The Spiritual Import of the Mahabharata and the Bhagavadgita : Ch -18.1.

 Chapter -18: Fix Your Mind on Me Alone-1.

The vision of the cosmic form was vouchsafed to Arjuna, as portrayed in the majestic words of the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavadgita. Subsequent to this wondrous display of God’s glory, which was witnessed with consternation by Arjuna in his mystical rapture, he raises a question before Bhagavan Sri Krishna.

“This mighty spirit which was revealed to me just now is capable of approach and attainment, finally, in a whole-souled contemplation of the entire being of the seeker; a merger, as it were, of one’s consciousness in the impersonal Absolute. There is the other way of contemplating You as the glorious, mystifying, majestic form. Which of the two approaches can be regarded as preferable?” This is the question.

The answer is a little surprising and, at the same time, very solacing. One would have expected the great Master to give an immediate reply by saying that what is required of the seeker of the liberation of the soul is a complete merger of himself in the Absolute by a contemplation which leaves no trace of personality or externality. On the other hand, the Yogesvara tells Arjuna,

“Considering the difficulty involved in the contemplation on the impersonal Absolute by people who are located in a physical body, I prefer the other way of devotional surrender to the magnificent form of God, by which approach divine grace will descend upon the devotee.”

The reason is also explained in a few verses in the twelfth chapter.

Kleso’dhikataras tesam avyaktasakta-cetasam :-

Those who are intent upon the impersonal Brahman will find their way very hard to tread, because of the fact that it is not easy for embodied beings to contemplate the disembodied.

Swami Krishnananda
  To be continued  ....