Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11 is of great importance because Krishna shows his cosmic form to Arjuna in this chapter.
The concept of the Cosmic Man is the vision of the Universe
through a mind that has ceased to act with the concept of time or space. This
vision of ‘the many in one’ is not so much a physical perception. (11.13)
The blessed lord said, “Behold, O Partha! My forms, by
hundreds and thousands, of different sorts, divine and of various colors and
shapes. (11.5)
An explanation to this verse by Swami Chinmayananda – if gold
is the essential stuff in all the ornaments, every ornament in the world must
be available in the total gold. To see the gold in the ornaments is relatively easy,
it being a physical perception. But to detect the presence of all ornaments of
different shapes and colors in the total gold is comparatively difficult, in as
much as it is the vision of the intellect.
Now behold, O Gudakesha! In this body, that the whole universe
centered in one, including, the moving and the unmoving, and whatever else you
desire to see. (11.7)
Swami Chinmayananda says – he must necessarily see framed in
Krishna all at once, the entire universe compressed and miniature with its
entire multiple details intact.
But you are not able to behold Me with these, you own eyes; I
give you the divine eye; behold my lordly yoga. (11.8)
Swami Chinmayananda says – To see the ‘one in the many’ is the work of ‘heart’ soaked
with faith; but to perceive ‘the many in the one,’ we need, besides the ‘heart,’
an educated ‘intellect’ that has learnt to see for itself the logic of the philosophers.
No authority or effectiveness in life is possible unless the
man in power has self control and self mastery. No man can live a happy and
mighty life unless he has conquered his passions and crowned himself with
kingship over himself. (11.17)
The eternal truth is one and the same, everywhere, at all
times; only its manifestations are varied and the degree of Divinity sparkling
from each differs according to the grossness or subtlety of the equipment
through which the same infinite reality expresses itself. (11.17)
Each man sees the world as he himself is. We look at the
world through the windows of our mind; as our mind is, so is the world to us.
(11.20)
Source – Holy Gita Read Reference – Page 250 published by
Chinmaya international foundation.