Bhagwad Gita - Post 133

Verse 15

Arjuna Uvaacha:

Pashyaami devaamstava deva dehe

Sarvaamstathaa bhootavisheshasanghaan;

Brahmaanameesham kamalaasanastha-

Mrisheemshcha sarvaanuragaamshcha divyaan.

Arjuna said:

I behold all the gods, O God, in Thy body, and hosts of various classes of beings; Brahma, the Lord, seated on the lotus, all the sages and the celestial serpents!

“O Lord! I behold everything here. Brahma, the Creator himself, is seen here. I am seeing him.” Who can have darshan of Brahma? We cannot see him, but here he was, and here Rudra was.

“In Your form, I see all the gods. Every form of creation, including every created essence — all animals, all creatures, all human beings, all the denizens of heaven—I am seeing here just in front of me. I am seeing all the rishis. 

Verse 16

Anekabaahoodaravaktranetram

Pashyaami twaam sarvato’nantaroopam;

Naantam na madhyam na punastavaadim

Pashyaami vishweshwara vishwaroopa.

I see Thee of boundless form on every side, with many arms, stomachs, mouths and eyes; neither the end nor the middle nor also the beginning do I see, O Lord of the universe, O Cosmic Form!

“In this multifaceted manifestation of Yours, with faces everywhere turned in my direction, with all eyes gazing at me, I see the infinity of Yours everywhere. 

I cannot know where You begin, where You end, or where is Your middle is. I cannot understand how vast is this personality of Yours. Hey Viswesvara! O Lord of the universe! O Visvarupa! 

The All-form, Omni-form! I am not able to gauge how vast You are. I am simply struck with surprise.” 

Verse 17 

Kireetinam gadinam chakrinam cha,

Tejoraashim sarvato deeptimantam;

Pashyaami twaam durnireekshyam samantaad

Deeptaanalaarkadyutimaprameyam.

I see Thee with the diadem, the club and the discus, a mass of radiance shining everywhere, very hard to look at, blazing all round like burning fire and the sun, and immeasurable.

“With diadems on every head of this multifarious form, I am seeing you shining. With gadas, with astras, together with this radiance that You are manifesting, I am unable to locate what is what at any place. Like blazing fire, I am seeing Your form spread out everywhere. 

Columns of radiance, that is what I am seeing in front of me, and they have dazzled the whole space. I cannot see anything properly because my eyes are dazzled, dimmed completely in this light. Impossible it is for me to behold You, O Lord!” Durnirīkṣyaṁ: “Really I am speaking, I cannot behold You. It is not possible for me even with this blessing of a new eye that You have given me.

This is too much for me, and I cannot behold You any more because You are fire, You are radiance, You are the Sun of suns. Immeasurable Thou art, O Lord!”

Sri Chinmaya writes,

AS A MASS OF RADIANCE SHINING EVERYWHERE,

ALL ROUND GLOWING LIKE THE BLAZING SUN AND FIRE,

HARD TO GAZE ON.

One of the most expressive lines in this description, this brings home to us the glory of Pure Awareness. This is not 'light' in the physical sense of the term; but all the same we have to use the word, borrowed from ordinary language, though it is applied here with a special significance. 

Consciousness is the 'Light' in which we so clearly 'SEE' our own thoughts and emotions. It is the same light which, beaming out through the eyes, throws 'light' upon the world and illumines for us the Forms and shapes.  The same Consciousness, beaming out through the ears, with its special 'light,' illumines Sound , and so on. 

Naturally, therefore, the Universal-Form of Krishna, representing in Himself the Infinite Awareness, had to be described, in the faltering language of Arjuna, as a mass of resplendent light, blinding all faculties of perception, feeling and understanding.”

INCOMPREHENSIBLE (Aprameya) 

“Though the universal Form is painted here by the author, in the language of an "objective experience," he makes us understand that the Truth is the SUBJECT and not an object of even the intellect. “

Dear All,

Human beings COMPREHEND anything in this world through their senses / their mind and / or their intellect. These are the only faculties provided to them to know about anything in this world as an object.

It is the Body / senses that perceive, the mind that feels and the intellect that thinks about anything in this creation.

Here, Krishna represents THAT PURE SUBJECT, THE SELF, that illumines all these faculties and hence, subtler than all these senses / mind and intellect.

Hence, Arjuna represents all human beings in centuries to come when he declares, “Lord, you are incomprehensible”, which means, we can never KNOW the SELF as we have been knowing all other objects hitherto. 

So, what is the ultimate solution??

"Not to Know (as something outside) but to experience that we are verily the SELF, to transcend the duality between ourselves and God."

Aham nirvikalpo nirakara rupo

Vibhut vatcha sarvatra sarvendriyanam

Na cha sangatham naiva muktir na meyaha

Chidananda rupah Shivoham Shivoham

I am devoid of duality, my form is formlessness,

I exist everywhere, pervading all senses,

I am neither attached, neither free nor captive,

I am the form of consciousness and bliss,

I am the eternal Shiva…

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 132

Dear All, 

We have read in the verses prior to the verse 13 taken up today that upon Arjuna's request to show His cosmic vision, the Lord grants Arjuna the grace to see Him in His cosmic form.

What does Arjuna see then?

Verse 13 

Tatraikastham jagatkritsnam

Pravibhaktamanekadhaa;

Apashyaddevadevasya

Shareere paandavastadaa.

There, in the body of the God of gods, Arjuna then saw the whole universe resting in the one, with its many groups.

Tatraikasthaṁ jagat kṛtsnaṁ pravibhaktam anekadhā (11.13): Divided into multifarious shapes, this entire creation was seen there as if it is only a fraction of this total manifestation. 

Purusha Sukhtam describes “Pādo’sya viśvā bhūtāni”: Only one-fourth of the Supreme Being is manifested in this cosmos, as it were. Tripādasyā’mṛtaṁ divi: Three-fourths is invisible. 

The imminent form of God is only one-fourth, as it were; the transcendent form is three-fourths, as it were. It is not actually an arithmetical division that is intended here; the idea is that it is a very small fraction. 

In the previous chapter, Lord declared, Viṣṭabhyāham idaṁ kṛtsnam ekāṁśena sthito jagat: “With a little fraction of Myself, I am supporting the entire cosmos.” The idea is that a little bit of the glory of God is revealed in the whole cosmos, and the real glory is transcendent. 

In the Brahdaranyaka Upanishad, it is said, “Estasyaivānandasyānyāni bhūtāni mātrām upajīvant: 

Yajnavalkya says that with a little spoonful of the bliss of the ocean of Brahman, the whole universe is sustained. And we are licking it in a mild, adulterated, spread-out, dense, concretized form of one spoonful only. What would be the ocean of that bliss? Such a thing Arjuna beheld.

In that great God of God’s Being, Arjuna had the blessing of beholding the wonder. There is no word in language to describe this wonder, except that it is a wonder. 

Isavasya Upanishad begins with the mantra- Isavasyam idam sarvam: "This creation is enveloped/ Pervaded by the Almighty Supreme Being. 

Is it contradictory to what we have seen in the verse we are reading wherein Krishna says, the entire creation is seen within Him / The lord?

Actually it is not contradictory.  When we have understood that the entire creation rests in Lord, then it s but necessary that the essence that the Lord is, must be present in each and every created being!!

The lord, the supreme creator willed and this creation came into being. 

This is what is the understanding upto almost the final stage in our learning and experiencing Lord in this creation.

Swami said, “ I separated myself from myself to Love myself”. 

When we have believed and understood this, then, both the affirmations given below are true and in essence, mean the same thing.

Lord has created this entire universe and is present (Isavasyam) in every living and non-living thing that is present 

Or

Divided into multifarious shapes, this entire creation was seen there as if it is only a fraction of this total manifestation. 

Love.

Bhagwad Gita - Post 131

Verse 4

Manyase yadi tacchakyam

Mayaa drashtumiti prabho;

Yogeshwara tato me twam

Darshayaatmaanamavyayam.

If Thou, O Lord, thinkest it possible for me to see it, do Thou, then, O Lord of the Yogis, show me Thy imperishable Self!

“O Supreme Lord! Master of yoga! If You think that I am ready for this vision, let me be granted the vision of the immortal Universality that You are.” This is the introduction to the Visvarupa Darshana in the Eleventh Chapter.

It may be wondered that if the great sages, liberated beings and the demigods are unable to see the Supreme Lord Krishna's visvarupa or divine universal form, how will it be possible for Arjuna to see such a form?

This is why Arjuna states the words "manyase yada" which means if you consider. If Lord Krishna considers that Arjuna who is His surrendered devotee is capable of beholding His universal form which encompasses the total creation then by the Supreme Lord's grace, He can reveal it.

Lord Krishna is addressed by him as Yogeswara or the Lord of yogis perfected in the science of the individual consciousness attaining communion with the Pure absolute consciousness.

By the Supreme Lord's grace one can achieve the path leading to spiritual perfection which is one's highest good and without the Supreme Lord's grace no path is capable of yielding spiritual perfection. Arjuna is inferring that due to being fully devoted to Lord Krishna, he can witness this supreme form.

  

Verse 5

Sri Bhagavaan Uvaacha:

Pashya me paartha roopaani

Shatasho’tha sahasrashah;

Naanaavidhaani divyaani

Naanaavarnaakriteeni cha.

The Blessed Lord said:

Behold, O Arjuna, My forms by the hundreds and thousands, of different sorts, divine and of various colors and shapes!

The Supreme Lord Krishna being requested by His surrendered devotee to reveal His viswarupa or divine universal form; responded with the word "pasya" meaning behold, His hundreds of thousands of radiant and dazzling transcendental manifestations inferring that he should be prepared because it is difficult to look at. 

The word “ropaani” meaning forms is used to express the manifestation of innumerable multifarious and multicolored divine forms and shapes.

Nānāvidhāni divyāni nānāvarṇākṛtīni ca: “Every form, every color, every detail, anything that you would like to see is here just now. And it is not just spread out in a distance or a spatial expanse; it is a distance less compactness of the presence of all things at one and the same place.”

There, when one thing was touched, everything was touched. Everything looked like a mirror reflecting every other thing. It appeared that everything could be seen everywhere. “Look at Me then, in this Form. Look at the suns dazzling everywhere!

When Sri Krishna assumed this Cosmic Form, the very earth started melting down into the liquid of consciousness, and it was God everywhere.

Sri Chinmaya writes,

“Behold, in hundreds and thousands, my different forms celestial, varied in colors and shapes".  It was not necessary for Krishna to change His form to that of the Cosmic-Man; all that Arjuna had to do was to BEHOLD THE FORM right in front of him. But, unfortunately, the instrument-of perception was not tuned up for the object of his investigation, and therefore, Arjuna could not perceive that which was already in Krishna.

That which is lying beyond the focal length of a telescope, cannot be viewed by the observer even though the object may be present in line with the axis of the instrument. In order to bring the farther object within the span of vision, the observer will have to make the required adjustments in the telescope. 

Similarly, Krishna did not Transform Himself into His Cosmic-Form, but He only helped Arjuna to make the necessary inward adjustments so that he could perceive what was there evidently in Krishna. Naturally, the Lord says, "BEHOLD."

Dear All,

Chinmaya conveys the most subtlest  truth through the above revelation.

When we are prepared internally through our years of intense spiritual sadhana and our vision of the world has vanished, with the help of His own eye of the eye (nayan nayan mein), we are able to experience the Lord in all magnificence, where, the cosmic form is not the Lord raising to sky height, but the Lord experienced with the whole creation within Him, as the supreme, all pervading, universal consciousness!!!!

As we refresh our thoughts on the Sadan (Sai centre in Muscat) talks, can't we then take the granting of the required vision by Krishna to Arjuna as the grace that we deserve with our intense  sadhana so that:

- Krishna comes  parallel to us

- Krishna comes very near to us and touches us

- Krishna merges in us , and, 

 Our eyes are replaced by Krishna's eyes so that, 

WE ARE ABLE TO GET BEYOND ALL THE FEAR OF THE COSMIC FORM AND ARE ABLE TO EXPERIENCE THE LORD IN ALL HIS GRANDEUR WITHIN OUR OWN HEART AS CONSCIOUSNESS.

This is the stage when there is no cosmic form of God outside us, there is no creation outside us. 

The realized seer roars in ecstasy at that state,  " I AM THAT" or " I AM I".

Love.