9: The Majesty of God-Consciousness : 7.

The Teachings of the Bhagavadgita  :



Deluded man, totally oblivious to his glorious goal, foolish in his pursuits, regards himself as all-master in this world, which may carry on and continue for some time until God takes up his rod and tolerates it no more. And there cannot be a greater evil in this world than self-justification. Every other evil follows from this: audacity, tyranny, despotism – all these follow from self-justification.

A little bit of long rope is given by God Himself to every one of us, so we may live in our own fool's paradise for the time being and we may rule in the hell that we have created here. That is okay; for some time, enjoy your hell. But when adharma, incomparable adharma which is this egotism of man, goes to heights, to the breaking-point, then God Himself cannot tolerate it anymore. He takes up His cudgels and there is a dissolution of the cosmos. And, when He takes up the reigns of rule in His Hands, the rule in the kingdom of individuals not only does not operate, but powerfully gets communed with this universal rule of the kingdom of the Absolute.


All this is told to Arjuna and he weeps, "Mighty Lord, I cannot understand what You are speaking. I am in a state of consternation, my mind is not working, I do not know where I am standing. You are describing a glory in a manner which my mind, my reason, is not expected to contain or understand. What is this 'might' , this 'glory' , this 'grandeur' , this 'completeness' , this 'absoluteness' – it is possible for me to behold this?" That is the question in the earlier verses of the eleventh chapter. "Who can behold It?" This eye which sees through the microscope or the telescope is not the instrument to see the Almighty. We have but only these eyes, these two eyes.

They cannot see that All-being. An integral vision is necessary to behold this integrality of existence. The superficial, phenomenal eye sees diversity everywhere, but distinction between the seer and the seen is not the tool that you can employ in the vision of the Absolute. So the Great Lord says, "You cannot behold this Being, this Mighty Form of Mine, with these two eyes. I shall endow you with a third eye." This third eye is an integral intuition, the total consciousness, the whole of our being welling up into action – the Atman beholding Brahman. That miracle seems to have taken place by some magical action of the Almighty, and we cannot understand how it took place. We have only to accept it; it has been there, it is there, and there is nothing more to say about it.


What did Arjuna see? Well, when we say 'saw' or 'see', we should understand that it is not 'seeing' with these two eyes, because it is already mentioned that the two eyes of man, the mortal eyes, cannot behold the Immortal. He saw a miracle.

To be continued   ....