Verse 8.3

Verse 8.3: The Exalted One Spake: “Brahman is the Highest Immutable: the process-of-subjectivation is the assumption of inwardness (by it). What is designated the (creative-) movement is the genetic act which causes the beings and forms of existence to spring up. (15)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

Then said the Lord of the universe, “The Supreme Brahman fills up the entire porous body, and yet does not ooze out. It is as subtle as the very void, and yet it has been sieved through the fabric of Ether; and yet so thin and subtle a stuff, even when stirred, does not trickle down through the bag (jholī) of worldly knowledge. And that self-contained and self-sustained Being is Adhyatma, Spirit, which is pure eternal being-in itself, that knows not change, when space and body come into being, or cease to be. And now know ‘Karma’—action—to be this: by some unknown process, at times the multicoloured clouds emerge in the clear (blue) sky. So come into being from that formless and pure Brahman, the Prakriti (Nature), egotistic sense and other diverse elements, and then begins the process of the formation of the universe.

On the arid planes of fancy-free Brahman germinates the seed of the primeval desire and there issue forth shoots of multiform desire which soon get fully laden with bunches of fruit in the form of universe. Looking carefully at these, they appear to be full of the (original) seed viz. the Brahman, but it appears impossible to count the separate things coming into being and then ending after a brief life.

The different particles of the universe go on repeating the primeval desire—“I am many”—and then goes on growing in limitless abundance this universe in diverse ways. But all these are overfull with the Supreme Brahman, the plurality and the distinctiveness sweeping over it like floods. Similarly it is not to be known, how such “even” and “uneven” flux of things comes to be created in the universe. May it be that this entire cosmic process, made up of the moveables and immoveables, goes on merely as a pastime. Then (why) do there appear lakhs of diverse orders of living beings? No limit in regard to number or distinction can ordinarily be set to these shoots of beings, but to trace them to their origin, one must resolve them in the eternal void Brahman.

Thus where the author or the motive of the activity is not to be traced and yet, the effect viz. the universe appears suddenly and growing rapidly,—with this manifold appearance of things which comes from the formless Brahman, without its doing anything, and wears a form perceptible to the senses, is called Karman (creative movement).