Sri Aurobindo
Writings in Bengali
Translated into English
The Vision of the World Spirit
Our honourable friend Bepin Chandra Pal speaking about the Vision of the World Spirit by Arjuna in an article entitled “Bandematram” has written that the vision of the World Spirit described in the eleventh chapter of the Gita is entirely fictitious, that it is purely and simply poetic imagination.
We are obliged to refute this statement.
The vision of the World Spirit is a very necessary element of the Gita.
Sri Krishna dispersed the doubt and the hesitation that rose in the mind of Arjuna with logic and words pregnant with knowledge.
But the foundation of the knowledge derived from logic and good counsel is not solid.
It is only when the knowledge is realised that it becomes firmly established.
For this reason, invisibly impelled by the Divine within, Arjuna expressed his desire to see the World Spirit.
Once he had this vision of the World Spirit, his doubt vanished for ever.
His mind then became cleansed and purified, worthy to receive the supreme secret of the Gita.
The knowledge described in the Gita prior to the vision of the World Spirit is the external form of knowledge useful to any spiritual seeker.
But the knowledge unfolded after the vision is the most hidden Truth, the supreme secret, the eternal precept.
If we characterise the description of the vision as a poetical metaphor, then the truth, the depth and solemnity of the Gita are destroyed and the most profound instructions obtained by Yoga are reduced to a few philosophical views and a collection of poetical fancies.
The vision of the World Spirit is neither a fiction nor a poetical metaphor but truth; it is not even a supernatural truth.
The universe being included in 
Nature, the World Form cannot be a supernatural phenomenon.
The World Spirit is a truth of the causal world, and the forms of the causal world are visible to the eye of Yoga.
Arjuna endowed with the eye of Yoga saw the form of the Universal Spirit in the causal world.
The worshippers of the formless Brahman without qualities dismiss any statement about its qualities and form as being only metaphors and similes.
The worshippers of the formless Brahman with qualities deny its lack of attributes by explaining the Shastras in a different way and dismiss any statement about its form as being only metaphors and similes.
The worshippers of the Brahman with form and attributes are up in arms against both of them.
We hold all the three views to be narrow, incomplete and born of ignorance.
For, those who have realised the formless Brahman and the Brahman with form, how can they hold one view to be true and discard the other as being false and imaginary, and thus abrogate the ultimate evidence of knowledge and confine the infinite.
Brahman within the finite?
It is true that if we deny the formlessness and the lack of attributes of the Brahman we belittle God.
But it is equally true that if we deny the qualities and the form of the Brahman we belittle Him again.
God is the Master, the Creator and the Lord.
He cannot be tied down to any form; as He is not limited by His form, so also He is not limited by His formlessness.
God is all-powerful.
If we feign to catch Him in the net of the laws of the physical Nature or of Time and Space and then tell Him, “Though you are infinite, we shall not allow you to be finite, try as you may, you will not succeed, you are bound with our irrefutable logic and arguments like Ferdinand with Prospero's magic.”
What could be more ludicrous, impertinent or ignorant?
God is bound neither by His form nor by His formlessness; He reveals Himself in a form to the seeker.
God is there in His fullness in that form, yet at the same time pervades the whole universe.
For God is beyond time and space, unattainable by any argument; time and space are His toys.
He is playing with all beings caught in his net of time and space.
But we shall never be able to catch Him in that net.
Every time we try to achieve this impossibility with logic and philosophical argument, the Jester eludes the net and stands smiling in front of us, behind us, near us and far from us, spreads out his World Form, and the Form beyond the universe, defeating the intellect.
He who says, “I know Him,” knows nothing.
He who says, “I know Him yet I do not know Him,” has true knowledge.
The vision of the World Form is very necessary for an adorer of Shakti, a Karmayogi or one who is missioned to do a specific work as an instrument of the Mover of instruments.
He might receive the divine mandate even before he has the vision of the World Spirit but as long as he does not have the vision the mandate is not fully endorsed; it has been registered but not yet authorised.
Until that moment, it is a period of training and preparation for his work.
Only when he has the vision of the World Spirit, does the real work begin.
This vision comes to the sadhaks in different ways according to their nature and their sadhana.
In the vision of Kali as the World Spirit, the sadhak perceives a feminine form of incomparable beauty pervading the universe, one yet in multitudinous bodies; her jet black hair spreads out like a compact darkness over the entire sky; the lustre of her scimitar dripping with blood dances everywhere dazzling the 
eyes; the continuous peal of her dreadful laughter resounds, smashing and crushing world after world in the universe.
These words are not simply poetical imagination or a futile attempt to describe a supernatural experience in inadequate human terms.
This is self-revelation of Kali; it is the true form of our Mother, the true and simple description without any exaggeration of what has been seen by the eye of Yoga.
Arjuna did not have the vision of the World Form of Kali; he had the vision of the World Spirit as Time the Destroyer.
It amounts to the same thing.
He saw it with his eye of Yoga and not in a trance insensible to the outer consciousness.
Rishi Vyasa has described, without any exaggeration, exactly what Arjuna has seen.
It is not a dream or imagination but the truth, the living truth.
Three different states of the Self are mentioned in the Scriptures: Prajna, the spirit of the secret superconscient omnipotence whose place is in perfect slumber; Taijasa, the Inhabitant in Luminous Mind, the spirit of the subtle and internal whose place is in dream; Virat, the spirit of the gross and external whose place is in wakefulness.
Each status of the spirit is a world in itself: the causal world is in perfect slumber; the subtle and internal world in dream state and the physical world in wakefulness.
Whatever is decided in the causal world is reflected in the subtle world beyond our time and space and partially enacted in the physical world according to the laws of the physical world.
Sri Krishna told Arjuna, “The sons of Dhritarashtra are already slain by me,” yet there they were on the battlefield, standing in front of him, alive and engaged in fighting.
The words of the Godhead are neither a false statement nor a metaphor.
He has already slain them in the causal world, otherwise it is 
impossible to slay them in this world.
Our real life is in the causal world; only a shadow of it falls on the physical world.
But the laws, time and space, name and form are different on the causal plane.
The World Spirit is a form of the causal world which became visible in the physical world to the eye of Yoga.
What is the eye of Yoga? It is not imagination or poetical symbolism. Three different powers of perception are obtained by Yoga: the subtle vision, the direct spiritual awareness and the eye of Yoga. With the subtle vision we see mental images in dream or in wakefulness. By the direct spiritual awareness we see in trance the images and symbolical figures of the names and forms belonging to the subtle and the causal worlds reflected in our inner mental sky. With the eye of Yoga we perceive the names and forms of the causal worlds in trance as well as with our physical eyes. If anything invisible to the physical eye becomes visible to it then it must be understood as an effect of the eye of Yoga. Arjuna saw the World Spirit in the causal world in waking state with the eye of Yoga and was delivered from doubt. The vision of the World Spirit, though not a truth perceptible to the senses of the physical world, is greater than any physical truth — it is not a fiction or an illusion, neither is it a poetical symbol.