VII: 10

Chapter 7, Verse 10

"I am the eternal seed
Of everything that grows.
I am the wisdom of those who know
And the courage and vigor of the active."

Sri Eknath Easwaran:

Meister Eckhart uses the same image when he says that the seed of God is in everyone.  Just as pear seeds grow into pear trees, so this God-seed within us will grow into a God-tree of love and service if we nourish it and protect it from weeds.  This seed is indestructible.  No matter what our past has been, no matter how many times we have missed the mark, the God-seed remains intact throughout.

When we begin to look for it, we find that it is covered with the weeds of fear and anger and giant thistles of greed.  Once we take to regular Sadhana and start making the little choices that water the God-seed, the weeds begin to wither and die.  These little choices we make to weed our inner garden are ascribed to the Buddhi, our discerning faculty.  The Buddhi is our charioteer.  When it takes direction from the Atman within, it guides us intelligently down even the most perilous road.  Today, surrounded as we are on all sides by a bewildering array of life-styles and behavioral models, most of which promise the opposite of what they deliver, this capacity is vital if we are to make wise choices.

Buddhi and the will, the capacity to discern clearly what is wise and the capacity to translate that insight into action, go hand in hand.  Once you begin to taste the freedom in this, you will find a certain fierce joy when you choose something of lasting benefit over what you crave in the moment.  For a long time these choices can be supremely difficult, for they go against the grain of our conditioning.

It takes real courage and endurance to persevere in making such choices day in and day out.  So the Lord tells us, "If you have the courage to answer these challenges, I will be your courage."  He is right there inside us, in our will and determination whenever we are doing our best to actualize our resolves.  Wherever there is light and splendor and excellence in anything, we witness a little more of his glory.

[Krishna is Arjuna's charioteer.  Arjuna has lived his life in alignment with spiritual principles for the most part.  In his time of crisis, his pure Buddhi is flooded from within by the wisdom of the Atman, represented by the transmission of Krishna's teaching.  This flood drenches Arjuna's discerning faculty, an element of the world of form (though more subtle than matter, the Buddhi is still part of Prakriti), with the wisdom of the formless.  The two become one, and Arjuna makes the wise choice.]