TENTH CHAPTER

II. GOD IN POWER OF BECOMING

12. Arjuna¹ said: Thou² art the supreme Brahman, the supreme Abode, the supreme Purity, the one
Permanent, the divine Purusha, the original Godhead, the Unborn, the all-pervading Lord.

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1 Arjuna accepts the entire knowledge that has thus been given to him by the divine Teacher. His mind is already delivered from its doubts and seekings; his heart, turned now from the outward aspect of the world, from its baffling appearance to its supreme sense and origin and its inner realities, is already released from sorrow and affliction and touched with the ineffable gladness of a divine revelation. The language in which Arjuna voices his acceptance emphasises again the
profound integrality of this knowledge and its all-embracing finality and fullness.

2 He accepts first the Avatar, the Godhead in man who is speaking to him as -the supreme Brahman, as the supracosmic All and Absolute of existence in which the soul can dwell when it rises out of this manifestation and this partial becoming to its source. He accepts him as the supreme purity of the ever free Existence to which one arrives through the effacement of ego in the self's immutable impersonality calm and still for ever. He accepts him next as the one Permanent, the eternal Soul, the divine Purusha. He acclaims in him the original Godhead, adores the Unborn who is the pervading, indwelling, self-extending master of all existence.

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13. All the Rishis¹ say this of Thee and the divine seer Narada, Asita, Devala, Vyasa; and Thou Thyself ² sayest it to me.

14. All this that Thou sayest, my mind³ holds for the truth, 0 Keshava. Neither the Gods nor the Titans, 0 blessed Lord, know Thy manifestation.

15. Thou alone knowest Thyself by Thyself, 0 Purushottama; Source⁴ of beings, Lord of beings, God of gods, Master of the world!

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1 This is a secret wisdom which one must hear from the seers who have seen the face of tins Truth, have heard its word and have become one with it in self und spirit.

2 Or else one must receive it from within by revelation and inspiration from the inner Godliead who lifts in us the blazing lamp of knowledge.

3 Once revealed, it has to be accepted by the assent of the mind, the consent of the will and the heart's delight and submission, the three elements of the complete mental faith, shraddha. It is so that Arjuna has accepted it. But still there will remain." the need of that deeper possession in the very self of our being and out from its most intimate psychic centre, the soul's demand for that permanent inexpressible spiritual realisation of which the mental is only a preliminary or a shadow and without which here cannot be a complete union with the Eternal. Now the way to arrive at that realisation has been given to Arjuna.

4 Arjuna accepts him not only as that Wonderful who is beyond expression of any kind, for nothing is sufficient to manifest him,—"neither the Gods nor the Titans, 0 blessed Lord, know Thy manifestation, "—but as the lord of all existences and the one divine efficient cause of all their becoming, God of the gods from whom all godheads have sprung, master of the universe who manifest and governs it from above by the power of his supreme and his universal Nature.

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16. Thou shouldst tell me of Thy divine self- manifestations,¹ all without exception, Thy Vibhutis by which Thou standest pervading these worlds.

17. How shall I know² Thee, 0 Yogin, by thinking of Thee everywhere at all moments and in what preeminent becomings should I think of Thee, 0 Blessed Lord?

18. In detail tell me of Thy Yoga and Vibhuti, 0 Janardana; and tell me ever more of it; it is nectar ³ of immortality to me, and however much of it I hear, I am not satiated.

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1 Lastly Arjuna accepts him as that Vasudeva in and around us wlio is all tilings here by virtue of the world-pervading, 'all-inhabiting, all-constituting master powers of his becoming, vibhutayah.

2 Arjuna, though he accepts the revelation of Vasudeva as all and though his heart is full of the delight of it, yet -feels it difficult to see him in the apparent truths of existence, to detect him in this fact of Nature and in these disguising phenomena of the world's becoming; for here all is opposed to the sublimity of this unifying conception. How can we consent to see the Divine as man and animal being and inanimate object, in the noble and the low, the sweet and the terrible, the good
and the evil? At least some compelling indications are needed, some links and bridges, some supports to the difficult effort at oneness. So Arjuna requires guiding indications, asks Krishna even for a complete and detailed enumeration of the sovereign powers of his becoming and desires that nothing shall be left out of the vision, nothing remain to baffle him.

3 Here we get an indication in the Gita of something which. the Gita itself does not bring out expressly, but which occurs frequently in the Upanishads and was developed later on by Vaishnavism and Shaktism in a greater intensity of vision, man's possible joy of the Divine in the world-existence, the universal Ananda, the play of the Mother, the sweetness and beauty of God's Lila,

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19. The Blessed Lord said: Yes, I will tell thee of my divine Vibhutis, but only in some of My principal pre-eminences^,1 0 best of the Kurus; for there is no end to the detail of My self-extension in the universe.

20. I, 0 Gudakesha, am the Self,² which abides within all beings. I am the beginning and middle and end of all beings.

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* Throughout the rest of the chapter we get a summary description of these principal indications, these pre-eminent signs of the divine force present in the things and persons of the universe. It seems at first as if they were given pell-mell, without any order, but still we can disengage a certain principle in the enumeration. The chapter has been called the Vibhuti Yoga,—an indispensable Yoga. For while we must identify our- selves impartially with the universal divine Becoming in all its
extension, we must at the same time realise that there is an ascending evolutionary power in it, an increasing intensity of its revelation in things, a liierarchic secret something that carries us upward from the first concealing appearances through higher and higher forms towards the large ideal nature of the universal Godhead.

2 This summary enumeration begins with a statement of the primal principle that underlies all the power of this manifestation in the universe. It is this that in every being and object God dwells concealed and discoverable. It is this inner divine Self hidden from the mind and heart which he inhabits, who is all the time evolving the mutations of our personality in Time and our sensational existence in Space,—Time and Space that are the conceptual movement and extension of the Godhead in us.

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21. Among the Adityas¹ I am Vishnu; among lights² and splendours I am the radiant Sun; I am Marichi among the Maruts; among the stars the Moon am I.

22. Among the Vedas I am the Sama-Veda; among the gods I am Vasava; I am mind among the senses; in living beings I am consciousness.

23. I am Shiva among the Rudras, the lord of wealth among the Yakshas and Rakshasas, Agni among the Vasus; Meru among the peaks of the world am I.

24. And know Me, 0 Partha, of the high priests of the world the chief, Brihaspati; I am Skanda, the war-god, leader of the leaders of battle; among the flowing waters I am the ocean.

25. I am Bhrigu among the great Rishis; I am the sacred syllable OM among words; among acts of worship I am the worship called Japa (silent repetitions of sacred names etc.); among the mountain-ranges I am Himalaya.

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1 Among all these living beings, cosmic godheads, super- human and human and subhuman creatures, and amid all these qualities, powers and objects, the chief, the head, the greatest in quality of each class is a special power of the becoming of the Godhead

2 At the other end of the scale he is the sun among radinces, Meru among the peaks of the world, Ganges among the rivers and so forth.

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26. I am theAswattha among all plants and trees; and I am Narada among the divine sages, Chitraratha among the Gandharvas, the Muni Kapila among the Siddhas.

27. Uchchaisravas among horses know me, nectar- born; Airavata among lordly elephants; and among men the king of men.

28. Among weapons I am the divine thunderbolt; I am Kamadhuk the cow of plenty among cattle; I am Kandarpa the love-god among tlie progenitors; among the serpents Vasuki am I,

29. And I am Ananta among the Nagas, Varuna among the peoples of the sea, Aryaman among the Fathers,* Yama (lord of the Law) among those who maintain rule and law.

30. And I am Prahlada among the Titans; I am Time the head of all reckoning to those who reckon and measure; and among the beasts of the forest I am the king of the beasts, and Vainateya among birds.

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• Divinised ancestors

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31. I am the wind among purifiers; I am Rama among warriors; and I am the alligator among fishes; among the rivers Ganges am I.

32. Of creation¹ I am the beginning and the end and also the middle, 0 Arjuna. I am spiritual knowledge among the many philosophies, arts and sciences; I am the logic of those who debate.

33. I am the letter A among letters, the dual among compounds. I am imperishable Time;² I am the Master and Ruler (of all existences), whose faces are everywhere.

34. And I am all-snatching Death,³ and I am too the birth⁴ of all that shall come into being. Among

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1 All things are his powers and effectuations in his self- Nature, vibhutis. He is the origin of all they are, their begin- ning; h& is their support in their ever-changing status, their middle; he is their end too, the culmination or the disintegration of each created thing in its cessation or its disappearance.

2 God is imperishable, beginningless, unending Time; this is his most evident Power of becoming and the essence of the whole universal movement. In that movement of Time and Becoming God appears to our conception or experience of him by the evidence of his works as the divine Power who ordains and sets all things in their place in the movement. In his form of space it is he who fronts us in every direction, million-bodied, myriad-minded, manifest in each existence; we see his faces on all sides of us.

3 He appears to us too in the universe as the universal spirit 01 destruction, who seems to create only to undo his creations in the end.

4 And yet his Power of becoming does not cease from its workings, for the rebirth and force of new creation ever keeps Pace with the force of death and destruction.

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feminine qualities I am glory and beauty and speech and memory and intelligence and steadfastness and forgiveness,

35. I am also the great Sama among mantras, the Gayatri among metres; among the months I am Marga- sirsha, first of the months; I am spring, the fairest of seasons.

36. I am the gambling of the cunning, and the strength of the mighty; I am resolution and perseverance and victory; I am the sattwic quality of the good.

37. I am Krishna¹ among the Vrishnis, Arjuna among the Pandavas; I am Vyasa among the sages; I am Ushanas among the seer-poets.

38. I am the mastery and power of all who rule and tame and vanquish and the policy of all who succeed and conquer; 1 am the silence of things secret and the knowledge of the knower.

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1 Krishna who in his divine inner being, is the Godhead I" a human form, is in his outer human being the leader of his age, the great man of the Vrishnis. The Avatar is at the same time the Vibhuti.

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39. And whatsoever is the seed¹ of all existences, that am I, 0 Arjuna ; nothing ² moving or unmoving, animate or inanimate in the world can be without me.

40. There is no numbering or limit to My divine Vibhutis, 0 Parantapa; what I have spoken, is nothing more than a summary development and I have given only the light of a few leading indications.

41. Whatever beautiful and glorious creature thou seest in the world, whatever being is mighty and forceful (among men and above man and below him), know 'to be a very splendour, light, and energy of Me and born of a potent portion and intense power of my existence.

42. But what need is there of a multitude of de- tails for this knowledge, 0 Arjuna ? Take it thus,³ that I am here in this world and everywhere, I support this entire universe with an infinitesimal portion of Myself.

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1 The Divine is the seed of all existences, and of that seed they are the branches and flowers; what is in the seed of self, that only they can develop in Nature.

2 With whatever variety of degree in manifestation, a) l beings are in their own way and nature powers of the Godhead.

3All classes, general species, individuals are vibhutis of the One. But since it is through power in his becoming that he is apparent to us, he is especially apparent in whatever is of a pre-eminent value or seems to act with a powerful and preeminent force. And therefore in each kind of being we can see

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him most in those in whom the power of nature of that kind reaches its highest, its leading, its most effectively self-revealing manifestation. These are in a special sense Vibhutis. Yet the highest power and manifestation is only a very partial revelation of the Infinite; even the whole universe is informed by only one degree of his greatness, illumined by one ray of his splendour, glorious with a faint hint of his delight and beauty. This is in sum the gist of the enumeration, the result we carry
away from it, the heart of its meaning.

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