Verses 11.5–11.8🔗

In this verse, Kṛṣṇa summarizes the entire chapter as He explains the whole darśan (Vision). It needs to be read and understood as one verse. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘O Pārtha, behold the hundreds and thousands of my Divine forms. These are infinite Divine forms, of diverse colors, shapes and sizes. O Bhārata, see the different manifestations of Āditya, Vasu, Rudra, Aśvini Kumār, Mārut and many wonderful beings whom no one has ever seen before.’ But before He gives darśan of the Universal form, He makes an important and beautiful statement, ‘O Arjuna! You cannot see my form with ordinary eyes. To behold this form, you would need divya netra, the third eye or the divine eye.

Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 811 ... na tu māṁ śakyase draṣṭum anenaiva sva-cakṣuṣā I divyaṁ dadāmi te cakṣuḥ paśya me yogam aiśvaram II 11.8 ‘divyaṁ dadāmi te cakṣuḥ...’ Let me give you the divine eye to enable you to see and experience Me.’ From this verse He starts giving the Viśvarūpa darśan—Vision of His Cosmic Form. Kṛṣṇa says, ‘O Arjuna, may you start seeing whatever exists, the sthāvara and the jaṅgama (immovable and movable), the Universe that no ordinary man can see. Even the great sages have not seen this sight and are not aware of it.’ Arjuna was an intimate friend of Kṛṣṇa and their attachment to each other as friends was deep.

They had known each other from their early years and even though Kṛṣṇa was close to all the Pāṇḍava brothers and also the Kaurava, His bond with Arjuna was special. Over and above their friendship, Arjuna was a very intelligent and learned man in his own right. But neither the deep friendship nor his intelligence or wisdom could give Arjuna any idea of the real nature, the true nature of Kṛṣṇa, and about His many facets. There are so many forms and manifestations of the different energies that humans have not even heard of. Kṛṣṇa, in His infinite compassion and love for Arjuna, shows him all these wonderful forms. Here is a wonderful phenomenon.

Now Kṛṣṇa gives Arjuna the power to see what is happening in the whole Universe, not only in the present, but in the past and the future also! Darśan, Seeing the Divine Form is Possible Here again are the three questions that are the essence of the whole chapter. Can the Divine form be seen? What is the qualification to see the Divine form? What really happens when you see the Divine form? I tell you categorically—it is possible to see the divine form. There are many enlightened Masters who have experienced this consciousness. Let me give you an instance from my life. After nine long years of penance, I was completely frustrated at one point.

I wondered if I was wasting my whole life reading books, following what the earlier Masters said and applying them in my life. I wondered, was there really something called enlightenment or was it a waste of my whole life? At one point I began to fear that I had wasted the very essence of my life, my youth, by pouring all of it into tapas or penance. Was it really worth the sacrifice? All of a sudden at one point in time, I felt myself going into deep depression. Actually, I later realized that this was not depression. It was a desperate situation, a deep personal quest, and an urge to do or die.

Now I know that one needs to reach this stage before one can realize the truth. Whatever had to be done as spiritual penance, I had done and had not left even an inch untried. For example, at one point in time, I created a wall of fire six feet in diameter, sat inside it and chanted continuously so that I would not fall asleep. In this way, I had tried hundreds of techniques to the best of my ability. Since nothing was still happening to me, I concluded that there was either no such thing as enlightenment or it was something I could not achieve. I strongly began to think that Enlightenment was simply something that some people were cheating humanity with, for their own ego-fulfillment.

I began to doubt and lose faith in the whole system. The photo of Rāmakṛṣṇa, who had all along been my inspiration, the photo I used to worship everyday, I threw away in disgust, Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 813 ... depression and anger and with such force that the glass frame broke. At that time I was staying in Omkareshwar, in a forest in Madhya Pradesh, on the banks of the holy river Narmada. I had my rosary, with which I used to say my prayers and do my penance for hours together. It was my constant companion and was something to which I had given utmost respect, almost like my life-line.

In my anger and depression, I threw the rudrākṣa (sacred energy beads) into the river Narmada and cast the mantra out of my mind. I decided, ‘No more meditation, no more spirituality. Enough!’ I had had enough of the game being played by the so-called Enlightened Masters. I simply threw everything away, dropped everything. I then walked into the river Narmada with my eyes closed. The river was at least sixty feet deep at that point. I just kept walking with my eyes closed. Fear gripped me but I continued. When I opened my eyes, I was on the opposite bank of the river! Till date I have no idea what happened.

I have no idea whether there were rocks all along the path I walked on the river, or whether I floated or whether the river parted. But I did not have the resolve to walk back through the river again, that much I know! To return to the point I started from, I had to walk to the nearest bridge, many miles away! The seventh day after this incident, I joined the Masters in their game! The experience of Enlightenment and Cosmic consciousness simply happened to me. It never left me thereafter. So to answer this question, ‘Can this be experienced?’, the definitive answer is Yes. As a person who was just like you—I tell you out of courtesy the simple truth, ‘Yes, honestly, it can be experienced.’

This is the solid truth; a promise that this can be experienced. Please understand, I have no vested interest in convincing you of this ideology. All I have is simple courtesy, like informing a friend of the traffic situation in a particular place and guiding him through a different route. It is definitely possible to experience this truth, this Cosmic form, in our lives. Never think, ‘This is not for me.’ It is for everybody! However, unless you are sure of the possibility of having this beautiful, intense experience, listening to all this is a waste of time. If you think this is one more story, do not waste your time here.

The first thing that you need to know is that it is possible. Only then what Kṛṣṇa says will work on our being. I will be really happy if you go out after experiencing this Cosmic form. At least go out with a glimpse of it. If these words of Kṛṣṇa are to work on you, you must first be convinced of the possibility of it happening to you and know that these are not just words. Let me tell you openly and directly, from my experience, ‘It is possible.’ These words of Kṛṣṇa are not mere words; they are not mere scriptural words. These words are techniques that go deep inside you and work on you with amazing results.

All that you need is complete trust in the Master that what He says will happen. I promise you it will. Who Can See The Divine Form? Next, what is the qualification? Basically, by giving this experience to Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa proves that there is no need for any qualification because Arjuna himself has no qualification. Arjuna neither took the responsibility nor understood fully the teachings of Kṛṣṇa. He was simply fortunate to be in the presence of Kṛṣṇa, that’s all. Likewise, you too are fortunate to be here and not caught in some traffic jam! There were thousands of possibilities for you to be elsewhere; so many options were available to you.

But out of all of them, Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 815 ... you chose to be here. This is the only qualification required. In fact, you are the Arjuna who missed Kṛṣṇa in an earlier form. You are here now, listening or reading, not by any mere accident or Divine coincidence. You are here now for a reason. That is qualification enough. Make sure that you do not miss Kṛṣṇa again this time! By coming here every day, your unconscious mind has already accepted whatever is being said here. If this had not happened, you would not return here the following day. You would not be listening to or reading this chapter.

A person told me that when he woke up every day for these few days, he found himself waiting for 5:30 in the evening so that he could attend the Gītā discourse! If you are waiting, it means that all these words have already entered your being. So have the trust that you are ready for this experience. One of the problems is that even if you are qualified, you do not have the trust or belief that you are qualified! This is because society and religious preachers have blamed you continuously for many things and created a kind of guilt and self-doubt in you. Because of this you have lost faith and confidence in yourself.

Now, after having listened for all these days, your still being here is proof that your unconscious mind has accepted and enriched by these ideas. Your conscious mind may struggle with the question of why you are here, but the fact that you are here shows that unconsciously you have allowed enriching yourself and begun enjoying these ideas. Understand, allowing the Master to enrich you is the best way of enriching yourself. You are fortunate to fall in tune with the great thought of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. After understanding the verse, we will enter into a meditation to have at least a glimpse of what the Cosmic Kṛṣṇa gave Arjuna. Arjuna had no qualification to receive what he got from Kṛṣṇa.

When He could give it to Arjuna, why not to us? First, we acknowledge the possibility of having the experience. We have all understood that it is possible to have it. Next, the qualification: we have all understood that simply by being here we are qualified for the experience. Somebody once asked Bhagavān Rāmaṇa Maharṣi, Enlightened Master from India, what was the qualification for enlightenment. Bhagavān replied that merely being alive, simply existing, was the only qualification required! At the most, the only qualification can be said to be openness. If you did not have it, you would not come here every day. We never allow the belief that we have the qualification to enter into our being.

I tell you, drop everything! You are qualified by your very presence here! The Divine Eye, Divya cakṢu Next, what happens when you have the experience? Kṛṣṇa’s words: na tu māṁ śakyase draṣṭum anenaiva sva-cakṣuṣā I divyaṁ dadāmi te cakṣuḥ paśya me yogam aiśvaram II 11.8 ‘Arjuna, you cannot see Me with these ordinary eyes. You need the divine eye, the third eye, divyacakṣu. To see My Cosmic form, I give you the divine eye.’ What is this divine eye? Let me tell you my experience that happened when I was twelve years old. During that age, I used to do a particular meditation, or rather I used to play with a technique given to me by a master.

When I was about ten years old the great Master Annāmalai Swamigal, disciple of Rāmaṇa Maharṣi, first taught me the technique of exploring to see where thoughts originated. Once when I visited him with my parents, he was addressing a group of seekers and was saying, ‘We are not the body, we are ātman, the spirit. No pain or suffering touches us.’ Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 817 ... I wondered how this could be, for if my mother beat me, I could feel the pain! (In India, if kids were mischievous, they would be roundly beaten, you could not call 911!) To experiment, I went home and cut my thigh with a knife to see if I had pain or not.

I bled profusely. Naturally, it not only hurt me, but I had to be taken to the hospital for the wound to be stitched, with more scolding from my mother! I had both pain and suffering. I wondered why this Swami had taught us such a thing as ‘no suffering or pain’! Experimenting on others was easy. Arjuna was intelligent. After understanding everything, he started killing others; he never experimented on himself! I approached the Swami and related what had happened to me. First he asked me, ‘Did I ask you to go and cut yourself?’ He then made a profound statement that transformed my life. He said, ‘You may have pain and suffering now, but do not worry.

Your attitude of analyzing and searching for the truth, your courage to experiment with truth, will liberate you from all pains, so go ahead!’ He then advised me to start searching for the source of my thoughts. Of course, at that age I was only irritated by his comments and my attention was on the fruits and sweets that devotees had brought him. I was hoping he would give me some in consolation! Honestly, I neither understood nor was convinced of what he said. However, after a few days I began to playfully and casually try out the technique of trying to see the origin of my thoughts. I did not do this with any expectation or idea.

All I knew was what the Swami had told me—that I would go beyond pain or suffering if I did this technique. I had no concept of God, Brahman, ātman or jñāna. One evening, at the foothills of the sacred Arunachala hill, I was sitting on a rock known locally as pavala kundru, the Coral Rock, trying out the same technique with eyes closed. I had fallen into deep meditation. After some time, suddenly something opened, something seemed to happen inside my being, a feeling of being pulled or sucked inside. The next moment it was as if a door had opened inside me, and I had complete 360-degree vision, both laterally and vertically.

I could see on all four sides – the temple that was behind me, the hill that was in front of me, and the city that was on my left and right. I could see vertically too— the sky, the rock on which I was sitting, again the temple behind me. For normal people who have only a maximum of 120-degree vision, I know this is very difficult to comprehend. All I can do is promise solemnly that it did happen! No other intellectual explanation is possible. Not only was I able to see all around, I was also able to feel that whatever I was seeing was Me. Whether they were plants or rocks or the city or the hill, whatever I could see, I felt they were all just Me.

The experience was so intense and ecstatic that it was more than three or four hours before I opened My eyes. I felt feverish with bliss and this mood continued for three days. But after this I was overtaken by a fear that there was something wrong with me. I thought a ghost had possessed me and I decided never to go to that rock again. I even began to avoid that route, which I normally took. I related my experience to an elderly Sannyāsi, Mata Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 819 ... Vibhudānanda Devi (Kuppammal), who was my mentor. She held my hand and seeing the energy, exclaimed, ‘You are not possessed by any ghost.

You are possessed by God!’ She encouraged me to continue with meditation but I never dared to do so for the next six months and was even afraid to close my eyes! I also related my experience to a close friend of mine. I told him about my 360-degree vision and my not knowing what was happening to me, etc. He did not believe me until I proved it to him by telling him about an ant climbing up the tree behind me, and correctly telling which side of the coin that he hid in his hand was exposed. He ran away from me in terror! He came to the the ashram and said to one of the ashramites, ‘I was the first person to receive energy darśan from him, but I missed it!’

But despite the fear I experienced, the whole body was bubbling with joy and ecstasy. So welcome was the feeling, that I had a small temptation to go to the rock again. I never really understood what had happened. A year later another enlightened person gave me the explanation; the seeking, however, started after this experience. Nine years of penance followed. All this penance was in order to have this experience again. When it did come the next time, both body and mind were ready and the experience stayed within my being. The vision of 360 degrees is what Kṛṣṇa means by divyacakṣu, trinetra, divine eye or third eye, also called ājñā cakra.

When this eye opens you will see 360 degrees not only in the horizontal but in the vertical dimension too. You will see the whole Existence as You and experience it as You. This experience is what Kṛṣṇa calls Cosmic consciousness. I felt that everything I saw around me was living, just as how we feel our living bodies, expanding the body consciousness to the Universal consciousness. When you feel the whole Universe as you would your own body, it can be called a cosmic experience. Unfortunately, we do not feel alive even within our own bodies! Just as I was frightened when I had my first experience, Arjuna too was frightened when he started seeing Kṛṣṇa’s cosmic form.

In such instances, a living Master is required for help and guidance. I am often asked this question, ‘Who was your Master?,’ to which I reply, ‘Arunachala.’ Arunachala, the sacred hill of Tiruvannamalai, my birthplace, is a living Master. For a premature baby to survive, it must be put into the incubator. Similarly, Arunachala is the incubator for the Enlightened person-to-be. The energy of Arunachala takes care just by your being near it. ‘Let me give you the third eye, to enable you to experience the Universal consciousness.’ You need to understand that after this verse, neither Kṛṣṇa nor Arjuna speaks. Suddenly, it is Sañjaya who is speaking. After the first chapter in Bhagavad Gītā until now, there is no word from Sañjaya.

But here it is he who is speaking. This is a symbolic representation. Arjuna is unable to speak because he is in the ecstatic experience. Kṛṣṇa does not speak because his voice is beyond audibility. His voice is in the Cosmic frequency, which is not audible to us. So Sañjaya interprets. A Thousand Blazing Suns