Gita 9.19

Raja Vidya Raja Guhya Yoga

तपाम्यहमहं वर्षं निगृह्णाम्युत्सृजामि च । अमृतं चैव मृत्युश्च सदसच्चाहमर्जुन ॥

tapāmy aham ahaṁ varṣaṁ nigṛhṇāmy utsṛjāmi ca | amṛtaṁ caiva mṛtyuś ca sad asac cāham arjuna ||

In essence: The Divine is the summer sun and the monsoon relief, the drought and the flood - He plays both sides of every duality because He alone is real.

A conversation between a seeker and guide to help you feel this verse deeply

Sadhak-Guru Dialogue

Sadhak: "This troubles me deeply. How can God be death? How can the Divine be non-existence? This sounds like saying God is evil as well as good."

Guru: "When the sun evaporates water from the ocean, is that evil? When the cloud withholds rain until conditions are right, is that cruel?"

Sadhak: "No, those are natural processes. They're not moral categories."

Guru: "Exactly. And what if death is also a natural process, not a moral failure? What if non-existence is not evil but simply the other pole of existence, like the trough of a wave is not the enemy of the crest but its completion?"

Sadhak: "But death causes suffering. Drought causes suffering. How can God claim these?"

Guru: "Does the body suffer in death, or does the mind suffer in anticipating and resisting death? Does drought cause suffering, or does the mind's struggle against what is cause suffering? I am not dismissing pain - pain exists. But suffering is pain plus resistance. If Krishna is death itself, then death is not a foreign invader but a movement within the divine. It can still be painful, but it is not evil, not other, not a victory of darkness over light."

Sadhak: "But what about 'asat' - non-existence? How can there be non-existence if everything is Krishna?"

Guru: "Consider deep sleep. Where are you when you sleep dreamlessly? From the waking mind's perspective, you were 'nowhere' - there was no experience, no content, no thing. Yet you were not annihilated. You returned to waking. That 'nowhere' is asat - not absolute nothingness but the absence of manifest form. Krishna includes this too. He is not only the dream and the dreamer but also the dreamless depth. He is not only all the things but also the no-thing from which things arise."

Sadhak: "So nothing is outside of God - not even absence, not even death?"

Guru: "Now you are approaching the teaching. The mind wants to divide reality: this is God, that is not-God. This is spiritual, that is worldly. This is life, that is death. But reality refuses such division. What Krishna reveals here is total divine presence - not presence as opposed to absence, but presence that includes what we call absence. When this is understood, where can fear go? What can anxiety attach to? If even death and non-existence are divine, then the worst your mind can imagine is still within the embrace. This is the radical security beyond all worldly security - not that nothing bad will happen, but that 'bad' and 'good' are both expressions of the One."

Did this resonate with you? Share it with someone who needs to hear this.

🌅 Daily Practice

🌅 Morning

Observe the morning weather and acknowledge both poles. If it is sunny, recognize: 'This is Krishna giving heat, enabling life.' If it is cloudy or rainy, recognize: 'This is Krishna releasing the waters, enabling different life.' If conditions seem harsh, recognize: 'Even this withholding has purpose in the larger cycle.' Let this expand into your day - the 'droughts' and 'rains' of circumstance are both divine movement.

☀️ Daytime

When something you would label 'negative' happens today - a plan fails, a relationship strains, an expectation is disappointed - pause before reacting and remember: 'Krishna is death as well as life, non-being as well as being.' This does not mean you approve of the difficulty or do nothing about it. It means you stop fighting reality's right to be what it is. From that non-resistance, act. You will find actions arising from acceptance are more effective than actions arising from resistance.

🌙 Evening

Contemplate your own mortality for five minutes - not morbidly, but honestly. Recognize that the same life force that animates you now will one day withdraw. Krishna is that life force, and Krishna is also the withdrawal. Feel how this recognition, rather than depressing, can actually be liberating. The pressure to 'achieve' something before death, the fear of 'wasting' life, the anxiety about 'running out' of time - all of these assume death is the enemy. What shifts when you recognize death as part of the divine dance? Rest in that shift.

Common Questions

If God is both immortality and death, does that mean death is good? Should we not resist death or try to heal the sick?

This verse is about ontology (what is), not ethics (what should be done). Understanding that death is within the divine order does not mean we should not preserve life. A mother understands that her child will one day die, yet she still feeds, protects, and heals the child. Knowledge of the larger picture does not negate appropriate action in the present. We can work to heal, to prolong life, to reduce suffering, while simultaneously understanding that when death comes despite our efforts, it is not a cosmic failure but a natural completion. This understanding actually enables us to be more present with dying loved ones, less consumed by the fear that makes us avoid the reality of mortality.

What does it mean that Krishna is 'sat' and 'asat'? Are these not logical opposites?

From ordinary logic's perspective, yes - something cannot be both existent and non-existent. But Krishna operates beyond ordinary logic. Consider: before the universe manifested, where was it? In 'non-existence' that somehow contained the potential for existence. After the universe dissolves, where will it go? Back into that same pregnant void. Krishna is the continuous reality that appears as existence when manifest and as non-existence when unmanifest. The coin has two sides, but it is one coin. Better yet - there is no coin separate from the sides. 'Sat' and 'asat' are not containers that Krishna fills; they are modes in which Krishna appears.

How do I reconcile this verse with prayers asking God for protection from death and misfortune?

Such prayers are natural and not negated by this teaching. Even knowing that rain comes from the same source that withholds rain, we still pray for rain when our crops need it. The difference is in the quality of the prayer. Before understanding this verse, prayer might be bargaining with a deity who controls death from outside: 'Please don't let death come to my loved one.' After understanding, prayer becomes surrender: 'I know You are in both the living and the dying. Help me accept whatever comes as Your movement. And if it is in harmony with the larger good, please let my loved one live.' This is not fatalism but deep trust. We still ask, we still hope, we still act - but without the desperate clinging that comes from believing death is the enemy of life rather than its completion.

← Verse 9.18 Verse 9.20 →