, he who knows these two great forces of Brahman becomes himself a great force.”
So much clarity here indeed, considering this was written in the late 2nd millennium B.C.E., when the whole world was proliferating in idiotic, idolatrical fables and myths — and we even come across such a jolt of inspiration toward the end of the passage. We can clearly see the process of evolution of conceptual thinking happening here. First the text talks about the Brahman in the context of gods and goddesses, which is mostly just primitive nonsense, and then suddenly it takes a leap and goes into a philosophical mode. Here the text is basically saying, ‘the universe is composed of names and forms and all of them emerge from one Source.’ And also that the one who realizes this somehow comes into contact with that infinite source of power. Whoosh! A sudden simplicity and a swift flight of abstract thinking. Just a little push from here lands us in the Upanishads, which declare that one becomes the Brahman Itself — with the implication that one has always been the Brahman in full but just that the realization of this truth has come about now. No gods, goddesses and all the puerile mess here, just a pure vision of deep reality!
Coming 1,500 years after the Satapatha Brahmana and supposedly in the same tradition, the Bhagavad Gita should have taken up the degree of clarity and inspiration. Instead, it regresses badly and makes an incredible muddle of it.
Obviously, Krishna likes to simply screw everything up in his characteristic style. But now, seems like he is not content with that. He wants more. Screwing something up could be tremendous fun, but perhaps not as much as screwing something directly (with no ‘up’ following it). What I mean is this, although Krishna acknowledges the Brahman or the Parabrahman to be the Supreme Reality of the universe at some places in the Gita, in most other verses he seems to say ‘Screw you!’ to this Brahman and refers to himself as the Supreme Reality of the universe. So Krishna arrogates to himself the honor of being the Brahman — in an exclusive sense, mind you — and also usurps the position of Brahma, constantly giving us the impression of himself being the creator of the universe, in a theological sense. Also on one occasion, during the manifestation of his universal form, he subsumes the creator Brahma, along with all other Gods and gods into himself.
As if all this were not enough, in another verse Krishna directly confesses that he has been screwing Brahma for a long time, (though couched in a slightly more pious language):
Whatever forms are produced, O Arjuna, in any womb whatsoever, the great Brahma is their womb and I am the seed-giving father. chap 14, ver 4
Anything, as long as Krishna has fun.
Carry on, Lord! Carry on!
