Bhagavadgeeta : ( 26/11/2012. )

Ch-17.The Vision of God-6. Having been stirred up into the height of curiosity to know this invisible Almighty, Arjuna, in glorifying Him, requests the great Master of the Bhagavadgita to bestow upon him this blessing of the vision of That about which so much has been told up to this time. “Am I fit to have the vision of this glorious Almighty? If, O Blessed One, you deem it proper that I be brought face to face with this solacing eternity, I shall regard myself as highly blessed indeed.” Now, this is a condition where the properties of prakriti, to which reference was made in earlier chapters of the Gita, work in a curious manner. The distracting force of prakriti known as rajas, and the stultifying power known as tamas are completely overcome; they are subdued by the force of sattva, which is transparent like a clean glass through which light passes in such a way that one cannot even perceive the existence of this reflecting media. Intuition is not the same as identity w...

Ch-17.The Vision of God-5. All this will be only a jumble of words for us, without any meaning and substance, because we are not accustomed to think along these lines. All this remains merely as a theory, a kind of textbook lecture or a scriptural gospel for us. Yet, the awakening has to take place, and everyone is after that. So, the faculties of the individual, Arjuna, were awakened up to the borderline of the perception of the Absolute through the intuition of the soul. The soul knowing things is called intuition—we do not call it perception or sensation or cognition and the like. The word ‘intuition’ is used in a very special sense and not in a Western psychological sense. It is immediate awareness, or as they sometimes say, non-mediate awareness. No mediation of the senses is necessary there. There is no need of the mediation even of the mind, and no need of the mediation of the intellect or reason—we have not to exert through the faculties of knowledge. All exertion...

Ch-17.The Vision of God-4. The vision of God is the intuition of the supreme Absolute. It is not a perception; it is not seen as we see an object. God is not seen with open eyes, and not heard with the ears. These sense organs, which give knowledge of things, diversify the objects and cut off colour from sound and sound from color, smell from taste, and so on, whereas in the vision of God all sense faculties join together, so that it is taste, smell, sound, colour—everything. It is not merely a colour that we see when we see God, not merely a sound that we hear, not merely a taste, not a smell. It is also not merely a total of these perceptions. We are incapable of even imagining what sort of experience it would be, if all the senses simultaneously act at one stroke. That means to say, if we were to be endowed with a faculty which is sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch altogether, what would be the kind of feeling in us? At present our sensations come in succession. We se...

Ch-17.The Vision of God-3. The human element in Arjuna was partially awakened to a curious, inquisitive mood when the glories of God were delineated in the tenth chapter. The great Master, as a divine incarnation, said that all glorious elements, wherever present, are to be adored as His manifestations in one form or the other. The curiosity consists in the desire to visualise this omnipresent form; otherwise it remains merely as a kind of acceptance, and not a vision and an attainment or a possession. Whereas up to this time the gospel went on along the lines of instruction and enlightenment of the reason and the highest individual faculties available, now the religious consciousness gets roused up, which surpasses the rationality of the individual in many respects. The intuitive faculty is to be splashed forth, wherein the individual faculties of perception, cognition, emotion, volition and the like are to be brought together into a totality and a blend, and made to work i...

Ch-17.The Vision of God-2. But that God is more than all this is yet to be told. The curiosity of the seeker is stirred up when he is told that, the omnipresence of God notwithstanding, His presence is capable of being recognised and felt only in superior excellences of manifestation. But the character of omnipresence remains to be explained. That which is equanimously present everywhere is certainly existent not merely in the superior manifestations of visible glory, but also in invisible forms which may lie at the background of these particularised manifestations of superior glory. The consciousness of the seeker is yet to be awakened to a height of consternation where it should become impossible for the knowing subject to comprehend this all-inclusive object, namely, the Supreme Godhead. Up to this time God was somehow or other kept at arm’s length in spite of the acceptance by the subject of the all-inclusiveness of the Almighty, the omnipresence of God, and the impossibility...

Ch-17.The Vision of God-1. We have to retrace the steps of our thinking from where we commenced at the very initial chapter of the Bhagavadgita, in which was described the great complexity of the social approach to things. From that point there was a gradual withdrawal of consciousness tending towards the integration of the whole individual, with a further purpose of tuning the integrated individual to the set-up of the whole universe. These were practically the stages of the development of thought through the various chapters of the Bhagavadgita, right from the first chapter until the commencement of the seventh. Then there was an intensification of the idea that God indwells the created universe in a transcendent manner—unreachable, inaccessible and capable of attainment only after the shedding of the mortal coil. Thereafter we were told that, together with the transcendence of God, He also maintains an immanence of His presence throughout creation in various degree...

Chapter 16: The Essence of Creation is God's Glory-17. Well, so the Teacher says, “There is no end for the enumeration of my glories.” Nanto’sti mama divyanam vibhutinam : - { Meaning } -Endless are the glories—everywhere we can see them, if we have the eyes to see. If we have the ears to hear, if we have the mind to think and the brain to understand, we will find His presence everywhere. In every nook and corner, in every little cranny we will find the splash of this beauty of divine presence. “Well, why should I speak to you more,” says the great Master. “By a little fraction My magnitude of Being, I sustain this whole cosmos—a little fraction of Myself, not the entirety.” Ekamsena sthito jagat : { Meaning } - “By a little part of My Being, I am sustaining this entire magnificent cosmos.” We can imagine what could be the magnificence of God Himself! Next : Ch-17.The Vision of God Swami Krishnananda To be continued  ....