Hari om everyone,
Here's a quick synopsis of our class this week. Geeta chanting yajna was done on Saturday. After meditation, we continued with practicing chanting Ch. 3 because learning Geeta is not just for a performance, but for a lifetime!!
It was a shorter class today as there were presentations by students of younger grades. The Kyun Kyun (QQ - Quirky Question) of the day was - We know odd and even numbers. We also know 7 is an odd number. How can we make it even without doing any addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division? The class thought and thought. Then a couple of them said drop the 's'! Yes!! Dropping the 's' makes 'seven' 'even' :).
Similarly, we struggle to 'attain' mokSha or get a vision of God. To do that, all we need is to drop the 'I' (ego) that we are so strongly rooted in! Our 'Body, Mind, Intellect' (BMI) identification is so strong that we do not know to think otherwise. Any definition we give of ourselves will fall under this bracket.
Krishna did not define/identify Himself in these terms. After explaining his glories in 10th chapter, in the 11th chapter, Arjuna asked if he could physically see this glorified form of Krishna. Just as we need a microscope to see minute objects and a telescope to see distant objects, Krishna said, 'Arjuna, you will need a pair of divine eyes to see this form of mine. I will grant you this divine vision so you may see! Not many have seen this form of mine and even Gods are eager to see.'
With these divine eyes, Arjuna saw the humongous form of the Lord. His form expanded from earth to the skies, from left to right, from front to back and all around! Wherever Arjuna's gaze could go, he could only see the form of the Lord!!! Every element of the world, every being in the world, anything and everything he could think of, was IN the Lord now!
A pictorial depiction of this form is what we have seen as 'vishwaroopam' shown below.
All demigods and deities of heaven had lined up to see this glorious form! Along with them, couple of others were blessed to see this form as well. One was Sanjaya who was given with divine vision by Veda Vyaasa already at the beginning of the war. The other was, Hanumaan. He was sitting on the flag of Arjuna (That is why Arjuna is called kapidhvaja). He listened to the entire conversation between Krishna and Arjuna. He even saw this glorious roopa (form) of Krishna as well.
Later on, Hanumaan wrote a commentary on the geeta and called it 'paishaacha bhaaShyam'! A pishaachi is a kind of devil. Why did Hanumaan call his commentary as a 'devil's commentary' of the geeta?! The reason is - when Krishna was teaching the geeta, he was seated above him, on the flag. When a teacher is teaching, a student should humbly sit below him and learn earnestly. Sitting above the teacher and listening to the teachings is not respectful etiquette (though Hanumaan didn't intend to disrespect, he was just situated that way). So, he named his commentary accordingly. This emphasises to us that knowledge, just like water, flows down from above (guru to shiShya). So, one has to humbly sit below the guru and receive the knowledge respectfully!!
Arjuna started describing this glorious form of bhagavaan in many beautiful verses! We will see more in the next class. Until then, we will leave you with these thoughts..., Pray with sincerity!
Regards,
Rashmi.
Rashmi.
