अर्जुन उवाच |
परं ब्रह्म परं धाम पवित्रं परमं भवान् |
पुरुषं शाश्वतं दिव्यमादिदेवमजं विभुम् || 12||
आहुस्त्वामृषय: सर्वे देवर्षिर्नारदस्तथा |
असितो देवलो व्यास: स्वयं चैव ब्रवीषि मे || 13||
arjuna uvācha
paraṁ brahma paraṁ dhāma pavitraṁ paramaṁ bhavān
puruṣhaṁ śhāśhvataṁ divyam ādi-devam ajaṁ vibhum
āhus tvām ṛiṣhayaḥ sarve devarṣhir nāradas tathā
asito devalo vyāsaḥ svayaṁ chaiva bravīṣhi me
arjunaḥ uvācha—Arjun said; param—Supreme; brahma—Brahman; param—Supreme; dhāma—abode; pavitram—purifier; paramam—Supreme; bhavān—you; puruṣham—personality; śhāśhvatam—eternal; divyam—divine; ādi-devam—the Primal Being; ajam—the unborn; vibhum—the great; āhuḥ—(they) declare; tvām—you; ṛiṣhayaḥ—sages; sarve—all; deva-ṛiṣhiḥ-nāradaḥ—devarṣhi Narad; tathā—also; asitaḥ—Asit; devalaḥ—Deval; vyāsaḥ—Vyās; svayam—personally; cha—and; eva—even; bravīṣhī—you are declaring; me—to me
Translation:
Arjuna said: You are the Supreme Brahman, the Supreme Abode, the Supreme Holiness. All the sages have declared You to be the eternal, self-luminous Person, the first of the gods, unborn and all-pervading; likewise have the divine sages Nārada, Asita, Devala, and Vyāsa proclaimed. So, too, have You said unto me.
Commentary:
When the Lord spoke of His compassion for the devotees, and how he confers knowledge on them who worship Him with love and faith, Arjuna was lifted up by a mighty upsurge of devotional fervour. His adoration for the Lord reaches the peak point. His love and worship attain the highest state. His joy knows no bounds. From that fulness of heart proceeds Arjuna’s ecstatic adoration as revealed in these two verses. Such devotion to the Guru is needed to receive enlightenment. The blossoming of the heart through devotion makes the disciple fit to understand the Truth propounded by the Master.
Sri Ramakrishna Says —
“It is God alone who incarnated Himself as man to teach people the ways of love and knowledge. Well, what do you think of me?
“Once my father went to Gaya. There Raghuvir said to him in a dream, ‘I shall be born as your son.’ Thereupon my father said to Him: ‘O Lord, I am a poor brahmin. How shall I be able to serve You?’ ‘Don’t worry about it’, Raghuvir replied. ‘It will be taken care of.’
“My sister, Hriday’s mother, used to worship my feet with flowers and sandal-paste. One day I placed my foot on her head and said to her, ‘You will die in Benares.’
“Once Mathur Babu said to me: ‘Father, there is nothing inside you but God. Your body is like an empty shell. It may look from outside like a pumpkin, but inside there is nothing — neither flesh nor seed. Once I saw you as someone moving with a veil on.’
(To M.) “I am shown everything beforehand. Once I saw Gauranga and his devotees singing kirtan in the Panchavati. I think I saw Balaram there and you too.
“I wanted to know the experiences of Gauranga and was shown them at Syambazar in our native district. A crowd gathered; they even climbed the trees and the walls; they stayed with me day and night. For seven days I had no privacy whatever. Thereupon I said to the Divine Mother, ‘Mother, I have had enough of it.’
“I am at peace now. I shall have to be born once more. Therefore I am not giving all knowledge to my companions. (With a smile) Suppose I give you all knowledge; will you then come to me again so willingly?
“I recognized you on hearing you read the Chaitanya Bhagavat. (A life of Chaitanya.) You are my own. The same substance, like father and son. All of you are coming here again. When you pull one part of the kalmi creeper, all the branches come toward you. You are all relatives — like brothers. Suppose Rakhal, Harish, and the others had gone to Puri, and you were there too. Would you live separately?
“Before you came here, you didn’t know who you were. Now you will know. It is God who, as the guru, makes one know. (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
—–
(To M.) “When God assumes a human body for the sake of His devotees, many of His devotees accompany Him to this earth. Some of them belong to the inner circle, some to the outer circle, and some become the suppliers of His physical needs.
“I experienced one of my first ecstasies when I was ten or eleven years old, as I was going through a meadow to the shrine of Visalakshi. What a vision! I became completely unconscious of the outer world.
“I was twenty-two or twenty-three when the Divine Mother one day asked me in the Kali temple, ‘Do you want to be Akshara?’ I didn’t know what the word meant. I asked Haladhari about it. He said, ‘Kshara means jiva, living being; Akshara means Paramatman, the Supreme Soul.’
“At the hour of the evening worship in the Kali temple I would climb to the roof of the kuthi and cry out: ‘O devotees, where are you all? Come to me soon! I shall die of the company of worldly people!’ I told all this to the ‘Englishmen’. They said it was all an illusion of my mind. ‘Perhaps it is’, I said to myself, and became calm. But now it is all coming true; the devotees are coming.
“The Divine Mother also showed me in a vision the five suppliers of my needs; first, Mathur Babu, and second, Sambhu Mallick, whom I had not then met. I had a vision of a fair-skinned man with a cap on his head. Many days later, when I first met Sambhu, I recalled that vision; I realised that it was he whom I had seen in that ecstatic state. I haven’t yet found out the three other suppliers of my wants. But they were all of a fair complexion. Surendra looks like one of them.
“When I attained this state of God-Consciousness, a person exactly resembling myself thoroughly shook my Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna nerves. He licked with his tongue each of the lotuses of the six centres, and those drooping lotuses at once turned their faces upward. And at last the Sahasrara lotus became full-blown.
“The Divine Mother used to reveal to me the nature of the devotees before their coming. I saw with these two eyes — not in a trance — the kirtan party of Chaitanya going from the banyan-tree to the bakul-tree in the Panchavati. I saw Balaram in the procession and also, I think, yourself [meaning M.]. Chuni’s spiritual consciousness and yours, too, have been awakened by frequent visits to me. In a vision I saw that Sashi and Sarat had been among the followers of Christ.
“Under the banyan-tree in the Panchavati I had a vision of a child. Hriday said to me, ‘Then a son will soon be born to you.’ I said to him: ‘But I regard all women as mother. How can I have a son?’ That child is Rakhal.
“I said to the Divine Mother, ‘O Mother, since You have placed me in this condition, provide me with a rich man.’ That is why Mathur served me for fourteen years.(From 1858 to 1871.) And in how many different ways! At my request he arranged a special store-room for the sadhus. He provided me with carriage and palanquin. And whatever I asked him to give to anyone, he gave. The Brahmani2 identified him with Prataprudra.3
“Vijay had a vision of this form [meaning himself]. How do you account for it? Vijay said to me, ‘I touched it exactly as I am touching you now.’
“Latu counted thirty-one devotees in all. That’s not many. But a few more are becoming devotees through Vijay and Kedar.
“It was revealed to me in a vision that during my last days I should have to live on pudding. During my present illness my wife was one day feeding me with pudding. I burst into tears and said, ‘Is this my living on pudding near the end, and so painfully?'” (Source: Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna)
Question: What is the nature of Krishna Paramatma?
Answer: He is Supreme Brahman, Supreme Abode, purifier, primeval God, Eternal and Divine Purusha, unborn and Omnipresent.
Question: Who spoke of the Lord thus?
Answer: The Seven Rishis, Devarshi Narada, Asita, Devala, and Vyasa, and the Lord Himself has declared the same truth to Arjuna.
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 10 
(42 Verses)
