The tenth chapter begins with Krishna giving the supreme word to Arjuna because he is beloved and receptive. The gods and the sages do not know the Divine’s origin, for all of them proceed from him; he is the unborn source even of the cosmic powers (10·2). The very qualities that shape beings, understanding and knowledge, forgiveness and truth, fearlessness and self-control, joy and grief, being and non-being, all arise from him alone. To know Krishna as the one source of all is to be released from bewilderment and to enter into a knowledge that is also love.
Sri Aurobindo reads this chapter as the theory of the vibhuti, the Divine in his distinguished power of becoming. The Divine is present everywhere, but in certain forms, beings, energies and moments his greatness shines through Nature with an exceptional intensity. The vibhuti is not a merely secular “great man” nor only an object of admiration; it is a real self-disclosure of the Divine Power pressing through the world in some summit of knowledge, force, beauty, rule, inspiration or magnitude.
Those devotees who know this give their whole life to him; their minds dwell in him, they awaken one another to him, they find their delight in him. To them, ever in union and loving him, Krishna gives the buddhi-yoga, the luminous intelligence by which they come to him, and out of compassion he destroys the darkness born of ignorance with the shining lamp of knowledge (10·10, 10·11). Once more devotion and knowledge meet, for here love is no blind emotion but becomes the very means of receiving the Divine intelligence.
Arjuna then asks Krishna to declare his self-manifestations, and the answer ranges across the whole cosmos: among lights and mountains and rivers, among the gods and sages and warriors, among sounds and seasons, qualities and powers, Krishna names the foremost as the signs of himself. Sri Aurobindo emphasises that this catalogue is neither exhaustive nor meant to set up the separate worship of so many things; its purpose is to train the vision to perceive the one Divine behind all excellence and intensity, so that wherever there is greatness, beauty, force or spiritual significance the soul learns to see a spark of the Divine splendour.
At the same time the chapter guards against any halt among the fragments. Krishna concludes that all these vibhutis are but partial expressions and that he supports this entire universe with a single fragment of himself (10·42). This prepares the great transition to the eleventh chapter. The mind has learned to see God in his powers and figures; now Arjuna will ask to see the totality. The vibhutis are rays; the universal Form is the sun from which they pour.
