169. Divine Vision

 

Lord Krishna shows his Vishwaroop (opulent form) to Arjuna (11.9) who saw many faces and eyes, many wonderful visions, divine ornaments and scents, abounding marvels which are glorious and limitless (11.10 and 11.11). The brilliance is like a thousand suns rising in the sky all at once (11.12). Arjuna saw the entire universe within the body of the Supreme Being (11.13).

Krishna granted Divine Vision to Arjuna as he could not see the Vishwaroop with his own eyes (11.8). Vishwaroop consists of Krishna’s numerous, glorious, multi-coloured, and multi shaped forms in their hundreds and thousands (11.5); Adityas, Vasus and Rudras; many wonderful things that were never seen before (11.6); the entire universe with the moving and unmoving (11.7).

One way of understanding the Divine Vision is to see it as a special power granted by the Lord to Arjuna, enabling him to behold the Vishwaroop. At a deeper level, ‘we don’t see the world as it is, but we see it as we are’ because of polarities of pain and pleasure generated in us when senses meet sense-objects (2.14). Secondly, the senses and our brain have limited capabilities which prevent us from being able to see two different things as a part of ‘Oneness’. Thirdly, viewed through the lens of contemporary quantum physics, it represents a shift in perception from the particle level, where individuals, objects, and forms are seen as separate entities, to the field level, where their apparent separateness dissolves into a common unmanifest ground.

Like how a visually challenged person can’t perceive light as well as the beauty light brings into our lives, these limitations of senses prevent us from comprehending the unlimited Paramatma and hence Divine Vision is needed. Divine Vision is nothing but the end of judgements where oneness is perceived around; the end of divisions where others’ happiness becomes ours. With Divine Vision, Arjuna saw the oneness of the entire universe within the body of the Supreme Being. Certainly, His blessings are needed to attain this vision, but these blessings come at the end of our struggle like how Arjuna attained it.


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