10. vitaragabhayakrod/ia
manmayã mama upasritch behave jnanatapasa
puta madbhavarn agata
(10) Delivered from passion, fear and anger, absorbed in Me, taking refuge in Me, many purified by the austerity of wisdom, have attained to My state of being.
madbhavamt the supernatural being that I possess.
The purpose of incarnation is not simply to uphold the world order but also to help human beings to become perfected in their nature. The freed soul becomes on earth a living image of the Infinite The ascent of man into Godhead is also the purpose of
the descent of God into humanity. The aim of the dharma is this perfection of man and the avatar generally declares that He is the truth, the way and the life.
11. ye yatha mam prapadyante
tams tathai 'va bhajamy aham
manta vartma 'nuvartante
manusyah partha sarvasah
(11) As men approach me so do I accept them : men on all sides follow my path, 0 Partha (Arjuna)
mama vartma: My path ; the way of worshipping Me.[1]
sarvasah: on all sides, sarvairakaraih, in all ways, is another rendering.
This verse brings out the wide catholicity of the Gita religion God meets every aspirant with favour and grants to each his heart's desire. He does not extinguish the hope of any but helps all hopes to grow according to their nature. Even those who worship the Vedic deities with sacrifices and with expectation of reward find what they seek by the grace of the Supreme. Those who are vouchsafed the vision of truth convey it through symbols to ordinary people who cannot look upon its naked intensity. Name and form are used to reach the Formless. Meditation on any favorite form[2] may be adopted. The Hindu thinkers are conscious of the amazing variety of ways in which we may approach the Supreme, of the contingency of all forms. They know that it is impossible for any effort of logical reason to give us a true picture of ultimate reality. From the point of view of metaphysics (paramartha), no manifestation is to be taken as absolutely true, while from the standpoint of experience (vyavahara), every one of them has some validity. The forms we worship are aids to help us to become conscious of our deepest selves. So long as the object of worship holds fast the attention of the soul, it enters our mind and heart and fashions them. The importance of the form is to be judged by the degree in which it expresses ultimate significance.
