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Source: The Hindu (http://www.hinduonnet.com)

 

God cannot be fathomed by the intellect

 

CHENNAI, OCT. 27. The Supreme Reality is described in the

scriptural texts as eternal and all-pervasive - without a

beginning or an end. This is a postulation which will be abstract

to a lay person unless it is explained to him in a way he can

relate to it as in the case of knowledge of an object. It is

precisely with this intention that philosophical concepts are

couched in analogies and legends in these texts. The description

of the cosmic form of the Lord in the Bhagavad Gita is a case in

point.

 

Arjuna was blessed with intuitive insight by Lord Krishna to

envision His transcendental form and his following graphic

description has to be interpreted at a subtler level to

understand its underlying philosophical connotation. Arjuna's

sense of wonder is palpable in these verses, ``I see You in Your

all-encompassing form everywhere - with myriad arms, trunks,

mouths and myriad eyes. I cannot see Your beginning, middle or

end. Diademed and armed with mace and discus, I see You,

boundless Being, shining everywhere as a mass of light difficult

to look at, like the blazing fire or the incandescent Sun.''

 

In her discourse, Swamini Satyavratananda said it was with the

eye of devotion that Arjuna envisioned the Almighty's cosmic

form, the entire manifestation being the body of God. These

verses highlight the conceptual basis of devotion. His weapons,

the mace and the discus, signify that the Lord is ever ready to

protect His devotee, the mace symbolic of immediate problems and

the discus representing even remote dangers. The subtler meaning

is that the Lord destroys both the Karma of this birth and that

accrued over several births by His grace.

 

Another truth that Arjuna understood was that the Lord was not an

object of knowledge and the insight given to him to understand

His nature was spiritual. He vividly described the Lord's cosmic

form with certain knowledge of this truth because it was

necessary to come down to the relative level to articulate this

spiritual experience. Any knowledge we acquire in the world is

limited but spiritual knowledge is not so because it is knowledge

of the Reality which is by nature infinite. So Reality cannot be

perceived or comprehended by the senses and the intellect in the

strict sense of the term as the threefold distinction in the

process of gaining any knowledge (subject-object-knowledge)

disappears in the unitive experience. But for purpose of

explaining the truth it becomes necessary to verbalise the

experience which is the reason Arjuna described the Lord in such

graphic detail.

 

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