THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 11
VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM:
VERSE NUMBER 08
Text in Transliteration:
na tu maam sakyase drastum anenai ‘va svachakshushaa
divyam dadaami te chakshuh pasya me yogam aisvaram
Sanskrit words and phrases and their meaning:
na = not; tu = but; maam = me; sakyase = (thou) canst; drashtum = to see; anena = with this; eva = even; svachakshushaa = with own eyes; divyam = divine; dadaami = (I) give; te = (to) thee; chakshuh: = the eye; pasya = behold; me = my; yogam = yoga; aisvaram = lordly.
Text in English:
But you cannot see Me with these eyes of yours; I give you divine sight; behold My Supreme Yoga.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
In the scheme of the evolution of life, one species evolves into another until perfection in body and mind is reached in the human. Nothing in Nature can be found parallel to the human tabernacle, the human brain and the human mind. Man is a repository of knowledge. He has added marvellously and continues to add to his knowledge of things in Nature. He is correspondingly gaining mastery over everything in it to an enormous extent. Human-contrived aids to sense-knowledge, such as telescope, the microscope, the X-ray and the stethoscope are equally marvellous. But the seeming mastery over Nature has not minimized it. His enormously increased intellectual knowledge has not solved the problems of life and death; it has only complicated them further.
Yoga steps in here to make the human life a fulfilment. Through the practice of yoga a super-sense called the divine eye can be developed. It is neither a freak nor an accident. With precision and certainty the spiritual eye can be evolved. It is the outcome of a perfectly disciplined pure life. Man completes his evolution with acquisition of this divine insight. After getting established in spiritual excellence the sadhaka is required to subordinate his personal will to the Cosmic Will which is termed as the grace of the Lord in theological parlance. When these conditions are fulfilled the realization of God becomes possible.
God reveals Himself variously in the various planes of consciousness. At the mental plane He is cognized as the phenomenon; at the ethical level as the infallible Law; at Bhaava samaadhi or the divine eye level as the Immanent or the kinetic aspect of Iswara; at Nirvikalpa Samadhi or the intuition freed from mind, as the Transcendental Reality or the static aspect of Iswara; finally the individual merges into the Absolute which is Brahman. God-realization takes place in this order.
Arjuna is blessed with the vision of the Immanent Iswara. This realization relieves him of all of his problems, personal and public. He gets enlightened so as to discharge his duty as a willing instrument at the hands of the Lord. The Sage Vyasa is all perfection and he intuits Iswara in all of His aspects. By the grace of this sage, Sanjaya is favoured with the same Cosmic Vision which Arjuna gets and he faithfully reports it to his blind monarch Dhrtarashtra.
SRIMAT SWAMI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
The great ones compare Bhakti (devotion) with the magic collyrium applied to the eye. Sreemati Radha once told her companion maids that she saw Sri Krishna only wherever she turned her eyes. “You have anointed your eyes with the divine collyrium of Bhakti, therefore you behold your darling Krishna in this way,” answered the companions.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
No fleshly eye can see that sovereign form. Human eye is not made for such excess of light. Divya chaksus is the angelic eye while maamsa chaksus is the eye of the flesh.
Human eyes can see only the outward form; the inner soul is perceived by the eye of spirit. There is a type of knowledge that we can acquire by our own efforts, knowledge based on the deliverances of the senses and intellectual activity. Another kind of knowledge is possible when we are under the influence of grace a direct knowledge of spiritual realities. The god-vision is a gift of god. The whole account is a poetic device to indicate the unity of the cosmic manifold in the Divine nature.
The vision is not a mental construction but the disclosure of a truth from beyond the finite mind. The spontaneity and directness of the experience are brought out here.
COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI SIVANANDA:
No fleshly eyes can behold Me in My Cosmic Form. One can see It through the divine eye or the eye of intuition. It should not be confused with seeing through the eye or the mind. It is an inner experience.
Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: “I give three the divine eye, by which you will be able to behold My sovereign form. By it see My marvellous power of Yoga.”
Anena: with this: the fleshly eye or the physical eye, the earthly eye. (Cf. VII. 25; IX. 5; X. 7)
Comments by the blogger:
The physical eyes are not bad actually. But what is here seen is Ishwara’s Supreme Yoga in the form of His Cosmic Form. This is an inner experience and as such a new spiritual equipment is provided to Arjuna. Sanjaya also saw the Lord’s Cosmic Form. He was provided with the power of intuition by the Sage Vyasa.
It is material to note that Srimat Swami Chidbhavananda says, “In the scheme of the evolution of life, one species evolves into another until perfection in body and mind is reached in the human”.
We are human beings and as such perfected in the body. But we have not attained perfection in mind for which we should become yogis and yoginis and pursue a life divorced from all materialism. And when we become perfect in mind through yoga, we can also intuit the Lord’s Cosmic Form. But we must make further progress. And we should be able to experience the Ultimate Brahman. Realization of Brahman and becoming one with Him is instantaneous.
(And, dear visitors and readers, as I was out of station yesterday I could not come up with a posting that day).
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