107 - Combining God’s Grace with Spiritual Readiness | Swami Tattwamayananda

In the 11th chapter, Arjuna experiences the vision of the universal form of the divine. Lord Krishna shows Arjuna his divine form. This cosmic divine form transcends our concept of time and space. He shows that all the different creatures, animals, suns, moons, stars, galaxies, human beings, celestial beings – they all originate, exist, dissolve and re-emerge within that cosmic divine form.<br /><br />When Arjuna gets this vision, he is freed from all doubts. When we face an adversity in life, such as death, a well-wisher may give us good counsel. But it is not sufficient – we may feel that we are being told what we already know. Imagine, however, that we are given a vision of how every minute, beings are born, beings are dying, they make money, they lose money – then our doubts will be dispelled. This is what happened to Arjuna when he saw the divine form.<br /><br />Gita starts with Arjuna’s predicament towards a duty that he is expected to do, but that is unpleasant to him. The same Arjuna says in the 73rd verse of the 18th chapter: “By your grace, all my doubts are gone. I shall act according to your instructions.”<br /><br />This highest experience of seeing the Absolute reality as immanent, all-pervading and transcendental is not possible at the empirical level. It can only be experienced at the spiritual level. Buddha had this experience after meditating for many years at Bodh-Gaya. Buddha was able to see all his previous life cycles. Similarly, Arjuna, with the grace of Lord Krishna, was able to the past, present and future of himself and the entire creation.<br /><br />7th verse: Lord Krishna says to Arjuna: “You can see this cosmic vision, the entire existence, both moving and unmoving, all within this one Reality.”<br /><br />Reality is one. Every effort to explain this one, infinite, reality is only an approximation. Purusha-Suktam of Rig Veda says: this reality is both immanent in the manifested world and yet transcendent to it. It is infinite and beyond words. It transcends the triple dimensions of