na tu maam shakyase drishtumanenaiva svachakshushaa |
divyam dadaami te chakshuhu pashya me yogaishvaram || 8 ||
But, even this you cannot see with your own eye. I give you a divine eye, (so that you can) see the majesty of my yoga.
na : not
tu : but
maam : my
shakyase : can
drishtum : you see
anena : this
eva : even
svachakshushaa : with your own eye
divyam : divine
dadaami : I give
te : you
chakshuhu : eye
pashya : see
me : my
yoga : yoga
ishvaram : majesty
Even after Shri Krishna had begun displaying his Vishwa roopa, his cosmic form, there seemed to be no response from Arjuna at all. He realized that Arjuna’s mortal eyes did not have the capability needed to view the cosmic form. So he blessed Arjuna with the “divya drishti”, the divine vision with which the yoga, the power of creating this diversity in the universe, could be seen in all its majesty.
Before we proceed with the rest of this chapter, let us pause to dig a little deeper into this shloka. Each chapter in the Gita is a “yoga”, a technique for lifting us higher from the material to the divine. Arjuna was bestowed this vision by Shri Krishna, and we will hear a description of that vision from Sanjaya and Arjuna later in the chapter. But if this chapter is meant to give us a practical technique, what are we supposed to do? What does “divine vision” mean for us?
Let us consider a person from India who is deeply attached to his state or territory. As we have seen repeatedly in the Gita, any sort of deep attachment is a recipe for creating never-ending sorrow. What technique, what yoga could be prescribed for someone in this situation? One could ask that person to get a map of India, look at his state’s border, then mentally erase that border as well as all the other state borders, and see what’s left.
What will he see? He will only see the border of India. There would be no other divisions or distinctions. All conflicts regarding one state versus another would seem meaningless. It does not mean that the sense of attachment has gone away. That is very difficult to achieve. It simply means that the sense of attachment has been raised one step from the relative to the absolute.
Similarly, Shri Krishna asks all of us to view the world with the vision that everything is in Ishvara. Our eyes, limited as they are, will always report divisions and distinctions. That is their nature. But we can always use our intelligence to look through those divisions and see that ultimately, Ishvara is in everything and everything is in Ishvara. If we learn to do this, our attachment to worldly concerns will drop, and shift towards Ishvara.
As we move to the next verse, we will find that the original narrator, Sanjaya, has taken over.
No comments:
Post a Comment