10.14 – See eye-to-eye with Krishna to gain an enlightened eye and an enlivened I
When we are sick and seek treatment, we need to see eye-to-eye with the doctor. We need to understand and accept the diagnosis and the treatment as the doctor understands it. This acceptance enables us to do our part in the treatment properly and thereby facilitates our recovery.
The same principle applies to our spiritual sickness. When we approach the supremely trustworthy doctor Krishna for spiritual treatment, we need to see eye-to-eye with him. We need to understand and accept the diagnosis and the treatment as he understands it. He diagnoses our sickness to be spiritual amnesia, due to which we have forgotten both our real identity as souls and our real life of love with him in his eternal abode. As treatment he prescribes regular exposure to spiritual stimuli that remind us of him and our real life with him.
Arjuna, the original student of the Gita, is the paragon of seeing eye-to-eye with Krishna, as is evident in his wholehearted acceptance of Krishna’s words (10.14: sarvam etad ritam manye). When we follow in Arjuna’s footsteps and see eye-to-eye with Krishna, we facilitate our spiritual recovery. This recovery provides us two precious gifts:
- An enlightened eye: We start seeing through the worldly temptations that have previously deceived us. We also start seeing the benevolent plan of Krishna underlying the random-seeming events that happen in our life.
- An enlivened I: When we start remembering and serving Krishna regularly, he reciprocates by awakening divine emotions in our heart. By these emotions, our real I, the soul, becomes enlivened – expansively, ecstatically, eternally enlivened.
Thus does seeing eye-to-eye with Krishna restore our spiritual health and reinstate us in an enlightened and enlivened life.