In chapter 11 Arjuna sees what no one before him had seen. Then the Lord speaks four verses about who can see it, and who cannot (Gita 11.52–55). A careful reader meets four questions. Which form is "this form"? The Lord says four great means cannot win the sight, yet the Gita commands those same means elsewhere; is that a conflict? What does it mean to "enter" the Lord? And how can a chapter in which the Lord calls himself Time and speaks of the war end on "enmity toward none"?

The short answer is this. The sight is the Lord's gift and not something earned. Its door is undivided devotion (Gita 11.54), and that devotion shows itself in a life with five marks (Gita 11.55). The four means keep their place in the Gita: they purify (Gita 18.5), but they are not the price of the sight. Entering is the arrival that devotion itself ripens into (Gita 18.55). And "enmity toward none" describes the heart, in which even the hardest duty can be done without hatred.

Here we first read the four verses closely. Then we take the hard questions, look at the same teaching in other parts of the Gita, and see how chapter 12 continues from here. The last section takes the questions that remain after the verses and answers them from the rest of the Gita and from the tradition.

These four verses come after Arjuna's fear

The universal form had shaken Arjuna. He trembled and asked to see the familiar form again (Gita 11.45–46). The Lord calmed him and showed his gentle form (Gita 11.49–50), and Arjuna came back to himself (Gita 11.51). Now the chapter's last word is spoken.

A close reading, verse by verse

The rare sight that even the gods long for (11.52)

The Lord says two things. This form is very hard to see, and even the gods always long to see it. By saying "which you have seen" he confirms that Arjuna has really seen it. But the seeing was not Arjuna's earning. The Lord gave him the divine eye (Gita 11.8) and showed the form out of his own pleasure and power (Gita 11.47).

There is a fine point in the mention of the gods. Arjuna saw the gods inside the very form (Gita 11.15), and saw hosts of them entering it (Gita 11.21). The ones he found within the form are the ones who long to see it. So the form is no spectacle that can be watched from a high position. It is the Lord himself, and seeing him is something even the gods long for.

Four means and their limit (11.53)

The Lord names four means: study of the Vedas, austerity, charity and sacrifice. The same list appeared earlier in the chapter (Gita 11.48), where he said that in the human world no one but Arjuna had seen the form by these means. There Arjuna was the exception. Here it becomes clear why he was the exception: not because he had done more of these things, but because grace had fallen on him.

Four means, one point: no means, however great, can claim the sight. The reason is simple. At the end of every means the doer has room to think, "I have earned this." A sight that is a gift has no price to pay.

After the no, a yes (11.54)

The Lord does not stop at "no". In the next verse he says what does bring the sight and how: undivided devotion. Undivided means with no second thing in it; the heart is not split between the Lord and other masters. The same condition stands in chapter 8, where the Supreme Person is reached by undivided devotion alone (Gita 8.22), and in chapter 13 as unwavering devotion (Gita 13.11).

Three results follow: the Lord can be known, seen in truth and entered. This is the order in which any relationship deepens: first understanding, then meeting face to face, then belonging wholly. Chapter 18 repeats the order. Through devotion one knows the Lord in truth, and having known him, enters him at once (Gita 18.55). "In truth" means that this knowing and seeing is real and not imagined.

Five marks of the devotee (11.55)

This verse is taken as the essence of the chapter. It draws five pictures of one person.

First, he does his work for the Lord. The work is what it was; the owner has changed. The Lord has said this before: place all actions in me and do your duty (Gita 3.30), and if practice is beyond you, work for me (Gita 12.10). Second, the Lord is his highest goal, with all work offered and all aims placed below this one (Gita 18.57). Third, he is devoted: love is his nature, not his technique. Fourth, he is free from clinging. He does not hold tight to any thing or result. In the words of chapter 4, he is free from attachment, fear and anger, and absorbed in the Lord (Gita 4.10). Fifth, he has enmity toward no being (Gita 12.13).

The result is one sentence: he comes to the Lord. All five are needed together. Love without work is incomplete, work without love is dry, and love that keeps a hatred beside it does not make the whole picture.

The five marks gather all three paths of the Gita

Look closely and this one verse holds all three paths of the Gita together. The path of action is in the first mark: placing work in the Lord (Gita 3.30). The path of devotion is in the second and third: the Lord as highest goal, and love for him (Gita 9.34). The path of detachment and knowledge is in the fourth: the grip loosens as understanding ripens (Gita 4.10). And the fifth is the even vision that marks the knower, who sees the one reality in all (Gita 5.18).

That is why the verse is called the essence. Devotion does not walk alone here; action and knowledge walk with it. This also sharpens what "undivided" means. The heart is not split between the Lord and other masters, and yet the work, the understanding and the dealings of life all gather in that one direction.

Hard questions and their answers

Which form is "this form"?

The verses say only "this form" and "such as I am". Two streams of commentators take it in two ways. One stream holds that it is the universal form Arjuna has just seen, because the earlier verses (Gita 11.47–48) and these speak of the rarity of the same form. The other stream holds that the Lord speaks of his whole nature, of which the universal form is one face and the gentle form that Arjuna now sees (Gita 11.51) is another.

Both streams agree on the point that matters: the sight is a gift and its door is devotion. The verse itself also carries the matter beyond a look at a form, because it speaks of knowing, seeing in truth and entering, not of beholding a shape.

Does this go against the Gita's own teaching?

The Gita itself asks for these means. Sacrifice, charity and austerity are not to be given up; they purify even the thoughtful (Gita 18.5). Action without the spirit of sacrifice binds (Gita 3.9). Study of the scriptures is counted as the austerity of speech (Gita 17.15). Why then does the Lord call them insufficient here?

Because two different questions are involved. What do these means do? They purify the mind. What gives the sight? Devotion. The verse does not cancel the first answer. The Gita itself goes beyond the fruit of these means. The yogi passes beyond the merit declared for the Vedas, sacrifices, austerities and charity (Gita 8.28). The yogi is greater than the ascetic, the scholar and the ritualist (Gita 6.46). For one who has found the truth, the Vedas' ritual part has about as much use as a small well has when water fills the land on every side (Gita 2.46). And when the means are offered to the Lord, they become worship (Gita 9.27, Gita 18.46).

So the means are not to be dropped. They are to be done with devotion. Without it they purify; with it they become worship.

If the sight is grace, what is devotion for?

Arjuna received the sight when he was already the Lord's devotee and friend. The Lord himself gives this as the reason for teaching him the ancient yoga (Gita 4.3), and at the start of chapter 11 Arjuna thanks him because his delusion has gone (Gita 11.1). So Arjuna's sight did not come without devotion.

Grace and devotion do not compete. Devotion is the devotee's turning; grace is the Lord's reply. He is equal to all beings, and yet those who worship him with devotion are in him and he is in them (Gita 9.29). If you fix your mind on him, you will cross all difficulties by his grace (Gita 18.58). And to those who love him steadily, he himself gives the wisdom by which they come to him (Gita 10.10; this is the subject of Knowing His Glory Leads to Devotion).

Was Arjuna's own sight already "in truth"?

The Lord confirms that Arjuna really saw (Gita 11.52). But fear came with the seeing. Arjuna was glad and shaken together, and asked for the old form (Gita 11.45). He became steady only on seeing the gentle form (Gita 11.51). Is seeing "in truth" then something more?

The Gita's answer is that true seeing is the kind after which fear and doubt do not remain. Look at Arjuna at the end of the Gita. His delusion is gone, his memory is back, his doubts are dispelled, and he says that by the Lord's grace he will act as the Lord has said (Gita 18.73). That steadiness did not come from the brilliance of the vision. It came from the teaching and from grace. The Lord had already said that he dwells in the hearts of his devotees and with the lamp of knowledge destroys the darkness of ignorance (Gita 10.11).

So three stages can be seen. First comes sight through the divine eye (Gita 11.8), with its wonder and trembling. Next comes steadiness through the gentle form (Gita 11.51). Last comes freedom from doubt through the lamp of knowledge (Gita 18.73). Seeing "in truth" is the name of the third.

What does "enter" mean: becoming one, or reaching nearness?

Here again there are two streams of commentators. One holds that the devotee enters the Lord's very being and becomes one with him. The other holds that he enters the Lord's abode and nature, lives in his presence, and the relation of love continues.

Both agree that this is a state from which there is no return. The Lord's supreme abode is the one that those who reach it do not leave (Gita 15.6, Gita 8.21). And the Gita's own sentence joins the two: after true knowing comes entering "at once" (Gita 18.55). So entering is no distant prize. It is the direct fruit of devotion and true knowing ripened. In chapter 4 the Lord adds that many, free from attachment, fear and anger, absorbed in him, have come to his state (Gita 4.10).

How do "enmity toward none" and the war belong together?

In this very chapter the Lord calls himself Time, the destroyer of the worlds (Gita 11.32). He tells Arjuna to rise and fight, since these warriors are already slain by him and Arjuna is to be only the instrument (Gita 11.33–34). The last verse of the same chapter says that the one who reaches the Lord has enmity toward no being. At first glance the two collide.

To answer, we must ask what the verse describes. It describes a heart, not an act. What the Gita asks of Arjuna is to do his duty regarding pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat as equal (Gita 2.38), placing all actions in the Lord and giving up expectation, possessiveness and fever (Gita 3.30). Duty and hatred are two different things; the first can be done without the second.

This does not mean that whatever is done becomes blameless, nor that enmity in a quarrel between people can be called duty. The verse gives a test: in the one who stands in devotion, no hatred toward anyone remains (Gita 12.13). The scene is taken up in Merely an Instrument.

Does "enmity toward none" have to be practised separately?

In the Gita enmity does not grow alone. Dwelling on objects brings attachment, attachment brings desire, and when desire is blocked, anger comes. From anger come delusion, confusion of memory and the loss of discernment (Gita 2.62, Gita 2.63). The Lord names desire and anger as the great enemy (Gita 3.37).

Now put the five marks side by side. In the fourth mark the clinging is gone. Where there is no clinging, the anger that rises when something is blocked is weakened at the root. The picture in chapter 4 is exactly that: attachment, fear and anger leave together (Gita 4.10). So the fifth mark is also the fruit of the fourth. Beneath it lies the ground from which others are seen: the Lord is the selfless friend of all beings, and one who knows this finds peace (Gita 5.29).

In practice this means that pressing hatred down directly is an unfinished effort. The remedy is to see what grip lies at its root, and to loosen it.

Does "undivided" mean that other worship and other paths are wrong?

No. Undivided names the direction of the heart and not opposition to anyone. The Lord himself says that whichever form a devotee wishes to worship with faith, he makes that faith steady, and what is gained is granted by him (Gita 7.21–22). He also says the fruits differ: those who worship the gods reach the gods, and his devotees reach him (Gita 7.23).

Yet the same verse that speaks of undivided devotion ends with enmity toward none (Gita 11.55). So undivided devotion can never be a ground for looking down on another. This question is treated at length in What We Worship, We Become.

The same teaching elsewhere in the Gita

Chapter 12 begins where these verses end

The last verse of chapter 11 leads directly into the first question of chapter 12. Arjuna asks about the devotees who, "thus" steadfast, worship the Lord in his personal form, and those who worship the imperishable unmanifest: which of them knows yoga best (Gita 12.1)? The word "thus" points back to the devotee of the previous verse, the one with the five marks. The Lord answers that those who fix their mind on him, ever united, worshipping with supreme faith, are the best yogis in his view (Gita 12.2).

Then he repeats those marks at length: those who offer all actions to him, take him as the supreme goal and meditate on him with undivided devotion, he lifts quickly out of the ocean of worldly life (Gita 12.6, Gita 12.7). And the portrait of the devotee in that chapter rests on the fifth mark, hating no being (Gita 12.13). So the teaching of chapter 12 begins in these four verses. Its order is laid out in Chapter 12: The Yoga of Devotion, an Overview.

Questions the verses raise, answered from the Gita and the tradition

How does someone who does not yet feel devotion reach undivided devotion?

The verse names the door; the steps are found in the Gita before and after. The call in chapters 9 and 18 begins with the mind: fix your mind on me, be my devotee, worship me, bow to me (Gita 9.34, Gita 18.65; see Even the Worst Offender and The Final Counsel: Surrender, Think, Choose).

Chapter 12 gives the steps: first mind and intellect in the Lord, then practice if that cannot be held, then work for him if practice is too much (Gita 12.8, Gita 12.9, Gita 12.10). These are the subject of The Ladder of Devotion. And a restless mind is brought under control by practice and detachment (Gita 6.35).

The Bhagavata tradition lists nine forms of devotion: hearing about the Lord, singing his praise, remembering him, serving his feet, worship, bowing, service, friendship and self-offering. The tradition holds that taking up even one of them with the whole heart is enough.

What of the learned and the austere who do not arrive?

The verse gives no sign that what they did was wasted. One who does good is never led to a bad end (Gita 6.40), and a yogi who keeps striving, whose faults are slowly washed away, reaches perfection over many births and then the supreme goal (Gita 6.45). The gift of the means is purification (Gita 18.5), and devotion settles in a mind so purified.

The tradition has an Upanishad line that the Self is not gained by teaching, by intelligence or by much hearing, but by the one whom it chooses. It also has the Bhagavata account in which the learned Uddhava is sent to the cowherd women and bows before their unlettered love.

Is seeing the universal form necessary?

No. The verse speaks of seeing "in truth", and that too is joined with knowing and entering. Arjuna was shown the form by the gift of the divine eye (Gita 11.8); it was a special gift and not a condition of devotion. The Gita knows another kind of seeing: the one who sees the Lord everywhere, and everything in him, is never lost to the Lord, nor the Lord to him (Gita 6.29, Gita 6.30). And knowing is completed by devotion (Gita 18.55). So the one who never sees the universal form is not behind in devotion.

The tradition names several places where the Lord is seen: in the heart, in the sacred image, and in all beings. Whoever sees him there with true feeling is held to have had the sight.

What when the devotee feels alone and the Lord seems far?

The verse names the fruit: knowing, seeing, entering. The answer for the empty hours in between lies elsewhere in the Gita. The Lord says that the one who sees him everywhere is never lost to him (Gita 6.30), and that those who worship him with devotion are in him and he is in them (Gita 9.29). He is seated in the hearts of all (Gita 15.15) and lights the lamp of knowledge in his devotees' hearts (Gita 10.11). The distance that is felt is not the Lord's absence but our failure to see.

In the Bhagavata tradition the grief of the cowherd women at separation is held to be a high form of devotion, because the mind stays wholly with the one it calls.

What if devotion is there but the other marks fall short?

The verse is a portrait of the complete devotee, not a condemnation of the one who slips. In the Gita even a person of very bad conduct who worships with undivided devotion is to be counted as righteous, because he has resolved rightly (Gita 9.30). He quickly becomes righteous and finds lasting peace, and the Lord's devotee never perishes (Gita 9.31). At the end the Lord says: do not grieve (Gita 18.66).

In the tradition the marks are taken in both ways: as the direction of growth for the one who is walking, and as the sign of the one who has arrived.

The verse gives the direction, the rest of the Gita gives the way, and the tradition gives examples and support.

In short: the sight is a gift and devotion is the door

The sight of the Lord is not the price of any great act, so no act can claim it. Its door is undivided devotion, and the sign of that devotion is a life that works for the Lord and holds him as the highest goal. It is a life that loves him, does not clutch at things, and keeps enmity toward no being. Study, austerity, charity and sacrifice walk beside this life and purify it.

The same teaching in simpler words is in the simple reading, and the verses taken one by one are in the detailed reading.