Chapter 11 · Verse 23 · Vishwaroopa Darshana Yoga
Bhagavad Gita 11.23
Sanskrit
रूपं महत्ते बहुवक्त्रनेत्रं महाबाहो बहुबाहूरुपादम्। बहूदरं बहुदंष्ट्राकरालं दृष्ट्वा लोकाः प्रव्यथितास्तथाऽहम्।।11.23।।
Transliteration
rūpaṁ mahat te bahu-vaktra-netraṁ mahā-bāho bahu-bāhūru-pādam bahūdaraṁ bahu-danṣhṭrā-karālaṁ dṛiṣhṭvā lokāḥ pravyathitās tathāham
In plain words
When you're terrified—of loss, of illness, of what you can't control—you're seeing only one face of reality, the face that threatens you. The lesson for you: the divine is both the tenderness you pray for and the vastness that shatters your small certainties, and you must learn to trust both. What feels like the end of your world is often just the end of your illusion about how the world works.
Word by Word
Arjuna beholds the Cosmic Form in its terrible majesty—countless faces, eyes, and weapons emanating from Krishna's infinite being. This vision pierces through the veil of personal relationship into the raw reality of divinity: simultaneously creative and destructive, merciful and fierce.
The fear that grips Arjuna, and through him all beings, is the soul's recognition that it stands before the totality of existence—nothing hidden, nothing spared. In our modern life, this teaches us that true spiritual awakening requires us to release our comfortable, sanitized image of God and reality, and face the vast, humbling truth of what actually is.
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Bhagavad Gita 11.23 — BG 11.23
Your Mantra Prescription
This mantra is prescribed for clarity and purpose. Is that what you're going through?
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