Toward the end of the Bhagavad-gita’s eleventh chapter, when Krishna’s revelation of his universal form turns too fearsome for Arjuna to bear, Arjuna requests Krishna to stop that vision. Though this request of Arjuna might have been initially triggered by fear, it is fuelled primarily by a far higher motive: love. His fear had been allayed when Krishna had assured (11.33) that the kala-rupa would not destroy Arjuna (or his brothers).
It was love that had motivated Arjuna to ask Krishna to show his universal form. To more fully manifest Krishna’s glory for the world to know, Arjuna wanted Krishna to demonstrate his verbal declaration that he sustains the entire universe (10.42). And Krishna had shown his expanse across cosmic space and his dominance over cosmic time. Once Arjuna’s purpose had been thus served, he no longer had any interest in that universal form; he loved Krishna and naturally wanted Krishna to manifest himself in a personable form that he could lovingly relate with (11.45), not in a blazing form that he could barely see.
Arjuna’s mood is echoed in Srila Prabhupada’s alluding to the universal form as “a godless display of opulences” (11.08 purport). When God himself is displaying his opulence, how can that display be considered godless? Because devotees like Arjuna and Prabhupada are attracted to those opulences of Krishna that stimulate and facilitate personal interactions with him. Because opulences that feature only might and light are not conducive to such reciprocation, devotees can’t see in those opulences the God they love. Hence, Prabhupada deems such opulence godless and Arjuna desires to see that form no more.
One-sentence summary:
Devotees long to see God with those opulences that stimulate affection and facilitate reciprocation, not with those opulences that merely display might and light.
Think it over:
- How did love motivate Arjuna’s request to see the universal form?
- How did love motivate Arjuna’s request to stop seeing the universal form?
- Why does Prabhupada declare God’s display of his opulence godless?
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11.45: After seeing this universal form, which I have never seen before, I am gladdened, but at the same time my mind is disturbed with fear. Therefore please bestow Your grace upon me and reveal again Your form as the Personality of Godhead, O Lord of lords, O abode of the universe.
To know more about this verse, please click on the image
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