Verses 11.51–11.55🔗

This statement coming from the mouth of Kṛṣṇa may be taken as the simple, direct truth. Kṛṣṇa now appears in front of Arjuna first in His four-handed beautiful divine form that Arjuna is comfortable with, and finally as Vāsudeva Kṛṣṇa, in His gentle human form that Arjuna is so familiar with. But the familiarity ends there. Having seen what Kṛṣṇa really is through His divine form of Nārāyaṇa, with four arms bearing the discus and mace, and also in His terrifying Cosmic form as Mahākāla, Arjuna now has an understanding of the unlimited magnitude of the personality in front of him. In whatever form Kṛṣṇa now appears, this understanding would remain with Arjuna.

It is said that when Kṛṣṇa was born to Devaki, He presented to her and Vāsudeva, His father, His form with four hands to comfort them in their captivity, and later changed it to the human form. Arjuna has now seen Kṛṣṇa in all His forms. The true Universal form of Virāṭa rūpa or Viśvarūpa, that Arjuna found fearsome; the beautiful, much gentler, adorable form with four hands (bearing mace and discus in two hands, and the other two hands signifying protection and the giving of boons), and finally back to the human form that Arjuna has always known. Kṛṣṇa says even the great sages, the enlightened Masters have not seen the sights that Arjuna has seen.

That is very true. Enlightened Masters cannot see visions. When an enlightened being sees another Enlightened being, it is in the energy form. To be able to see the gross physical form, both need to readjust their frequencies. For other people, no amount of spiritual practices and knowledge can make this happen. This is the space of bhakti, pure devotion. Śrī Rāmakṛṣṇa says about one’s relationship to a Master: ‘The love of a chaste wife for her husband, the attachment of a miser to his hoarded wealth, the craving of a pleasure seeker for sensual pleasures, all these rolled into one and directed towards the master is true bhakti, devotion.’

Experience You As Universe and Universe As You Kṛṣṇa concludes this chapter with a clear direction of what a devotee should do to reach Him. It is as simple as 1, 2, 3. ‘Work for Me,’ He says, ‘work for My mission, mat karma kṛn. Surrender to Me as the supreme with no reservations, mat paramo mad bhaktaḥ. Have no attachment to whatever you do, leave the results to Me, surrender the fruits of your action to Me, sanga varjitaḥ. Look upon everyone as your own Self, without dislike and hatred, nirvairaḥ sarva bhūteṣu.’ Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 853 ... mat karma kṛn mat paramo mad bhaktaḥ sanga varjitaḥ I nirvairaḥ sarva bhūteṣu yah sa mām eti pāṇḍava II 11.55 What Kṛṣṇa says here is very significant.

‘Work for Me. Enrich for Me—mat karma kṛn,’ He says. ‘He who works for Me comes to Me—yah sa mām eti pāṇḍavaḥ’ All disciples and devotees must understand this. Devotion is not about keeping a statue or a photo and praying to it. You can be a gazer all your life and nothing will come out of it. What is really needed is authenticity in action and your effort to enrich others and yourself, which is in tune with what the Master teaches. Please listen. Rūpa means the parts of you which you remember and associate yourself with, and make others experience as you, is rūpa. For example, when you associate yourself with this skin, bone and flesh, and you cognize this as you and make everyone experience this as you; then, when someone worships this, you are happy, and when they abuse this, you are unhappy.

Usually, whatever you associate yourself with and show as you to others is rūpa. A normal man associates himself, cognizes himself as his body and makes everyone cognize that he is his body. Viśvarūpa means cognizing the whole viśva (universe) as you and making the the whole viśva cognize you as viśva. Listen! Enriching is the direct process to cognize you as viśva or viśva (universe) as you. Enriching is directly successful in life because with more and more enriching, you will less and less cognize yourself as this six-feet body and you will more and more cognize yourself with the people who carry the completion space you are living.

See, when you enrich others with the space you are living, whoever starts carrying the same space, you will feel connected with all of them. You will feel the strength of all of them. They will feel your strength, you will feel their strength. This is the way enriching becomes of practical use. Listen! I tell my disciples: ‘If you sit and gaze at me and feel joyful seeing my form, you are chasing me. At best you get eye candy and brain candy, sweet words and a sweet form that makes you feel happy. Then you think I will be leaving soon and feel unhappy. You miss the present moment of my being with you and speculate with regret on my absence that may follow.’

‘If instead, you work for my mission, enriching others with my words and teachings, I shall chase you. I shall always be with you, wherever you are! You do not even need to come to me. I shall come to you.’ Understand, my cognition about my success or failure has nothing to do with my body, it is to do with my ideology, which I already established in many bodies through which I’ll continue to live forever. Whoever has cognized inside their heart, in the space of completion— integrity, authenticity, responsibility and enriching, I live in all of them. I am radiating me through all of them. Whoever I initiated already into the truths that I am living, whoever has caught the fire, I am living, I am continuing to live, and I’ll continue to live through all of them.

Please understand, bring enriching as your strength. You will win in any war! Hinduism has always survived in all wars by using enriching as the weapon. Śāstra is our śastra; the knowledge was our weapon. It is by śāstra, the right cognition and the strength of enriching that we won all the wars, all over the world. I tell you, take up enriching yourself and others again and again as your cognition. Suddenly you will realize, not only you are rūpa, the center of your life, you are Viśvarūpa, the center of the Cosmic life. Please listen, I am not giving you theories and stories. I am giving you the practical tips from my personal life.

You are not just center of your life, you are centre of the whole Cosmic life. If you associate yourself with the six-feet body you are rūpa, just form. If you associate yourself with the ideology and cognize yourself as sacred truths, whoever practices that, you expand; and you cognize all of them as part of you, so you become Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 855 ... Viśvarūpa. Enriching is the direct process to transform you from rūpa to Viśvarūpa. May the blessings of Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Lord be upon you all! MEDITATION I think it is now time for us to meditate to experience what Arjuna is seeing.

Once again the two points: Is it possible to experience Kṛṣṇa consciousness? Yes, it is possible. What is the qualification? Our being present here is enough. Now all we need to do is put our whole consciousness intensely into the meditation. The meditation will take at least 20 minutes. If you feel you cannot or do not want to sit for 20 minutes, you are free to leave. If you can do so, we shall enter into the meditation. Please don’t leave in between. Please sit straight and close your eyes. I shall guide you step by step. Pray intensely to the Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa, Universal consciousness, in whatever name you know, in whatever form you know.

Pray to that energy to give a glimpse of His being to you, a glimpse of the experience that Arjuna received and which all the enlightened masters experienced. Pray to the Universal energy. It responds to your thoughts. Don’t think your prayers are dead words. They are living communication. Inhale and exhale as slowly as possible and as deeply as possible. Concentrate and bring your attention between your eyebrows, on your ājña cakra. Slowly, but very deeply concentrate on your ājña cakra. Without forcing yourself, put your awareness naturally on your ājña cakra. Slowly start visualizing the whole Universe moving inside your head. Feel this clearly inside your head. The space that is in front of you, in your inner space, the whole Universe is moving.

See the sun, moon and all the planets. Visualize this clearly, intensely. Slowly relax the body, be one with the Universal consciousness. Feel the experience of being one with the Universe. You are seeing clearly the sun, moon, stars and planets. Just disappear into the Universal consciousness. Forget your name, your form, all the conditionings, your profession, your gender and your country, everything about yourself. Forget your identity and see the whole Universe intensely. Just see the moving Universe intensely, all the planets, the stars, all the suns, moons. Disappear into the Universal consciousness. Lose the identity, the root cause of all the thoughts; let it disappear into the Universal consciousness.

Experience the bliss, the fulfilling bliss of the whole Universe. Expand and disappear into that Universe. Dissolve into the Universal consciousness. Be in Nityānanda, eternal bliss! Thus ends the eleventh chapter named Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ, ‘The Yoga of Cosmic Vision,’ 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. Love Is Your Very Life In love, life comes to its ultimate peak. It is only in love that we will find God. Krsna declares the experience and expression of His devotee, who is very dear to Him and reaches Him without a doubt. c h a p t e r Bhakti Yogaḥ ...

In the previous chapter, Arjuna asks for and receives the viśvarūpa darśan, the vision of the Universal form of Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa very patiently resolves Arjuna’s doubts and answers all his questions. Arjuna then wishes to see the true reality of Kṛṣṇa, the form behind the formless, the Imperishable, the Eternal. Kṛṣṇa obliges his friend and disciple, Arjuna, the true representative of the human being, Nara. Seeing this cosmic form of Kṛṣṇa, and unable to withstand the energy, Arjuna begs Kṛṣṇa to show him the benevolent four-armed form of Viṣṇu that he is used to worshipping with devotion. Finally, Kṛṣṇa reverts to His normal human form as Arjuna’s charioteer, and the King of Yadāvas.

After showing His cosmic form and having given the experience of Cosmic consciousness to Arjuna, Kṛṣṇa now speaks about bhakti, devotional love. Kṛṣṇa’s Universal form, as displayed to Arjuna, is His Cosmic consciousness, which is our collective consciousness. Arjuna understands from Kṛṣṇa that he too is a part of this Cosmic consciousness, and at the same time he is aware that what he could see of Kṛṣṇa is a mere fraction of His eternal cosmic Self. Arjuna’s experience of the Divine form of Kṛṣṇa raises further questions in his mind. Is this form that he just witnessed the glorious reality of the Cosmos? Is this the true reality that he should focus on?

Or is the formless Self that Kṛṣṇa had talked to him about earlier more important? Understanding Bhakti and Love Usually people think a spiritual experience happens only after bhakti, devotional love. However, bhakti happens only after a spiritual Love Is Your Very Life Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 859 experience. Real bhakti cannot happen to you before a spiritual experience. Only when a person experiences every being as part of the Cosmic consciousness can he radiate love. Only such a person knows what love is. Nobody else knows what love is. Others think that they love, or act as if they love. Be very clear, so many people act as if they love.

Sometimes by acting, they think that they love. Never can we love by acting! Love must flow from our being. Love happens when we experience cosmic consciousness, when we have a spiritual experience, when our ego disappears. Kṛṣṇa lays out the whole technique for us, step-by-step. After a spiritual experience so much gratitude flows from our being, so much love overflows from our being that we start radiating it. We need not make an effort, it just flows. We cannot stop it. No one can show or experience love unless they have had a spiritual experience. People ask me, ‘Swamiji, you tell your devotees to meditate, meditate, and meditate. What is the use?

Isn’t it a selfish practice? Why don’t you tell them to do service? That will benefit a lot of people.’ There are many so-called spiritual organizations and organized charities that are caught in social service, just for name, fame and social prestige. The people running and involved in these organizations, are always preoccupied and busy being photographed for newspapers and magazines. Organized charity is a beautiful way of cheating yourself and others. Your ego is fed well when you do charity this way. Charity can never be organized. It just has to flow. It is not an external expression. Understand, in the Vedic tradition, the concept of dāna is not charity.

Charity is an ugly word. Our concept of dāna is totally different. Dhana, wealth becomes dāna, enriching with wealth. When we are filled with dhana, which means the wealth of completion, the overflowing dhana becomes dāna, the overflowing enriching expression of Love. Listen. Dhana overflows as dāna when completion overflows as love. The greatest wealth is completion and the greatest enriching is love! The moment we try to organize charity, the whole thing takes on a different quality, a different color, and a different purpose. Only when it flows after an experience of completion is it a solid expression of love. Our inner transformation, our completion must happen before we enrich others to transform.

Unless we feel that we are part of the Whole, unless we feel that every other person is irretrievably linked to us, it is impossible for us to contribute and enrich with true love. We will only be hypocrites. We are part of the cosmic ocean. Each of us is a mere drop. As long as we remain droplets and do not understand the reality of being part of the same ocean, we remain separate; our feelings will be driven by ‘I’ and ‘mine’. As long as this separation remains, there can be no true love. There can be no expression of complete love. Whatever an enlightened being does, even if he kills someone, it will only do that person good.

This is because an enlightened being is established in the space of completion driven by cosmic consciousness. Therefore it will always be good for everyone. However, whatever an unenlightened man does, even if he does great service, it may or may not do good to him and society. Good or bad is not decided by doing. It is decided by the being! When an enlightened man acts, even small things lead to great results in the world. When an unenlightened person acts, even great truths may lead to misery and destruction at times. Think about the simple words uttered by Buddha, ‘Watch your breath, witness your inhaling and exhaling.’ Buddha discovered this simple truth through which thousands of people became enlightened.

Yet, when an unenlightened person discovers a great truth, it leads to destruction. For example, the atomic theory is a great truth. Yet, when it comes from an unenlightened mind, it leads to destruction. A statistical report in a magazine claims that the governments of all the countries in the world have enough atomic weapons to destroy the planet Earth over a thousand times. They have piled up enough atomic weapons to destroy the earth not once or twice but over a 1000 times! This Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 861 is the result of one unenlightened mind. Listen. Deeds or words by themselves don’t do good or bad.

They do good or bad based upon the consciousness from which they are expressed. This consciousness, this awareness is related to the feeling one has for others. The quality of our awareness decides whether the end result benefits or destroys humanity. Only after a spiritual experience do we feel gratitude at the being level. If it is our solid experience that every living being is God, we radiate love and our being becomes love. Bhakti and love are expressions that flow from that spiritual experience. Kṛṣṇa’s discourse on Bhakti Yogaḥ starts after Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ. After the experience of completion, He talks about the expression of enriching, Bhakti Yogaḥ. He talks about the expression of devotional love. Who Is Perfect?