Worlds Tremble with Fear🔗

11.15 Arjuna said;

O God, I see all the gods in Your body and many types of beings.

Brahma, the Lord of creation, seated on the lotus, all the sages and celestial serpents.

Difficult to look at, blazing all round like the burning fire and Sun in infinite brilliance.

11.18 You are the imperishable; the Supreme Being worthy to be known. You are the great treasure house of this universe.

You are the imperishable Protector of the eternal order. I believe You are the eternal Being.

11.19 I see You without a beginning, middle or end, infinite in power and with many arms,

The Sun and the Moon being Your eyes, the blazing fire your mouth, the whole universe scorched by Your radiance.

11.20 This space between earth and the heavens and everything is filled by You alone.

O Great Being, having seen Your wonderful and terrible form, the three worlds tremble with fear.

11.21 Many celestials enter into You; some praise You in fear with folded hands;

Many great Masters and sages hail and adore You.

11.22 The Rudra, Aditya, Vasu, Sadhya, Vishvadeva, Ashvin, Marut, Ushmapa and a host of Gandharva, Yaksha, Asura and Siddha are all looking at You in amazement.

11.23 Having seen Your immeasurable Form with many mouths and eyes, with many arms, thighs and feet, with many stomachs and frightening tusks,

O Mighty-armed, the worlds are terrified and so am I.

11.24 Seeing You, Your Form touching the sky, flaming in many colors, mouths wide open, large fiery eyes, O Vishnu,

I find neither courage nor peace; I am frightened.

As Arjuna is in the same consciousness as the Lord, this verse should actually start with 'Bhagavan uvaacha.' These statements are said to come from Him for us to record.

These are such beautiful ways that he describes the Form. You may wonder why he does so. Please understand, he does so to inspire us to work to achieve this Form and this experience, to move in this path. Arjuna is showing us the way.

He says, ‘O Lord! I can see all the gods and deities in Your body. I can see the special union of living entities. I can see Brahma seated on the Lotus flower. I can see all the sages and divine serpents. O Lord of the Universe, I see many arms, stomachs, faces, eyes and your limitless form. O Universal Form, I cannot see your beginning, middle or end.’

As a matter of fact, when you begin to see 360 degrees in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, there really is no beginning, middle or end to see. It is a continuum. It is like seeing one of these special movies on a circular screen. Where would you describe the beginning to be, the end to be or the middle to be? It is an infinite circle. The Divine is an infinite circle, with no beginning, no end and therefore no middle. Without a

beginning and an end, to talk about the middle makes no sense.

The Form is difficult to see in its sheer glowing radiance, spreading on all sides like blazing fire or the immeasurable brightness of the Sun. Yet Arjuna sees this glowing Form everywhere adorned with various crowns and discs. He sees Krishna wearing the diadem, holding the mace and discus.

Arjuna says: 'Your magnificence is shining everywhere, from all sides, difficult to see. You are blazing from all sides with the luster of the Sun, limitless.'

Part of what Arjuna sees here is the traditional representation of Vishnu. Vishnu is always depicted with His weapons of mace and discus, the gada and chakra, and wearing the jewel-studded crown. Vishnu is also depicted resting on the ocean of milk upon the giant serpent Adisesha, with Brahma rising from His navel upon a lotus flower.

Some of what he sees is formless energy. He perceives radiance more powerful than a thousand suns, blazing and dazzling, impossible to look at even with his newly endowed divine vision. What Arjuna sees is beyond any sensory perception, something that could be experienced in that moment in time, impossible to express.

Suddenly the scene changes in these verses.

Arjuna is terrified. What he is seeing now is quite different from what he expected when he asked to see Krishna's Divine Form.

Arjuna is now incoherent. What he keeps saying is neither logical nor well thought out. What he sees he reproduces to the best of his mental abilities.

Arjuna is convinced, seeing the Universal Form of Krishna, that what he sees is the Supreme Being, the Purusha, the imperishable, the very origin of all, the Eternal.

He says, ‘You are without origin, middle or end with unlimited power. You spread throughout the heavens and through all other directions. O Supreme Soul, paramatman, after having seen your wonderful form, all the worlds and the whole universe is trembling with fear. All the celestial beings are shuddering before this form and entering into this formless form, some of them afraid, offering prayers with folded hands, along with hosts of realized sages praising this form in silent acceptance and wonderment.’

There is no other record so clear about the cosmic frequency of the Universal Form except in the Gita. What Arjuna perceives is what is always present, but which he normally has no capability to see. Now he sees Krishna in all His manifestations, from the highest to the lowest frequency levels of energy with nothing filtered.

But suddenly the Form seems to change from the magnificent, comforting and expanded form, to one that is now disturbing. It is still not clear to Arjuna what is happening, but he can anticipate that something he is about to see is not going to be as pleasant as what he had seen so far.

What Arjuna sees disturbs him.

'O All pervading Vishnu! I see You with your many radiating colors, burning fire in your gaping mouth, heating up the entire Universe with radiance, touching the sky, and Your Form unnerves me. My heart trembles in fear and I have no courage or peace to behold You.'

Until now Arjuna was saying there was no beginning, middle or end. Now he says the Form is touching the sky; an indication that he is settling, coming down from the experience. 'Seeing your gaping mouth, your great glowing eyes, overcome by fear, I can no longer maintain my mental steadiness or equilibrium.'

Please understand, as long as you want to maintain the equilibrium of your mind, you will be in this mad world. There is no such thing as equilibrium. What we think of as equilibrium is not so.

Arjuna says he wants equilibrium, meaning that he wants his mind to be under his intellectual control. He wants to know the cause and effect and feel that they are in his control. As long as these are under your control, you feel as if you are a leader; your ego is strong. But the moment these are taken away from you, you feel at a loss and no more a leader. You are just a drop in the ocean. He is afraid of that and is not able to stay in that same state.

The wave in the ocean is part of the ocean. As long as it feels itself to be part of the ocean, there is no separation. However, when the wave experiences its own identity, creates its own identity, it no longer feels itself a part of the ocean. It feels itself to be a separate entity. When it is time to merge back into that ocean, it is afraid. When it looks back at the ocean with a feeling of separation, it feels afraid.

When Arjuna had his first glimpse of the Cosmic vision of Krishna, he identified with the vision. There was no separation. Now, there is separation. Along with separation there is fear.

Q: Master, you said bliss is God, and we do not experience God. So God only remains a concept. But you have said we can experience bliss, which means that we can experience God. How then do we work towards achieving bliss?

Bliss is not an achievement. It is not an end product. It is not a goal. It is not something that is going to happen in the future. One cannot desire it, one cannot be ambitious for it; it is already in us, it is our very being.

We just have to look in, we just have to turn in and it is discovered. It is a discovery, not an achievement.

This is the whole foundation of meditation. Meditation means that all that is worth achieving need not be achieved because it is already inside you, and all that can be achieved is not worth achieving. Money can be achieved, prestige can be achieved, but they are not worth achieving because all will be left behind; death will come and snatch you away.

So that which can be achieved is not worth achieving, and that which is worth achieving need not be achieved at all because it is already there. You are made of it. Love,

bliss, God, these are our intrinsic ingredients. They are given. Nothing is to be done about them.

You have it already, but you have forgotten about it. You have not used it for so many lives that unless you start using it, you will not become aware of it. The function of the Master is to help you rediscover what you seem to have lost.

The only difference between an ordinary man and a Buddha or a Krishna is their level of awareness. Both are blissful; one knows, one does not. When you know, gratitude arises; a deep gratitude arises. When you don't know, you go on complaining. You go on unnecessarily carrying a grudge, as if life is a burden.

Only three hundred years ago scientists became aware that blood circulates in the body, that it is not just there like a liquid in a bottle, but that it is continuously moving. Your body will die if the blood circulation stops or your breathing stops.

Just as breathing, blood circulation, food and nourishment are necessary for the existence of the body, so bliss is necessary for the existence of the soul. But a little digging inside is needed so that we can uncover the undercurrent.

Once you have known your blissfulness, the source of it, your whole vision changes, your whole perspective is new. Then you look at Existence with new eyes. Then whatsoever you have found inside yourself, you will find everywhere because whatsoever we are, we find in Existence.

Existence is simply a mirror: Existence only echoes our beings. Once you know that bliss is your nature, the whole nature of the universe becomes blissful. That is what is meant by realization, liberation.

A Sufi mystic was dying. His disciples gathered and they said, 'There is one thing we always wanted to ask but we could never gather enough courage to ask. If we don't ask now, we will never be able to ask because you will be leaving the body. So now, whatsoever you think of us, you can think of us as fools, but we have to ask the question. How did you manage your whole life? We have never seen you serious, sad or unhappy. You have always been blissful. How did you manage? It is impossible to be so blissful, day in, day out.'

The old man laughed and he said, 'Early in my life I discovered that it is a question of choice. So this has become my daily routine: every morning, this morning too, the first thing in the morning, before I open my eyes, I think, "Now a new day is going to dawn; what do you want, old man? Do you want to be happy or unhappy?" And I always choose happiness.'

If you know that it is a question of choice, you are bound to choose happiness always. People think that they are victims. This is wrong. We are not victims. It is not that situations go on dragging us into unhappiness and sometimes into happiness and that we are just at the mercy of blind forces. No, not at all; a thousand times no! Every moment we are choosing.

Maybe our choice is unconscious, we may not be consciously choosing, but the choice is there. From this moment, start becoming aware of it and you will be surprised. Sometimes in the middle of your sadness suddenly the clouds disperse and it is sunny, because suddenly you see the point— that you have chosen to be sad and there is no need to be sad!

The moment you decide to be blissful, misery starts escaping from you, but the decision has to be total. It is worth getting involved in being blissful. There can’t be anything more valuable.

So drop all sadness, all seriousness. And don’t ask how to drop them. That is a strategy of the mind to go on keeping them; it is a way of postponement. ‘How?’ is just a way to postpone dropping misery. Simply drop misery. Don’t linger, don’t postpone. Say goodbye and don’t look back. And you will be surprised that it is so simple.

It is so natural to be blissful. It is unnatural to be miserable. It is really a very difficult job to be miserable, but people are so skilful, so intelligent at being miserable. They have become great artists of misery. If there is nothing to be miserable about, they will invent something.

A psychiatrist advised his patient to go to the mountains for three or four weeks for a rest. The third day he received a telegram from the patient: ‘I am feeling wonderful. Why?’

People cannot accept bliss easily. Misery is okay.

Remember that it is only a question of your decision. In a single blow one can cut the Gordian knot and one can be free in a single quantum leap. Renunciation is not about practising bliss. It is simply about renouncing misery. Bliss takes courage.

It is said that when Bodhidharma became enlightened he roared like a lion. The people of the nearby village became so afraid because they thought that a lion had come. They were thinking of escaping to some other place when somebody told them: ‘Don’t worry, it is only that old monk; something has happened to him. He is roaring!’ Then they all slowly went into the forest, gathered around him and asked, ‘What happened? Have you gone crazy or something?’

He said, ‘I was crazy before: I used to think that I was just a sheep but now I know I am a lion!’

Buddha himself has said that when one becomes enlightened, one roars like a lion. One becomes a rebel, and to rebel against misery is the greatest rebellion.

A meditator’s eye is needed to see bliss. These two eyes that you have won’t help much. A third eye is needed. These two eyes go outwards. They don’t know how to look in. They are not meant for that.

The meditator starts growing a third eye. Just between these two eyes, exactly in the middle, there is a subtle center which starts functioning as an eye: it starts looking in. To look outside, two sides are needed because the outside consists of duality. To look in only one eye is needed because the inside consists of the non-dual.

From the very beginning, your meditation has to be on the third eye. With closed eyes look in and try to remember that exactly between both eyes, the spot I just touched, there is a hidden center. It is the sixth chakra, your ajna chakra.

Once it starts functioning and moving, you become capable of seeing within. Sitting silently, look at the third eye center. As you pour your energy towards it, it will start moving. In the beginning you may feel a little strange because something new is happening, which has never happened in your body. But soon it settles, and once it settles great calmness descends.

It is possible for you. Just a little effort and the wheel will start moving, just a little effort and the benefit will be great. The benefit is going to be so much that the little effort is nothing compared to it. So let that be your concentration point: with closed eyes look at the third eye. Looking at it you start feeling great light spreading inside you, and with the light comes delight!

May you reach eternal bliss, Nithyananda!