A Study of the Bhagavadgita :11.9 - Swami Krishnananda.

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Sunday, June 05, 2022. 19:40.

Chapter 11: Beholding God as He Beholds Himself-9.

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Can you also behold that? Why should Arjuna alone be blessed with that greatness? Why not you, or I, or anybody else? Arjuna is blessed, yes. You are also blessed – or anybody. But – there is a great 'but'.

"Na veda-yajnadhyayanair na danair na cha kriyabhir na tapobhir ugraih evam-rupah shakya (Gita 11.48). 

Any amount of human effort is inadequate for this purpose. 'Human' – after all, your effort is human; that is the only difficulty. You are a person, and that is divinity; it is a Super-person. You are a mortal; that is immortal. You are located in one place; it is everywhere. How would a localised, mortal individual with the frail faculties of sense organs expect to visualise that cosmic inclusiveness?

"Na veda-yajnadhyayanair na danair

na cha kriyabhir na tapobhir ugraih

evam-rupah shakya aham nri-loke

drashtum tvad anyena kuru-pravira." (Gita 11.48). 

na—not; 

veda-yajña—by performance of sacrifice; 

adhyayanaiḥ—by study of the Vedas; 

na—nor; 

dānaiḥ—by charity;

na—nor; 

cha—and; 

kriyābhiḥ—by rituals; 

na—not; 

tapobhiḥ—by austerities; 

ugraiḥ—severe; 

evam-rūpaḥ—in this form; 

śhakyaḥ—possible; 

aham—I; 

nṛi-loke—in the world of the mortals; 

draṣhṭum—to be seen; 

tvat—than you; 

anyena—by another; 

kuru-pravīra—the best of the Kuru warriors

Translation :

BG 11.48: Not by study of the Vedas, nor by the performance of sacrifice, rituals, or charity, nor even by practicing severe austerities, has any mortal ever seen what you have seen, O best of the Kuru warriors.

Commentary :

Shree Krishna declares that no amount of self-effort—the study of the Vedic texts, performance of ritualistic ceremonies, undertaking of severe austerities, abstinence from food, or generous acts of charity—is sufficient to bestow a vision of the cosmic form of God. This is only possible by his divine grace. This has been repeatedly stated in the Vedas as well :

tasya no hrāsva tasya no dhehi (Yajur Veda)[v24]

“Without being anointed in the nectar of the grace of the Supreme Lord, nobody can see him.”

The logic behind this is very straightforward. Our physical eyes are made from matter, and hence all that we can see is also material. The Supreme Lord is non-material—he is divine. To have a vision of his divine form we need divine eyes. When God bestows his grace upon the soul, he adds his divine power to our material eyes, and only then can we see him.

One may ask that how was Sanjay also able to see that cosmic form, which Arjun saw by divine grace. The Mahabharat states that Sanjay also received by the grace of his Guru, Ved Vyas, who was an Avatār of God. Before the war, the Ved Vyas offered his student Sanjay divine vision so that he may be able to communicate the details of the war to Dhritarashtra. Hence, he saw the same cosmic form that Arjun saw. But later, when Duryodhan died, Sanjay was overwhelmed with grief and lost his divine vision.

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Therefore, the Gita says no amount of sacrifice, yajna, worship, prayer, study, will be of any avail : (=) na veda yaj–ādhyayanair na dānaiḥ na ca kriyābhir na tapa. 

Who will pray? 

Even intense austerity is not of any utility. 

You are thinking that you are doing austerity. 

The whole point in our spiritual practice is we do not give up the idea that we are doing the practice : I do prayer, I study the Gita, I study the Ramayana, I worship in the temple, I do tapasya, I observe fasting, I did not sleep yesterday. 

How many times this 'I' comes in! This 'I' will prevent the Supreme I from descending. 

There is a necessity for the complete abolition of personality before the mighty God's coming. This is the reason why it is said that ordinary sadhanas that are motivated by personality consciousness, or agency in action, even if it be religious, will not suffice. A dedication of oneself to God is necessary. This word 'bhakti' is used here, implying ardent longing from the deepest soul of the devotee.

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'Ardour' is the word also used in a sutra, an aphorism of Patanjali's Yoga. Tīvra saṁvegānām āsannaḥ (YS 1.21): 

Whoever's ardour is intense, intensely intense, or threefold intense, four times, nine times intense – if the ardour for God is nine times intense, God will be immediately present before you. This is why the Gita says ordinary effort is not sufficient. This kind of vision is not bequeathed to ordinary people, whose personality asserts its egoism and confirms that it exists again and again. When God comes, man cannot stand before Him. He has to get absorbed in His mighty radiance. And as long as you stand outside as a person looking at God, you will not see the real God because the God you look at becomes an object and He becomes an individual in space and time, and it will look like a mountain or a river or a sky. Nothing of the kind is possible because the soul, which has descended from God Himself, has to go to God. That which is an evolute of God's existence must return to the original source, and it can know God only when it has become God or, rather, entered into God's being, because the effect has to enter into the cause. As long as the effect is outside the cause, it cannot know that its relation to the cause is internal. It always feels that it is outside. God is the material as well as the instrumental cause of creation, it is said. He is not creating the world like a potter manufacturing pots out of clay or mud. There is no mud before God. There is no wood, no steel, no cement. Nothing of the kind is before God to create this world. He created out of the abundance of His existence.

Thus, the superabundance of God itself manifests as this cosmos, including yourself, myself. Therefore, this abundance that has manifested itself as this outside universe should revert and recede into the cause, so that the soul that has come from God enters into God and beholds God as He beholds Himself. This is the great, wondrous conclusion of the message of the Gita in the Eleventh Chapter.

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Next-Chapter 12: Communing with the Absolute through the Cosmic Tree

To be continued ....

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