| Discourses On Gita By Acharya Vinoba Bhave |
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| Discourses On Gita |
| THE VISION OF THE COSMIC FORM |
| If I am not able to recognize wheat
when I am shown a handful of it, of what use is it to put before me a
sackful! If I do not recognize Him in the little models before me, how
can I recognize Him in all His vastness? Does size make any difference?
To understand the small form is to understand the big. Hence, I feel no desire
that the Lord should show to me His cosmic form. Nor have I, like Arjuna, the
right to ask for it. Moreover, it is not as if what is seen by me is only a
part of the cosmic form.
If someone brought a part torn off from a picture we cannot imagine from it the whole picture. But the Lord is not made up of parts in this way; one of Him cannot be cut off from the rest. Even in a little image, the whole of that infinite Supreme is contained. What is the difference between a small photograph and a big one? Everything that is found in the big one is found in the small too. The small one is not a portion, a fragment of the big. A letter means the same whether it is written big or it is written small. This is the meaning of image-worship. 7. Many people have opposed image-worship. Foreigners, and even thinkers of our own country, have found fault with it. But the more I think of it, the more I realize its beauty. What is the meaning of it? Image-worship is the vidya, the art of experiencing the whole universe in a little object. Is it wrong to learn the vidya which helps us to see the whole world in a little village? |
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