Verses 11.9–11.14🔗

These verses show the unlimited, never-ending, wonderful, all-pervading nature of the Lord. Rāmakṛṣṇa says that when he experienced the form, the Cosmic consciousness, he could not pluck a single flower from a plant because he felt that all the plants were garlands offered to God. Anyone who has had this experience is reborn. At one level this experience is one of boundarilessness. The body expands to fill everything. The entire Universe is part of the body. There is no separation of the individual and the whole. The whole is part and the part is whole. At another level the whole Universe exists within you. You are everything that you see around you.

The grass outside the hut, the dog in the distance, the tree beyond, every single entity, animate and inanimate, resonates within you, as a part of you. In that mood, plucking a flower hurts. A wild animal responds peacefully to your presence. There is no violence in Cosmic consciousness. There is only completion and inclusion. This is what Arjuna saw in the Universal form, an unlimited number of mouths, eyes and wonderful visions. The form was decorated with many celestial ornaments and bore many divine upraised weapons. He wore celestial garlands and garments. Many divine scents were smeared all over His body. All was wondrous, brilliant, unlimited, all-expanding. Here he sees an unlimited number of mouths and eyes in Kṛṣṇa.

Now Arjuna sees 360 degrees in both horizontal and vertical dimensions. He sees the whole universe, all the people on the battlefield; all of them inside Kṛṣṇa, as the Universal consciousness. He sees the Whole as his own being. There is no boundary to Kṛṣṇa’s universal form. The word Viṣṇu, which is his real form, means one who expands infinitely. The splendor that Sañjaya talks about is beyond anything the mind can comprehend, because it is the source of all splendor. Notice, it is Sañjaya speaking these words, not Arjuna. Sañjaya is far from the battlefield and has been given the power to see what happens on the battlefield so that he can describe the events to his king Dhṛitarāṣṭra.

Though Kṛṣṇa says that this form is being shown only to Arjuna, by default Sañjaya has the great fortune to witness and participate in this vision. Arjuna is awestruck and is in silence. He is yet to speak. What he Viśvarūpa Darśan Yogaḥ Krsna: The Cosmic Window 823 ... has witnessed is beyond anything that he could have imagined or asked for. But the silence is a very active silence. It is a silence in which he experiences the truth of Kṛṣṇa. It is a silence in which he is actively participating in the process and is being immersed. Those who experience do not talk. Those who talk have not experienced.

Sañjaya then summarizes Arjuna’s reaction to the divine form of Kṛṣṇa in the last few verses. Arjuna is still silent and it is Sañjaya who describes what happens. What Arjuna saw was beyond his understanding. Wherever he looked was Kṛṣṇa; Kṛṣṇa in many forms, many shapes, many non-forms and non-shapes. There are no words to describe what Arjuna saw. How does one describe what is beyond the mind, beyond logic, beyond words, beyond all comprehension? In the body of the supreme Lord, Arjuna saw the whole Universe divided in different ways and at the same time united in one form. The Universe is divided into many parts such as the sun, moon, earth, planets and other bodies in space.

Here he sees all of them as one form. You need to understand this description, which is so beautiful. Later we shall enter into a meditation and pray to the Parabrahma Kṛṣṇa to give us all a glimpse of what Arjuna received. Arjuna is able to see the whole and at the same time all the parts. Even the word hologram that we now so commonly use to describe the totality of something preserved in a fragment does no justice to Arjuna’s vision. In a hologram, one needs to make the effort to see the whole in the fragment. In this divine vision granted to Arjuna, the whole existed with the part, with no separation, no discontinuity.

The whole was part and the part was whole. Of all the people on the battlefield of Kurukṣetra, only Arjuna had this great fortune to behold the Cosmic Vision of Kṛṣṇa. Only he was granted the boon of divine vision to see the entire Universe within Kṛṣṇa. The vision that Arjuna beheld enveloped him completely. He was, in fact, part of that Vision. In addition, he was the experience of that vision as well. Arjuna and Kṛṣṇa grew up together from childhood. Kṛṣṇa’s sister Subhadra was Arjuna’s wife. They had a deep relationship as friends. In this one moment, that relationship was redefined. In most cases, the relationships are not absolute in time and space.

They become mixed. In this particular instant, when Arjuna beheld the Cosmic form of Kṛṣṇa, all thoughts of friendship disappeared. He became the typical dāsa, servant. Hands trembling, hair on end, tears in his eyes, unable to comprehend what he was witnessing, Arjuna bowed down deep in front of his erstwhile friend and started speaking in deep ecstasy. Arjuna was not afraid of Kṛṣṇa. What he now felt towards Kṛṣṇa did not arise from his mind. It was involuntary. It was intuitive. You cannot make your hair stand on end even if you try the whole night and day. Ecstasy cannot be willed. Arjuna is in adoration. He is in awe.

He realizes that he is in the presence of an energy that has no equal. Nothing he has ever experienced before comes close to this. His being opens while his mind rests. In fact, Arjuna at this moment is beyond the five defined bhāvas. He is in the state of mahā bhāva—­­ the state beyond the five bhāvas. Worlds Tremble With Fear