30 Jul 2023
[Dr. JSR Prasad asked:- In the Gita, the Aparaa prakriti mentions five inert elements and three internal instruments of awareness, which are mind, intelligence and basic ego. God Krishna speaks about Paraa prakriti immediately in the next verse, which means pure awareness, called as ‘Jiiva’. In this context, the fourth internal instrument called ‘Chittam’ or ‘memory’ is leftover. What is the explanation for this crucial point?]
Swami Replied:- Whatever you said is perfectly correct and We agree to your point completely. The explanation for this is:- ‘Chit’ is pure awareness, which grasps any external object (Saṃjñāna). ‘Chittam’ is the memory (the fourth internal instrument) of awareness, which stores some information grasped from external world, from which the Jiiva or Chit picks up a specific information (Smaraṇam). For picking up a thought, it must have been already stored (Dhāraṇam) in Chittam. Unless Dhāraṇam is done before, it cannot be picked up (Smaraṇam) by the individual soul or Jiiva. There is no difference between Chit and Chittam just like there is no difference between Manushya and Manushyataa. Hence, the word ‘Chit’ can indicate ‘Chittam’. Therefore, the word Chit has two verbal meanings, which are ‘grasping objects’ and ‘remembering stored thoughts’ (Citī – saṃjñāne smaraṇe ca). Grasping the objects (Saṃjñānam) refers to pure awareness or Jiiva and also storing (Dhāraṇam) to supply to the memory whenever Jiiva or Chit requires.
This Chit or Jiiva collects information from the world and immediately Chittam takes that information and stores in it. Storing is done by Chittam, whereas, collection and recollection of a required thought are done by Chit or Jiiva. Storing is the first step and supplying to memory is the second step. By mentioning the first step, the subsequent second step is also indirectly told. Hence, while describing about Chit in the next verse, God mentioned the second meaning, which is storing or Dhāraṇam as the second property of Chit or Chittam (Yayedaṃ dhāryate jagat). Here, the word Jagat means the world of information (Viṣaya jagat) and not the physical world because no awareness of any soul is storing the real physical world! Of course, the Advaita philosophers exploit this advantage by saying that since awareness or Jiiva is God and since God is creator, maintainer and destroyer of the world, in this verse, the referred awareness of soul is God because the awareness mentioned here is said to maintain the physical world (Jagat). They say that Jagat is the physical world and not the world of information. This is absurd because practically we are seeing that the physical world is not maintained by any soul. Moreover, if the Jiiva or awareness is maintaining the physical world, such awareness should also create and destroy the physical world. But, Jiiva or Chit cannot create or destroy even an atom of the world and also cannot even store an atom in it! Hence, this is a laughable stuff on the part of the Advaita philosophers. We can also hear the word ‘world’ used in the sense of ‘world of thoughts’. We hear people saying “that fellow is always immersed in his own world”. Based on the strength of this usage, such meaning can be easily derived. Therefore, Chittam, the fourth internal instrument is mentioned side by side while describing Chit or Paraa prakriti in the next verse in the Gita (Apareyamitastvanyāṃ, prakṛtiṃ viddhi me parām, Jīvabhūtāṃ mahābāho!, Yayedaṃ dhāryate jagat).
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