Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Verse 30 (BG 11.30) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

After composing certain verses of the Mahabharata, Vyasa returns to his previous theme. All the creatures of the world are being destroyed as they enter into the mouth of Time. The hunger of this principle of Time is never satisfied. Devouring all the worlds, you are savoring them. In truth, this verse clarifies the principle behind the three agents of creation, sustenance, and dissolution. Although we imagine these three separately, in reality they are merely three aspects of a single process. We have already seen in detail that the fundamental mystery of existence pervading everywhere is creative destruction. In a cinema hall, a reel of different images is projected before a light source. The image that has moved away from before it we may call dead, and the one that appears before us we may consider born. Because of this continuous stream of birth and death occurring ceaselessly, an impression of an unbroken narrative is created on the screen before us. Separated by space and time, objects, all living beings, events and circumstances come into our experience and pass away, and the continuity of their coming and going we call existence or life. The above thought is expressed in the Puranas in the language of the mutual trinity—Brahma, Vishnu, and Mahesh. When Arjuna, through the vision of this knowledge, beholds that luminous, radiant, cosmic form, he becomes nearly blinded by the fierce light of that Cosmic Being. Because you are of fierce form, therefore—