Bhagavad Gita Commentary–Seventy-three–by Swami Nirmalananda Giri

The Cosmic Tree

There are certain symbols that are common to many cultures, especially in their distant past. One such is the Cosmic Tree. Devotees of Wagner’s music will well remember the Welt-Atem, the World Ash, that grew through the center of the earth, and how in Die Walkure Sigmund draws out the great sword Nothung that had been thrust into it by Wotan, his father.

India, too has this symbol, and Krishna opens the fifteenth chapter of the Gita with these words: “There is a fig tree in ancient story, the giant Ashwattha, the everlasting, rooted in heaven, its branches earthward: each of its leaves is a song of the Vedas, and he who knows it knows all the Vedas.” (Bhagavad Gita 15:1) Sargeant is more accurate: “They speak of the eternal ashwattha tree, having its roots above and branches below, whose leaves are the hymns. He who knows this is a knower of the Vedas.” This has both a macrocosmic meaning and a microcosmic one.

The cosmos–physical, astral, and causal, is rooted above in the Supreme Consciousness, in Brahman. Everything has originated in Brahman, has Brahman for its essential Being. That which is “below” is a manifestation of Brahman.

It is usual to say that the “leaves” are the hymns of the Veda, but this is very incorrect and misses the point of the character of relative existence. The word chhandamsi means poetic meter or rhythm. The meaning is that every “thing” is simply a mode of vibration, an energy-pattern, a variation on the single note of Om, of Mulaprakriti, the Primal Energy. Om, Shabda Brahman, is the Root Sound of which creation is a series of permutations. Those who know this–which implies knowledge of Purusha and Prakriti and their relationship–are knowers of the true Knowledge, the eternal veda/vidya.

We are rooted in our own Self, and by association in Brahman. All that we identify with as “us” are the modes of Prakriti, of Creative Energy–which is Brahman in extension. We, like everything, are “songs” of God, incarnations of Om. Om, the Pranava, truly is our life. That is why Patanjali says the japa and meditation of Om are “the way.”

Now we get more on the individual trees: “Downward and upward its branches bending are fed by the gunas, the buds it puts forth are the things of the senses, roots it has also reaching downward into this world, the roots of man’s action.” (Bhagavad Gita 15:2) Although we started with the ashwattha tree, the symbolism has switched to the banyan tree, which puts down roots from its branches, making the one tree into many dependent trees–an apt symbol of Brahman and us. The three gunas are the elements which make up the universal and individual trees. The objects of the senses are the sprouts of the trees which, tending downward, make fresh roots in the world–roots that war against the upper roots in the world of Brahman. These roots are karmas, both action and the results of action.

“What its form is, its end and beginning, its very nature, can never be known here. Therefore, a man should contemplate Brahman until he has sharpened the axe of his non-attachment. With this axe, he must cut through the firmly-rooted Ashwattha tree.” (Bhagavad Gita 15:3)

As long as our consciousness is centered “here” in relative existence, in the experience of the body, mind, and senses, we cannot possibly comprehend the true nature and “life” of the world and our embodiment within it. Therefore we must transfer our consciousness to “there”–to the spirit-self which is eternally rooted in Brahman. Then “there and now” we will comprehend everything. Just as the kernel of a seed or nut when it ripens pulls away from the shell, in the same way as we ripen through the practice of meditation we shall become detached from all that is “here.” The resulting illumined consciousness (prajna) will be the axe through which we cut through the subsidiary roots of the earthly banyan tree.

Writing of this, Dr. I. K. Taimni observed: “According to the yogic philosophy it is possible to rise completely above the illusions and miseries of life and to gain infinite knowledge, bliss, and power through enlightenment here and now while we are still living in the physical body.…No vague promise of an uncertain postmortem happiness this, but a definite scientific assertion of a fact verified by the experience of innumerable yogis, saints, and sages who have trodden the path of yoga throughout the ages.”

This being absolutely so, Krishna concludes:“Then he must try to realize that state from which there is no return to future births. Let him take refuge in that Primal Being, from whom all this seeming activity streams forth for ever.” (Bhagavad Gita 15:4)

Read the Bhagavad Gita online: The English text of the Gita posted on this Web Site is arranged according to the meter of the original Sanskrit text so it can be sung–as it is done every morning in our ashram and in most of the ashrams of India.