In the Bhagavad-gita’s twelfth chapter (12.07), Krishna declares that he personally delivers from the ocean of material existence those who devotedly fix their minds on him. In this verse, Krishna’s specific usage of ‘not after a long time (na chirat)’ suggests that this deliverance can refer to Krishna’s interventions in the immediate future: in the war at Kurukshetra. 

Echoing such an allusion, Srimad-Bhagavatam (10.01.05-07) compares the Kaurava army to a vast ocean and declares Krishna’s mercy to be Arjuna’s deliverer from that ocean. Perhaps this ocean metaphor applies most aptly to the fourteenth day’s war. On that day, Arjuna had vowed to neutralize Jayadratha, the warrior most responsible for the brutal slaughter of Arjuna’s son, Abhimanyu. Arjuna’s vow had a critical deadline: he would kill Jayadratha before sunset or he would himself enter fire to end his life. 

To thwart Arjuna, the Kauravas arranged their entire army in a formidable formation that extended over several miles and seemed like an ocean. Though Arjuna fought fiercely on that day, far more fiercely than ever before, it was not enough. He still needed Krishna’s timely guidance to avoid unnecessary confrontations, survive impossible odds and break through impenetrable barriers. And finally, he succeeded in the nick of time only due to Krishna’s mystical intervention. Using his divine disc Sudarshana, Krishna temporarily covered the sun, thereby inducing the prematurely exultant Kauravas to lower their guard and thus giving Arjuna the elusive opportunity to fell Jayadratha. 

When we fix our mind on Krishna, we may not necessarily experience similar miraculous mercy, but we may experience a mystical clearing of our consciousness — a form of inner guidance (10.10) or inner illumination (10.11) — that can show us a way ahead, even if we are confronted by an ocean of obstacles. 

One-sentence summary: 

Fixing our mind on Krishna can not only deliver us from the world; it can also deliver us the insight necessary to face the world. 

Think it over: 

  • What scriptural references suggest that the ocean metaphor can apply to the Kurukshetra war?
  • How did Krishna’s mercy deliver Arjuna at Kurukshetra?
  • How may remembering Krishna deliver us too?

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12.07: But those who … fix their minds upon Me, O son of Prutha – for them, I am the swift deliverer from the ocean of birth and death.

To know more about this verse, please click on the image