Sruti in Smriti: Bhagavad Gita As It Is (1972), Chapter 9, verse 19

TEXT 19

tapāmy aham ahaṁ varṣaṁ

nigṛhṇāmy utsṛjāmi ca

amṛtaṁ caiva mṛtyuś ca

sad asac cāham arjuna

SYNONYMS

tapāmi—give heat; aham—I; aham—I; varṣam—rain; nigṛhṇāmi—withold; utsṛjāmi—send forth; ca—and; amṛtam—immortality; ca—and; eva—certainly; mṛtyuḥ—death; ca—and; sat—being; asat—nonbeing; ca—and; aham—I; arjuna—O Arjuna.

TRANSLATION

O Arjuna, I control heat, the rain and the drought. I am immortality, and I am also death personified. Both being and nonbeing are in Me.

PURPORT

Kṛṣṇa, by His different energies, diffuses heat and light through the agency of electricity and the sun. During summer season it is Kṛṣṇa who checks rain from falling from the sky, and then, during the rainy season, He gives unceasing torrents of rain. The energy which sustains us by prolonging the duration of our life is Kṛṣṇa, and Kṛṣṇa meets us at the end as death. By analyzing all these different energies of Kṛṣṇa, one can acertain that for Kṛṣṇa there is no distinction between matter and spirit, or, in other words, He is both matter and spirit. In the advanced stage of Kṛṣṇa consciousness, one does not therefore make such distinctions. He sees Kṛṣṇa only in everything.

Since Kṛṣṇa is both matter and spirit, the gigantic universal form comprising all material manifestations is also Kṛṣṇa, and His pastimes in Vṛndāvana as two-handed Śyāmasundara, playing on a flute, are those of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

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