"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour." William Blake
The Universal Form
Since anger was at the root of Parīkṣit Mahārāja’s predicament, he is especially curious as to how to control the mind. Whether Parīkṣit Mahārāja is asking this question for our own benefit, having already conquered his own anger, or whether he himself is in crisis, the question is especially valuable. How can we control our anger? Anger is an especially destructive emotion, capable of ruining our spiritual progress.
The King asked, “Can you please explain more about the mind, O saintly one. How can I apply my mind so that I can always see God? And what can I do to avoid negative thinking?”
At this point, Śukadeva Goswāmī recommends a form of pantheism, whereby it is possible to see God everywhere. How to intuit God’s presence? According to the Upanishads God’s presence is continuous throughout the creation within and without. The ancient Śrī Iśopaṇiṣad (mantra 5) says:
तद् एजति तन् नैजति तद् दूरे तद् व् अन्तिके
तद् अन्तर् अस्य सर्वस्य तद् उ सर्वस्यास्य बाह्यतः
tad ejati tan naijati tad dūre tad v antike
tad antar asya sarvasya tad u sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ
God is everywhere, within and without. But how to see how He is manifest in every situation? No molecule or atomic is so small that God’s presence is excluded from it, and no galaxy so vast that God’s presence does not circumscribe it.
The definition of God as 'an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere' has often been attributed to Ramkrishna, but its roots are found in the Liber XXIV philosophorum, ascribed to the fourth-century grammarian and philosopher Marius Victorinus.
But it isn’t necessary to reach so far back into time or refer to the writings of antiquity to have a real experience of the divine.
In fact, a practical experience of divinity is at the core of the Bhagavat’s teachings. The Bhagavat is exclusively theistic: Where Mahābhārata is interested in the history of kings and their struggles to establish an Indian society based on religious principles, the Bhagavat is constantly focusing on the problem of understanding God. Ordinary “religious” principles which regulate society aren’t in focus here. What is in focus is communion with the divine, especially bhakti or divine love. Śukadeva’s teachings on communion are as vital today as when they were first spoken thousands of years ago.
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| Meditation as Communion |
Communion involves a real experience of divinity. The Bhagavat describes different levels of religious experience. Śukadeva gives the king a simple answer here. “God is everywhere,” he says. “Learn to see God everywhere and it will be easy to control the mind.”
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| Learn to see God everywhere... |
True perfection in mystic yoga will be possible only for those who develop bhakti, divine love, dedication. But sometimes progress is gradual. Before going on to describe the pastimes of the Personal Godhead in the 10th Canto of the Bhagavat, Śukadeva is giving help to those on the beginning levels of higher consciousness.
“Learn to see God everyhwere and in all things,” he says. By feeling the presence of divinity everywhere the mind will become accustomed to the devotional conception and eventually make perfection in divine love possible.
One may wonder why a great devotee such as Śukadeva Goswāmī would bother advocating such an apparently trivial point of view. Śukadeva is offering comfort here to a dying man, desperate for answers. Since controlling the mind is a challenge for us all, we would do well to pay attention to the lesson. Here, Śukadeva teaches us not only how to control the mind by remembering God, but how to have a real experience of divinity in the moment through meditation on His omnipresence.
Śukadev explained that while engaged in yoga practice, one may meditate in such a way that one may see God everywhere and in all things.
Śukadeva said, “One may sit in the proper yoga posture, controlling one’s breath through prāṇāyāma. While controlling the mind and senses through yoga one may meditate on the virat-rupa.”
“Think of this universe as the outward form of God. Think of the phenomenal world with the universal elements as His body with the lower planets as his feet and the higher stars and constellations as his head. Think of the higher subtle worlds as his mind and intelligence and the hellish planets as his feet.
Śukadeva continued: “ Thunder, lightning, and all material phenomenon proceed from his arms who are the gods, beginning with Indra. The ten directions are His ears and physical sound is His hearing. Aroma is His sense of sense. Where you see fire, think of Him. Fire is his all-consuming mouth. The galaxies that expand into Infinite space form His eye-sockets.
Think of the sun as the eye of God. His divine and watchful eye is always overhead. The creator is His angry eye-brow and His eyelids are day and night. His palate is the god of water, the juice of life is His tongue. He is the taste in water. Whenever you taste water think on Him.
“His thought is the Veda; His jaws are death, and maya His smile. The entire manifestation of cosmic energy is His glance. Religion is His breast and irreligion His back. Think of the ocean as His undulating waste and the mountains as the stacks of His bones.
“In your meditation you may think of the rivers as his veins and arteries, forests as the hairs on his body and the everpresent wind as his breath. The ages of time are the movements of the Hand of God, and the reactions of the three influences of nature are the acts of God Himself.”
Śukadeva said, “O King, best of the Kurus: in this way you can meditate on God everywhere and everything in Him. As you look to the sky, think of the water-bearing clouds as the silver hair on His head, and the sunrise and sunset as His golden robes.”
“Think of the plan for creation as His design, emblematic of his intelligence. Meditate on the ever-chaning moon with its silver rays as His mind. The songs of colorful birds represent his artistry. Within human civilization the brahmanas represent His head, the Kṣatriyas His arms, His legs the vaiśyas and the śudras His feet.
Śukadeva said, “Through this kind of analysis and meditation one may see God everywhere and remember that His watchful eye is overhead, within and without. By meditating on this universal conception of divinity one may control the mind and, ultimately, attain liberation. By seeing in this way, one eventually comes to a higher level of consciousness concerning divinity.”
In this prelimary teaching of Śukadeva, we see that God may be directly perceived through natural phenomena: the sun is the eye of God; the rain that falls from heaven reminds of his mercy; thirst reflects rasa.
The virata-rupa however is not to be taken literally. There is no ten-thousand foot God with mountains for bones and rain for eyes to threaten us as we stand in awe. This is not the meaning of the parable that Śukadeva is teaching.
Śukadeva doesn’t say that trees are the “hair on God’s head,” or that rain is made of “God’s tears.” He is suggesting that we may see God in His design. This suggestion is especially meant for neophytes and materialists who can hardly believe in God without a suitable metaphor. So, here, Śukadeva Goswāmī is speaking metaphorically.
Of course, Indra is not “the arm of God,” in a literal sense, but in a metaphorical sense. That is to say, that when we speak of a hurricane as an “Act of God,” the person responsible, i.e. the raingod would be the instrument or “arm” that provoked that act.
Otherwise we would find a contradiction here in that Śukadeva first identifies trees as the “hairs on God’s head,” and in the same breath identifies “clouds as the hairs on God’s head.” But Śukadeva is speaking poetically, and we should give him some license to develop his argument: over the course of the 18,000 verses of the Bhagavata his argument shall be made clear.
Śukadeva is describing the method by which a true mystic arrives at what is called “theophany” or divine revelation, making it clear that this vision is available to anyone who wishes to concentrate on the greatness of God. When the sun is referred to as the “Eye of God,” this is to suggest that we are all within His divine vision. The sun stands for divine consciousness. If minute consciousness exists and if divine consciousness exists they must have means of communion. Which means if you can perceive God, He can also perceive you. While the sun may not be the physical instrument of God’s perception, since communion with the divine is metaphysical, still the sun suggests the existence of a higher power. The light of the sun suggests a higher kind of light. The idea of Śukadeva’s meditation is to realize that God is great.
This approach may be of special use to agnostics and others who question the idea of God. Scientists are so determined to arrive at conclusions through argument and logic that they often miss the self-evident truths of consciousness. And yet they have some appreciation of aspects of the “universal form.”
20th century scientists were often mystics, astounded by the universe. J. Robert Oppenheimer, awed by the power of the atom, had read the Bhagavad-gita. He was familiar with the passage, where Krishna reveals his universal form, and quoted the following at the very moment of the first atomic bomb blast:
“Arjuna saw in that universal form unlimited mouths and unlimited eyes. It was all wondrous. The form was decorated with divine, dazzling ornaments and arrayed in many garbs. He was garlanded gloriously, and there were many scents smeared over His body. All was magnificent, all-expanding, unlimited. This was seen by Arjuna.
If hundreds of thousands of suns rose up at once into the sky, they might resemble the effulgence of the Supreme Person in that universal form. The Blessed Lord said: Time I am, destroyer of the worlds, and I have come to engage all people.”
Great scientists see God in His blueprint for the universe.
By wondering at the microcosm and the macrocosm; by exploring subatomic particles at the micro-level of the cosmos and by gazing in awe at the massive power of a black hole at the macro-level of the cosmos thoughtful scientists see the hand of God.
Einstein, saw a divine hand who didn’t “play dice with the universe.”
Einstein would make mystical references to “a superior mind,” or “illimitable superior spirit,” or a “mysterious force that moves the constellations.”
Einstein said, “That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
This is an example of “seeing God” through the “universal form.” In his beginning remarks to the sages of Naimisharanya, in his introduction to the Bhāgavata, Sūta Goswāmī enumerates the various incarnations of God, the avatars of Krishna. After explaining how divinity manifests in various incarnations, he mentions the Virata-rupa, or Universal Form, in passing:
एतद् रूपं भगवतो ह्य् अरूपस्य चिद्-आत्मनः माया-गुणैर् विरचितं महदादिभिर् आत्मनि
etad rūpaṁ bhagavato hy arūpasya cid-ātmanaḥ māyā-guṇair viracitaṁ mahadādibhir ātmani
“The conception of the virāṭ universal form of the Lord, as appearing in the material world, is imaginary. It is to enable the less intelligent [and neophytes] to adjust to the idea of the Lord's having form. But factually the Lord has no material form.”
The idea is that these descriptions are helpful for novices on the path. Since it is difficult for ordinary people to conceive of a metaphysical reality, they may be encouraged to think of the universe itself as transcendent. The “universal form of God” or God as universe is an imaginary exercise, since the Absolute Truth transcends the material nature of the universe. And yet, by conceiving of a higher power, we achieve transcendence through meditation.
Since it is impossible to see God with our material mind and sense, we are encouraged to consider his external aspect. This is something like understanding the presence of an important man by seeing his airplane. We hear a sonic boom and see Air Force One coursing through the sky. We say, “There goes the President.” Of course the President is not his air plane; We identify the airplane with the President. In the same way, those who wish to see God immediately may perceive His existence by meditating on the cosmos as his outward form.
