Arjuna asks to behold the Divine in the totality that Krishna has described, and Krishna grants him a divine eye, for the ordinary human sight cannot bear the universal truth. What follows is not an abstract doctrine but a direct revelation of the World-Spirit. Arjuna sees countless forms and faces and eyes, marvels without end, gods and beings and weapons and worlds, all gathered into one infinite body; the whole cosmos stands present in the single Godhead.
At first the vision is pure splendour, as if a thousand suns had risen together, with all the gods and sages and orders of creatures shining within the one form. But it soon turns to terror, for the same universal Form opens devouring mouths and burns with the fire of universal Time, and the warriors of both armies are seen rushing into its flaming jaws as rivers race to the sea. Arjuna understands that the battle is no merely human event but an act already accomplished in the vast movement of the Divine. Existence is creation and destruction together, and the Divine is not the beautiful and benign alone but also the terrible necessity by which forms are broken for the unfolding of a greater law.
Sri Aurobindo makes this chapter central to the whole problem of action. Krishna declares himself Time the destroyer of the worlds, risen to consume the peoples, and tells Arjuna that the opposing warriors are already slain by him, so that Arjuna has only to become the instrument and the occasion (11·32, 11·33). This does not excuse egoistic violence; it abolishes egoistic action altogether. Arjuna is not bidden to kill for hatred, ambition or revenge but to stand in the Divine consciousness and carry out the work appointed to him as a part of a movement immeasurably greater than his personal will.
The vision also humbles and deepens the human relation to the Divine. Arjuna recalls how carelessly he had treated Krishna as friend and companion and begs forgiveness. The personal Divine is not annulled by the universal Form but immeasurably enlarged: the friend in the chariot is the Lord of all the worlds, the intimate guide is the cosmic Spirit. Yet Arjuna cannot abide in the overwhelming terror of the universal sight and prays to behold once more the gentle and familiar form.
Krishna restores the kindlier shape and tells him that this vision is not to be won by the Veda, by austerities, by gifts or by sacrifice, but only by an undivided devotion that gives itself wholly (11·54). The eleventh chapter thus completes the dynamic turn of the middle six. The Divine has been known in his essence, worshipped in love, seen in his powers, and now revealed as the total world-action, and the conclusion returns to the original command: act as the Divine’s instrument, free from ego, full of devotion, for the work that must be done.
