Bhagavad Gita Verse 11.4

Unlimited Universal Self – In Gita Verse 11.4  If You think that I am able to behold Your cosmic form, O my Lord, O master of all mystic power, then kindly show me that unlimited universal Self.

Arjuna is very clear that unless I am receptive I will not be able to see Unlimited Universal Self.

In my Bhagavad Gita Verse 10.11, blog I wrote Unless we become receptive we cannot receive it. So when you are not receiving divine grace, it is not anything lacking on the part of the divine, but something like a barrier you are carrying. You are not receptive to it, you are not open to it, you are not vulnerable to it.

Why Arjuna can request Krishna to show me that unlimited universal self and we cannot. Because Arjuna has trust in himself but he was not sure whether he is receptive or not? We don’t have trust in ourselves. We have doubts, whether the divine exists or not?

We always doubt – Qualities of love and grace have been attributed to the Divine. Do these qualities exist? Can this be explained?

To say that the divine exists will not be right, because all that exists is divine. Each and everything exists; only the divine cannot be said to exist. The divine is existence. To be divine and to exist is to say the same thing in two different ways. So the quality of existence cannot be attributed to the divine.

Everything else can be said to exist because it can go into non-existence. I can be said to exist because I will go into non-existence. You can be said to exist because there were times when you were not in existence. But the divine cannot be said to exist because the divine is always there. Its non-existence is inconceivable. So existence cannot be attributed to the divine. I will say existence is divine or divineness means existence.

Nothing exists which is not divine. You may know it or not; it makes no difference as far as your divinity is concerned. If you know it, then you become existence, bliss. If you do not know it, you go on and continue in agony, but you are divine. When asleep, when ignorant, then too you are divine. Even a stone is divine, unknown to itself. Existence is divine. All those who try to prove that God exists do not know. This is sheer nonsense, to prove that God exists. Those who try to prove that God does not exist are in the same boat. No one will prove that existence exists. If you say it this way, if you ask whether existence exists, the question will be absurd.

When someone says that God exists, it means the same thing: existence exists. God and existence are equivalent: synonyms. Once you have become aware of what existence is, you will not call it existence. Then you will call it God. The moment one becomes aware of the total being that is, then you cannot use the word existence. You become more intimate with it, so you have to use a personal name. You call it God. To call existence God only means this and nothing else – that you can be in an intimate relationship with it. To call existence God means you can be in personal contact with it.

Something which you are incapable of doing or not doing indicates your nature. We cannot conceive of the divine as being non-loving or without grace. Love is always there; grace is always there. We use two words – “love” and “grace” – because of our linguistic limitations. Otherwise, one word will do. Either you call it love or you call it grace.

We use two words because with love we always expect something in return – not with grace. Whenever we love someone, something in return is expected. It is always a bargain, howsoever subtle. Told or not told, made known or not made known, it is an inner bargain. Something is expected in return. That is why we use two words, “love” and “grace”, because with grace nothing is expected in return, and God never expects anything in return from us.

Begin with yourself. Do not ask whether God exists. Ask whether “I” exists. Do not ask whether love is an attribute of the divine. Ask whether love is an attribute of mine, whether I have ever loved. Do not ask about grace. Ask whether I have ever felt gratitude, because that is the pole which is just nearby, which is just a step from us. We can know it.

Always begin from the beginning. Never begin from the end because then it is no beginning at all. One who begins from the beginning always reaches the end and one who begins from the end does not even reach the beginning, because to begin from the end is impossible. You can just go on and on.

Make God not a metaphysical notion but a religious experience. Go inward. He is there always waiting for you. But then you have to do something with yourself. That doing is meditation; that doing is yoga. Do something with yourself. As you are, you are closed. As you are, you are dead. As you are, you are not in any dialogue. You cannot be in any dialogue with the divine, with existence. So transform yourself. Open some doors, break open some spaces, make some windows, jump outside of your mind, your past. And then it is not only that you will know, but you will live. You will live with the grace of the divine, you will live with the love; you will be part of it, just a ripple of it. And once you have become a ripple of it, a wave of the divine, only then is there authentic divineness.

Once you become ripple you will also have the same receptivity as Arjuna, to see the Unlimited Universal Self.