Lord Krishna
Divine TeacherThe Supreme Lord, the charioteer and divine guide of Arjuna. Krishna delivers the eternal wisdom of the Gita, revealing the nature of the soul, duty, and the path to liberation.
Speaking: Chapter 15, Verse 14
Verse 14
The Yoga of the Supreme Person
Becoming the fire Vaishvanara, I dwell in the bodies of living beings. United with the upward and downward pranas, I digest the four kinds of food.
Context & Meaning
God's immanence now enters the body itself. Vaishvanara is the digestive fire — the sacred fire of metabolism that converts food into life. In every living body, it is God who digests, who transforms the four kinds of food (chewed, swallowed, licked, and drunk) into the energy that sustains consciousness. The prāṇa (upward breath) and apāna (downward breath) work together to support this internal fire. This teaching dissolves the boundary between the sacred and the biological: every meal is a yajña — a sacred fire-offering — because it is God within who accepts the offering and transforms it into life. Eating, breathing, metabolising are not merely animal functions; they are divine operations conducted within each living body.
Scholar Commentaries
1 commentary · Public domainRamanujacharya
VishishtadvaitaAhaṃ vaiśvānaro bhūtvā — I become the digestive fire. This is not metaphor; it is Ramanuja's affirmation that God genuinely and directly controls all the vital processes within every living body. The body is the temple, the digestive fire is the sacred flame, and the food is the offering. To eat with awareness of this is to turn every meal into worship.