Verses 10.39–10.42🔗

Kṛṣṇa says to Arjuna, ‘Enough has been said. You can take no more. Whatever I have said, whatever more I can say, will only be a drop in the ocean, a small fragment of what I am. There is nothing that is not Me, nothing that can exist outside of Me, and nothing that has not been created from and by Me.’ yac cāpi sarva bhūtānāṁ bījaṁ tad aham arjuna II na tad asti vinā yat syān mayā bhūtaṁ carācaram II 10.39 nānto ‘sti mama divyānāṁ vibhūtīnāṁ parantapa I eṣa tūddeśataḥ prokto vibhūter vistaro mayā II 10.40 He has given the background to Arjuna, so that Arjuna is prepared to see His formless form.

Arjuna is now in a mode of total surrender and in deep gratitude. Now, let us also experience these words of Kṛṣṇa in a mood of absolute surrender and total gratitude. Close your eyes, and meditate on the divine glory of Kṛṣṇa. Express deep gratitude for whatever way your life has been elevated. Express deep gratitude to whoever has helped you achieve health, wealth and education. Each and every one of these are expressions of the Divine. Remember every one of them for the reasons they were in your life. Remember all of them who helped you to flower in your life. Remember all of them with love and respect, with love and gratitude.

Remember your mother who gave you this body. She is the embodiment of the Divine, Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa. Give her your gratitude. Remember your father who gave you life. Feel him and give your gratitude to him. Remember all the teachers and professors who gave you education. They are embodiments of the Divine. Feel deeply grateful to all of them for enriching your life and to your being. Whoever has helped you to grow economically, whoever contributed to your economical growth, directly or indirectly, remember all of them and give your gratitude to them. Feel deeply connected to all of them. Whoever gave you mental strength and understanding about life when you needed it, whenever you were depressed whoever gave you courage, remember all of them.

They are embodiments of the Divine, representatives of the Universal Consciousness. Remember all of them and give them your gratitude. Whoever helped you grow spiritually, whoever helped you grow in spiritual understanding, remember all of them. Give them your gratitude. They are representatives of the Divine. Whoever helped you with understanding on the level of material wealth or spiritual growth, remember all of them and offer them your gratitude. Vibhūti Yogaḥ You Are The Ultimate 795 Ultimately, give gratitude to the divine energy, Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, who gave this intelligence and understanding to us in our life. Just drop yourself and become one with the Cosmic energy. May you become part of the whole Universe, part of the energy that is moving the sun, moon and planet Earth.

Oṁ śānti, śānti, śāntihi... Relax. Now open your eyes. Continue to spend at least the next few hours in this mood of surrender. Drop yourself. You will see this experience works miracles in your being. It can transform you. Forget about yourself. Drop yourself and let the Divine, let this Cosmic energy prevail. Let Him be. Let the Divine be. This surrender mood can transform your whole consciousness. It can make you experience the ultimate truth that Kṛṣṇa explains here: His glories, His vibhūti, His Divine glory. When you are blissful, whatever you see looks divine and glorious. May you reach that bliss. Let us pray to Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, the Universal energy, Existence, to guide us all and to give us all the experience of eternal bliss, Nityānanda.

Thank you! Thus ends the tenth chapter named Vibhūti Yogaḥ, ‘The Yoga of Divine Manifestations,’ of the Bhagavad Gītā Upaniṣad, Brahmavidyā Yogaśāstra, the scripture of yoga dealing with the science of the Absolute in the form of Śrī Kṛṣṇārjuna saṃvād, dialogue between Śrī Kṛṣṇa and Arjuna. Krsna: The Cosmic Window How does one experience Universal consciousness? What exactly happens? What basic qualification does one need for this experience? Krsna explains and gives the direct, pure experience with His very Cosmic Presence! c h a p t e r Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ . . . ... In this chapter, Kṛṣṇa shows His Cosmic and Divine form to Arjuna. Kṛṣṇa gives Arjuna the experience of Universal consciousness.

For the first time, Arjuna is about to experience Kṛṣṇa’s Divine form. Of all the chapters in Bhagavad Gītā, this chapter, Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ—Vision of the Cosmic form, has a very special significance. It is in this chapter that Kṛṣṇa reveals His Divine Self, that of Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa. Elsewhere He speaks with the authority of Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, but He is still present as the mortal human Kṛṣṇa form. Now, at Arjuna’s request, He reveals His true Cosmic Self to Arjuna. In this sense, this is the most important of all the chapters in Bhagavad Gītā, not for its philosophical or spiritual importance, but because of the direct revelation of the Divine.

When the Cosmic form is revealed to Arjuna, if one is immersed in this chapter’s content as he was, nothing more needs to be said to be experienced. In the previous chapter, along with Arjuna, we too listened to the glories of Kṛṣṇa, the complete expression of the Divine. Kṛṣṇa declares, ‘Amongst the trees, I am the Banyan tree, amongst the wielders of weapons, I am Rāma, amongst the siddhas, I am Kapila; whatever is best, I shine in that.’ Kṛṣṇa is not boasting that He is the best. All that He conveys is that whatever there is, is manifest in Himself. He is the very essence of Existence. Now, Kṛṣṇa goes beyond all verbal expressions of His glories.

Enough words have been said. It is now time to demonstrate. Kṛṣṇa proves who He is by giving a solid experience to Arjuna. The difference between an enlightened person and an egoistic person is that an egoistic person also declares what he perceives to be a fact, but Krsna: The Cosmic Window . . . Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 799 ... only the enlightened person can give the experience itself. A mortal can talk, that is all he can do. He has no experience to back it up with. Our entire existence as we know it, is unreal. So therefore, what can be true about it? How can we boast and take credit for a life that we don’t have any control over?

We have no control over the next breath we take. We have no control over how long our loved ones will live. We have no control over what will happen during the course of our lives. Yet, we believe we are in control of the whole of our lives. Divine or Delusion? Hiraṇyakaśipu, the demon king, thought he was God and he made his subjects chant his name, ‘Hiraṇyāya namaḥ’. Kṛṣṇa also stated that He was God. The difference between the two was that Hiraṇyakaśipu could not give the experience to his subjects. He told them, ‘Either believe that I am God or I will kill you!’ He threatened his subjects into this behavior, whether or not they actually believed he was God.

Please understand that conversion by blood or bread does not help. While both of them declared they were gods, Kṛṣṇa could actually prove it. He could give the experience of Universal consciousness to people! No great Master believed in spreading his words through fear and greed. All great Masters spread their words through unconditional love and compassion. That is the only way truth can spread. Unfortunately, the disciples who followed these spiritual Masters were not always masters themselves. They were there to establish business practices in the form of religions. They were organizers, not leaders. Fear and greed became handy tools of organization and propagation, since these followers did not have the experience of truth within themselves.

How to find out whether a person is an Enlightened Master, an Incarnation? How to establish whether a person is enlightened or just egoistic? Listen! This is the scale: If he can give the experience, then whatever comes from him is the truth. Here Kṛṣṇa shows clearly that He Is Everything. He demonstrates His Divinity to Arjuna. Kṛṣṇa walks His talk in this chapter. In the Bhāgavatam, there is a beautiful verse that the gopī (cowherdess of Briṇdāvan), sings to Kṛṣṇa, who is everything to her clan: tava kathāmṛtaṁ tapta jīvanaṁ kavibhirīritam kalmaṣāpahaṁ śravaṇamaṇgalam śrīmadātatam bhuvi grhṇanti te bhūritā janāḥ ‘O Kṛṣṇa, tava kathāmṛtaṁ tapta jīvanaṁ…Your words and the words uttered about You are kathāmṛtaṁ, words of immortality, words of nectar, words both on You and by You.

Just by listening to these words, You create auspiciousness in us. ‘These words are worshipped and expressed as the highest truth by the great Ṛṣis. We who have experienced You, feel the joy again and again by speaking about You. You rejuvenate our whole being. Just by listening to these words about You and by You, we are transported to a different plane.’ If you have fallen in love with Kṛṣṇa, this is the chapter to know Him and enjoy Him. Here in this chapter He does not give any teachings. All intellectual teachings are over. He gives the experience directly: ‘I am Everything.’ He gives the experience of the ultimate Universal consciousness and the realization that He is present in everything.

Arjuna experiences the Universal consciousness. This whole chapter is pure experience. The first thing we need to understand is whether it is possible to have the experience of the Universal consciousness. Secondly, what is the basic qualification to experience it? Thirdly, what really happens inside our being during such an experience? These three things we shall understand from this chapter and explore the wonderful possibility of experiencing Kṛṣṇa as the Cosmic window. Love KṚṢṆa To Experience KṚṢṆa In the previous chapter, Kṛṣṇa gave the intellectual explanation that He is the Ultimate. More than an intellectual expression, I may say that Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 801 ... this is an expression given to a person who is deeply in love.

Kṛṣṇa can be God only when a person achieves the maturity of Arjuna. The truth should be declared only when a person is qualified and mature. Only when you reach the maturity of Arjuna can you experience the divinity of Kṛṣṇa. When you feel deeply connected to a person, he looks divine even though he may be quite ordinary in reality. Śiva says in Tantra that when one drops one’s fantasies, he becomes Śiva and his wife becomes Uma. He reaches the state of Śivatva, the state of Śiva, and she reaches the state of Devi. Truth can only be expressed when the listener is ready. Kṛṣṇa rules by love.

Though He was the king of the Yādava clan, He ruled not by authority and power, but by personal example of love and compassion. Those who lived with Kṛṣṇa identified with Him and loved Him beyond their own selves. How does one attain Enlightenment living a normal life? In the Śiva Sutra, Śiva says there is nothing wrong with a husband and wife living a normal conjugal life, but they need to drop their fantasies about one another. When we live without fantasies, the other person looks like God. Only then the other person is real. Please understand, everybody is God, including you. But each of us carries our own idea of God and tries to put everyone else into that frame.

When they do not fit into the frame, we throw the person out instead of throwing the frame. Just understand. When you are deeply connected with the other person as they are, when you can be complete and accept anybody as he or she is, you establish a divine relationship. However, to do so, you must first learn to do self-completion and accept your own self as you are. Listen, when you try to chisel each other constantly, you will only cause unhappiness and incompletions in your life. But when you do completion with yourself and completion with others, and accept everyone as they are, the whole world appears as God.

This can be achieved in two ways. Firstly, by your own tapas, your spiritual penance, you acquire maturity by undergoing this experience repeatedly. You need to keep dropping your fantasies about other people. Secondly, a Master can also give you this experience by infusing tremendous energy in you, by bringing you to his own frequency. But even to retain the energy of the Master, you need a certain level of maturity. This is what happens here in this chapter. The frequency of Kṛṣṇa’s Cosmic form is too much for Arjuna to bear and he cries out to Kṛṣṇa to resume his normal form. A small example: Once I was watching the disaster of Hurricane Katrina in the USA on television when an ashramite asked me why such calamities were taking place.

I tried to explain to them that it is something like driving your car or SUV and incidentally it goes over a small anthill. As far as the ants are concerned this is a natural calamity for them. They may call it ‘Hurricane SUV!’ But as far as you are concerned you are not even aware of this disaster. You are just driving the SUV. Can you relate with the ants in this incident or say that driving over their anthill was pre-destined? Their logic and yours are completely different. Neither can they question you nor can you answer them. We can only conclude, ‘This is all God’s will.’ The kind of explanation any organized religion gives is also this!

No logical answer or explanation can ever be given for these experiences. The frequency, logic, perception and concepts of the ants are completely different from ours, just as ours is again completely different from the Cosmic consciousness. The frequency of this consciousness is in a completely different dimension. From the Cosmic level, it is something like a mug of water spilling onto an anthill, washing away the ants. It is not possible to comprehend what that level or frequency is. What is possible is for us to raise the frequency of our will or consciousness to be one with It, to learn to live with It and experience It. Neither God nor your wife can be understood; just learn to live with them!

If the person is charismatic, has a way with words, he will have created a new philosophy and cheated a group of people. This is Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 803 ... probably why great philosophers convince others, but they themselves are not convinced. I know a great atheist who chanted God’s name when he lay dying! The very act of trying to convince and convert others testified to the fact that he was not convinced himself. Please be aware that conversion is an intellectual and psychological crime. And preachers who convert others without any deep, personal experience of the divine, always fall into the worst kind of depression.

They punish themselves by their own acts. One person from Oklahoma who was associated with us was a reverend of the clergy. He enjoyed our programs and eventually went on to become a teacher of our meditation programs. I had never asked him to convert himself to our religion. To begin with, I myself do not have any religion! There is no need because what I teach is pure satya, the truth. It is like this: The truth of the inner light given by Kṛṣṇa belongs to humanity and not to any particular religion. It is not necessary to convert to any religion. It is enough if you understand the truth and live your life happily and intensely in the space of completion.

Please understand, each one of you is divine! You are all cast in the mold of the Divine. All you need is this awareness that you too are divine and just start powerfully living and radiating the Divine. That is the difference between Kṛṣṇa, the Incarnation, and Hiraṇya, demon. Hiraṇya is just trying to play the game when he himself does not have the experience. Kṛṣṇa gives the experience directly. When He declares that He is God, it is not for Him to satisfy His ego but for us to experience the truth. He tells Arjuna that He is uttering these words for Arjuna’s sake. Let us now go into the verses and examine three questions: Can Universal consciousness be experienced? What is the basic qualification for this experience? What happens when one experiences it? These three questions are explained beautifully by Śrī Kṛṣṇa in this chapter. I Wish To See Your Divine Form