THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 11, VERSE NUMBER 32, VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 11

VERSE NUMBER 32

VISVARUPA DARSANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM:

TEXT IN TRANSLITERATION:

sri bhagavaan uvaacha  

kaalo ‘smi lokakshayakrt pravrddho

     lokaan samaahartum iha pravrtiah

rte ‘pi tvaam na bhavishyanti sarve

     ye ‘vasthitaah pratyanikeshu yodhaah

SANSKRIT WORDS AND PHRASES AND THEIR MEANING IN ENGLISH:

sri bhagavan uvacha = Sri Bhagavan said:

kaalah = time: asmi = (I) am: lokakshaya krrt = world destroying: pravrrddhah = mighty: lokaan = the worlds: samaahartum = to destroy: iha = here: pravrrttah = engaged: rrte = without: api = also: tvaam = thee: na = not: bhavishyanti = shall live: sarve = all: ye = these: avasthitaah = arrayed: pratyaneekeshu = in hostile armies: yodhaah = warriors.

THE TEXT IN ENGLISH:

I am the mighty world-destroying Time now engaged in wiping out the world. Even without you the warriors arrayed in hostile armies shall not live.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:

In spite of a life-long companionship with Sri Krishna, what Arjuna has come to know of Him is very little and what remains to be known is much. Hence rises the question, “Tell me who You are.” The answer, “I am the mighty world-destroying Time” is one among the numerous definitions of Iswara. He is known as Mahaakaala. This answer solves the immediate puzzle in the mind of Arjuna.

All events in Nature get buried in time. Relentlessly and constantly it is consuming everything. Again it is time that measures all events. As aakaasa contains all manifested things in itself, time contains all events or causation in itself. As one ascends a hill one sees the ups and downs below merging into a vast expanse. Similarly in the infinitude of time all the happenings in the universe get swallowed. This Time is verily Iswara.

“I know not Your purpose” is the frightened inquiry made by Arjuna. The Lord deals with that mystery. He says He is intent on wiping out the world. Death in fact is taking place ceaselessly. When it is scattered and spread out, it is called the law of nature; but when it is concentrated, it is called a catastrophe. The Lord has this work of extermination done in both the ways—severally and collectively; extensively and intensively. The Mahabharata war is an instance of His intensive destruction of mankind. Whenever a need for it arises He does it very effectively. He truly adores God who sees His hand at work in all destruction small and great. Nothing in the world is terrible to the knower of the ways of the Lord.

Arjuna is given to understand now that the destruction of Bhishma, Drona and Karna is inevitable. He who did not want to be the cause of the death of the venerable ones, realizes now that it is not possible for man to avert the design of the Lord. Arjuna’s eagerness to take revenge on Karna is now shorn of its personal poignancy and spite.

It is certain that these men of might are going to perish independent of Arjuna’s instrumentality. Why then should he at all engage himself in this carnage? (In the next verse the necessity for it is explained).

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

Kaala or time is the prime mover of the Universe. If God is thought of as time, then He is perpetually crating and destroying. Time is the streaming flux which moves unceasingly.

The Supreme Being takes up the responsibility for both creation and destruction. The Gita does not countenance the familiar doctrine that, while God is responsible for all that is good, Satan is responsible for all that is evil. If God is responsible for mortal existence, then He is responsible for all that it includes, life and creation, anguish and death.

God has control over time because He is outside of it and we also shall obtain power over time if we rise above it. As the force behind this, He sees farther than we, knows how all events are controlled and so tells Arjuna that causes have been at work for years and are moving towards their natural effects which we cannot prevent by anything we can do now. The destruction of his enemies is decided irrevocably by acts committed long ago. There is an impersonal fate, what the Christians call Providence, a general cosmic necessity, moira, which is an expression of a side of God’s nature and so can be regarded as the will of His sovereign personality, which pursues its own unrecognizable aims. Against it, all protestations of self-determination are of no avail.

COMMENTARY BY SRIMAT SWAMY SIVANANDA:

Even without thee: Even if thou, O Arjuna, wouldst not fight, these warriors are doomed to die under My dispensation. I am the all-destroying Time. I have already slain them. You have seen them dying. Therefore thy instrumentality is not of much importance.

Such being the case, therefore, stand up and obtain fame.

Comments by the blogger:

Like the basic unit of measurement of Man’s actions, thoughts and even imaginations, namely, Samskara, Time also plays an important part in our lives. Sunlight being showered constantly on the blessed Earth and the rotation of the Earth on its axis and rounding of the Earth around the Sun creates Time. Every single act in this Universe is performed in Time. Along with the Samskaras one gives birth to  Time also helps in the exact measurement of Man’s actions and thoughts and even imaginations.

Everything in this Universe is moving and existing in Time.

But the Lord Himself exists out of Time. This is in the sense that while Time and one’s Samskaras measure out activities, thoughts and imaginations, the Lord Master is not controlled by Time. He plays outside the Time but studiously universally controlling everyone and everything in this world by Time and Samskaras.

The warriors belonging to both the sides are doomed to die in Time.

Everyone and everything act out in this Universe being subjugated by Time and self-made Samskaras.

The trick the accomplished Yogis perform is that they, knowing fully that everyone and everything works and plays out the individual role in Time,  perform actions with full knowledge that they act as an instrument in the mighty hands of the Lord. Once we realize this we become subdued and all the thinking and conviction that one is the master of one’s doing   evaporates giving place to the Knowledge that all actions are belonging to Iswara. Then, immediately our ahankara or the conviction that one is the author of one’s actions ceases to be an overmastering delusion.