THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 11
VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM:
VERSE NUMBER 01
Text in Transliteration:
arjuna uvaacha
madanugrahaaya paramam guhyam adhyaatmasamjnitam
yat tvayo ‘ktam vachas tena moho ‘yam vigato mama
Sanskrit words and phrases and their meaning:
Mad anugrahaaya = out of compassion towards me; paramam = the highest; guhyam = the secret; adhyaatma samjnitam = Adhyatma named; yat = which; tvayaa = by thee; uktam = spoken; vachah = word; tena = by that; mohah = delusion; ayam = this; vigatah = gone; mama = my.
Text in English:
Arjuna said:
By this profound discourse concerning the Self, which You have delivered out of compassion for me, my delusion has been dispelled.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The Lord made it clear to Arjuna that it is just with an infinitesimal fraction of His Entirety that He has become the manifested universe and that His unmanifest Reality is immeasurable. Based on this truth Arjuna has revised his conceptions about himself, about the world, about his relationship with the world and about his duty. He has thus been delivered from delusion.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
The illusion that things of the world exist in themselves and maintain themselves, that they live and move apart from God has disappeared.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
After hearing the glories of the Lord, Arjuna has an intense longing to have the wonderful vision of the Cosmic Form with his own eyes. His bewilderment and delusion have now vanished.
Adhyatma: That which treats of the discrimination between the Self and the not-Self; metaphysics.
I was worried about the sin involved in killing my relations and preceptors. I had the ideas, ‘I am the agent in killing them; they are to be killed by me’.
This delusion has vanished now after receiving Thy most profound and valuable instructions. Thou hast dispelled this delusion of ignorance from me.
The vision of the Cosmic Form is not the ultimate goal. If that were so, the Gita would have ended with this chapter. The vision of the Cosmic Form is also one more in a series of graded experiences. It is a terrible experience too. That is the reason why Arjuna said to the Lord, stammering with fear: “What an awful form Thou hast! I have seen that which none hath seen before. My heart is glad, yet faileth me on account of fear. Show me, O God, Thine other form again. O God of gods, support of all the worlds, let me see Thy form with diadem, and with the mace and discus in Thy hands. Again I wish to see Thee as before; assume Thy four-armed form, O Lord of thousand arms and of forms innumerable.”
Arjuna heard the Lord’s statement, viz., “Having pervaded this whole universe with one fragment of Myself, I remain”. This induced him to have the vision of the Lord’s Cosmic Form. He says, “O Lord of compassion, Thou hast taught me the spiritual wisdom which can hardly be found in the Vedas. Thou hast saved me. My delusion has disappeared. Thou hast disclosed to me the nature of the Supreme Self, the secrets of Nature and Thy divine glories. My greatest ambition at the present moment is that I should behold with my own eyes Thy entire Cosmic Form”.
Comments by the blogger:
Hi there! Long time, no see!
It is a great pleasure to be able to speak to you without any expectation, instead of begging you to follow me (for the wholly material cause—your following me would put me in the way of some monitory benefits indeed. But the past is past and I won’t rehash the old thing.) What is important to me NOW is that I am once again conversing with you for the benefit of purely spiritual nature.
Well, let us look into the verse once again carefully:
The Lord and his disciple, Arjuna, have had a profound discourse in which the Lord has taught Arjuna the yet unknown facts about the Self.
Secondly, the Lord has rendered the said discourse out of compassion for His disciple.
Thirdly, with the result, Arjuna’s delusion has been dispelled.
In eight chapters (from the 2nd to the 9th) the Lord has elaborately discussed the nature of the Self.
Before that, in the first chapter and the first portion of the second chapter, we see an Arjuna who is deluded and as such bewildered. Arjuna thinks that his taking part in the war, which was to ensue shortly, means killing of his kith and kin, besides people like Bishma and Drona who are fit to be worshipped. Now he understands that by slaying the body, he would and could not slay the Self. That he now understands the Self neither partakes in any action nor suffers any action. That the Self is an expression of God; that all the animate and inanimate are filled with Self; that when the life of a man or woman ends, the Atma does not die but takes a different body and comes back to the earthly form to further prosecute action as per the concerned person’s karma. Not only this, Arjuna actually realises that God pervades everything here and there can be nothing here in this cosmos that is alien to the Lord. He understands the whole cosmos is one gigantic living thing with the Lord forming its core and outer layer also. Everyone is related to everyone in this world. The teeming millions of human beings not to speak of the animal kingdom issue forth from one Being which is beyond all modifications; which is inexorable, inexplicable and can only be realised through following a set of scriptural laws comprising the dos and don’ts. Arjuna realises that the single infinitesimally small expression of the Lord constitutes the Self of all the beings and non-beings here in this cosmos. Arjuna fully understands that killing or slaying the body is not tantamount to slaying the Self which neither can slay nor being slew. Through the tenth discourse of the Gita Arjuna comes to fully understand that the Lord’s single fraction of expression has formed this gigantic Universe. And human beings can realise what remains of the Brahman by carrying out one’s duty without expectation of the fruits. He fully understands that if he fights as a warrior, what with the war having come to him unsought, without any hankering after the fruits of his action, the slaying of thousands of the bodies at Kurukshetra would not bind him. Arjuna understands the importance of this world and also one’s studious execution of one’s duty without likes or dislikes would completely free him from the bonds of action. He understands fully that action in itself is not good or bad. He understands that a lighted lamp can be used for reading a holy book like Gita or to forge documents to outwit one’s adversary in the law court. Above all, he fully realises that though the world is just a fraction of the Lord, the Lord Himself can be realised only through this unequal and incomplete world through indulging in action according to one’s swadharma and not by running away from action.
Secondly, that Arjuna completely realises that the Lord is not in the habit of coming out in the open and give discourses to everyone about the science of the Self and Yoga. Arjuna realises that it is purely through the compassion on the part of the Lord, that He has taken this initiative. We realise from this that Gita is not spoken to Arjuna alone but to the whole world. We realise that Gita is not just a book but it is a way of living, it comprises, inter alia, the yoga of action. This unique book is available to all the humanity. For example, the yoga and science of meditation as explained by the Lord can be practised by a Muslim or a Christian without his having to worship the Lord in the form of Sri Krishna. The science of concentration and meditation give benefit both to the believer and non-believer. Because it is pure science! So this book is the single and simple book for the whole humanity to follow.
Thirdly, having lent his ears to the Lord’s honeyed words Arjuna’s delusion has been dispelled. He is no longer bewildered about his duty to fight a fratricidal war. All he needs to do is to fight to the utmost capacity of his and without any likes or dislikes and without any stakes in the outcome of the war. If he fights with this kind of mentality, he would incur no sin. We understand the whole humanity of the world understands that our body is the Kurukshetra and our senses are our enemies and our discriminatory power is the sword with which we have to fight our daily war.
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