Chapter Ten:
Yog through Appreciating the Infinite Opulences of God (Vibhūti Yog)
Krishna is The Nose on The Great Durante.
Welcome to the next instalment of An Atheist Explores Sacred Texts
(Bhagavad Gita).
In this series I work my way chapter-by-chapter through the
Bhagavad Gita, commenting on it from the point of view of the text as
literature and mythology.
For more detail, see the introductory post https://bit.ly/2XAch2A
For the online Bhagavad Gita that I use, see here https://www.holy-bhagavad-gita.org/
And now:
Vibhūti
Yog
“Neither
celestial gods nor the great sages know my origin. I am the source from which
the gods and great seers come.”
Krishna reiterates what He told Arjun in the last few chapters,
that by meditating upon Him a person can achieve a sense of union with the God,
and decides to help Arjun by letting him know a bit more of the nature of
Krishna.
What follows is a tour-de-force that knocks Yahweh’s “I am the Alpha and Omega” into a cocked
hat. Actually, it’s a little bit more like Cole Porter’s “You’re the Top”. Krishna is the source of all that humanity
experiences – “From me alone arise the
varieties in the qualities amongst humans, such as intellect, knowledge,
clarity of thought, forgiveness, truthfulness, control over the senses and
mind, joy and sorrow, birth and death, fear and courage, non-violence,
equanimity, contentment, austerity, charity, fame, and infamy”.
Interesting that negative qualities are included there, such as
sorrow, death and infamy. Later on Krishna states that “Whatever you see as beautiful, glorious, or powerful, know it to spring
from but a spark of my splendour”, which reminds me of a similar
value-judgment seen in the Near East Monotheisms; God is in all things that are
good or “all things bright and beautiful”,
but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Is God in a tapeworm? We may find
them gross and horrible but, actually, when viewed dispassionately they’re
still fascinating creatures. I picked up my recycling bin the other day and a
couple of leopard slugs were huddled together underneath. Now, you or I
probably wouldn’t want to spend the night cuddled up to a slug, but the slugs
did. Again, what is “good” is subjective in so many ways. So I like that Krisha
admits to being the downs as well as the ups in life because, otherwise how
could an omnipresent deity be anything else?
There are some great stanzas here, and it’s probably better to
read them yourselves rather than me repeat every one of them. Many are somewhat
Platonic in sense, where Krishna represents some abstract virtue - “I am just punishment amongst means of
preventing lawlessness, and proper conduct amongst those who seek victory.
Amongst secrets I am silence, and in the wise I am their wisdom”.
Others are a bit more enigmatic and require a trip to the notes
for further explanation. For example, “Amongst
horses know me to be Ucchaihshrava, begotten from the churning of the ocean of
nectar. I am Airavata amongst all lordly elephants, and the king amongst humans”.
The sense is obvious; “I am the best example of any given thing”, but without
knowing the specific mythological references the typical dumb Westerner could
be excused for being a bit lost. (Just so you know, Ucchaihshrava is a celestial winged-horse that belongs to Indra, the king of the celestial abodes.
It is white in colour and is the fastest horse in the universe. Airavata is a white elephant that serves
as the vehicle of Indra. It is also called ardha-mātang, or “the elephant of the clouds.”)
There are some other interesting bits that I’ll pick out –“Amongst feminine qualities I am fame,
prosperity, fine speech, memory, intelligence, courage, and forgiveness”.
That prosperity, intelligence and courage are thought to be “feminine”
qualities is surprising given the usual prejudices of religions against
femininity, generally portrayed as passive and/or decorative at best. I like
it.
Also, “amongst serpents I am
Vasuki” but then in the next verse “Amongst
the snakes I am Anant”. Is a serpent different from a snake? Apparently
not. The commentary doesn’t contain mention of Vasuki, but it does explain that “Anant is the divine serpent on whom Lord Vishnu rests. He possesses ten
thousand hoods. It is said that he has been describing the glories of God with
each of his hoods since the beginning of creation, but the description has not
yet been completed”. Vasuki, as I learn elsewhere, is one of the eight
divine nagas, and features in the
creation story. This is alluded to elsewhere in this chapter, but basically
Vasuki wraps himself around a mountain in the ocean of cosmic milk. The gods
grab one end of him, the devas the
other, and in a contest of tug of war they end up churning the ocean of milk in
to the butter of the world. I’ve always liked how competition is turned into an
act of cooperation in that story. So Vasuki is a bit like the Midgard Serpent
of Norse mythology.
There are loads more allusions; Krishna is Time, Death, the God of
Love, the best verse in the best Veda, good grammar, and “the nimble tread of the feet of Fred
Astair”. No, wait, that one was Cole Porter. And, of course, being
an infinite God at the heart of everything, “There is no end to my divine manifestations, O conqueror of enemies.
What I have declared to you is a mere sample of my infinite glories.”
Comments
Post a Comment