Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11

INTRODUCTION

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Krsna consoles Arjuna in these verses. He is again His compassionate Self to his disturbed disciple. He tells Arjuna that no one, but no one, has had this great privilege of seeing His cosmic form that He had just displayed to Arjuna. No penances, no rituals, no amount of scriptural reading, and no other charities would gain this Vision for anyone. ‘However, you are terrified. That is OK. See Me now in My normal form that you are used to worshipping.’ Krsna is clear on this point. It is He who decides how He reveals Himself to His devotees and disciples. It is a gift from the master, from the Divine. It is not earned through effort. Of course, effort prepares one for the receipt of this great gift, but it is not the only necessary condition for the gift to be showered.

Of course, in this chapter Arjuna seeks Krsna's vision and it happens. It could have also happened without his seeking. The favor is for the Divine to give, not because we ask. It does not matter to Krsna that Arjuna seemingly spurns this gift and would like to see Him as He normally does. A mother's love for her child does not happen as a result of any effort on the child's part. The presence of the child spontaneously evokes the deep unconditional love of the mother for the child. It is ultimately the surrender of the devotee to the master, like the surrender of the infant to the mother that evokes this unconditional love.

GOALS:

To understand that there is
no qualification to gain
darshan of the divine, it is
simply gifted to those
chosen.