…tad eva me darśhayadeva rūpaṁ prasīda deveśha jagan-nivāsa

Please have mercy on me and again show me your familiar form, O God of gods, O Omni-present One – 11.45  

From a yoga standpoint of view, rishis incorporated an extremely critical point here – the return to ground state through control.  This aspect is critical in all our practices.  If you are getting into an asana, know how to come out of it, and pay attention to every small movement.  Come out with intention and care – most of the injuries actually occur while coming out of the posture, or thinking of returning (or giving up in the middle).  If you are going to climb mount Washington, make sure to know the directions to climb down.  Same for even simple tasks.  Amazingly, since Arjuna is such an accomplished yogi already, he manages a controlled the descent from that awakened state.

Just like how ascent is a science, so is the descent. Some esoteric texts only state the primary element which is to re-distribute (disperse) the energy into Ida (left) and Pingala (right) channels, from the central Sushumna channel, in a methodical way. Just like all other yogic texts, they don’t tell you how – that’s left to the seekers to find a guru and learn, in a systematic and personalized way. In the Gita story, like in a movie, Arjuna raises his arms and prays to Krishna, his personal guru now, to return from his universal form to the normal form, and Krishna obliges. Arjuna is back to the normal state of consciousness.

This is the key difference between a yogi and an unprepared person, or a person experiencing a drug-induced altered state of mind. Both may be able to activate the ascent, albeit happens in an uncontrolled way with drugs, but only those who know how to climb down are yogis. We hear it in yoga sessions all the time right? Come out of the posture just as carefully and deliberately as you went in, right? That control through awareness is what guarantees a safe landing. Yogis tell a lot of stories to make this point; here are a couple from Mahabharata – 

Now the stories…

At the end of the war, Aśvatthāmā was very upset about all the events that took place in the war, and how Pandavas defeated Kauravas using what he thought were unfair schemes. He visits Suyodhana, the leader of the defeated Kauravas, who was lying in the battlefield with broken thighs (in the mystical interpretation, two key lower chakras – atala and vitala – reside in the upper and middle thighs, and the breaking of thighs represents piercing of these two lower chakras.) Aśvatthāmā a mighty warrior himself, in an emotionally charged state, promises Suyodhana that he will annihilate the victors, Pandavas. Long story short, when he realizes that Pandavas are still alive after his first attempt, he uses a powerful weapon called “bhrama-astra”. To counter that, in self-defense, Arjuna also uses the same weapon. As these weapons are heading towards each other, Krishna realizes the danger and asks both warriors to withdraw their weapons. Arjuna, knowing how, immediately uses his skill to withdraw. On the other hand, Aśvatthāmā declares that he only knows how to release it but does not know how to retract it. So world has this unused weapon to deal with. Krishna uses this uncontrolled weapon in a very interesting way, and we will pick that up some other time, but basically Aśvatthāmā did not know how to reverse it. In this story, obviously releasing the weapon is the ascent, while retracting it is the descent. Yogis tell us this through many stories like that. This is what differentiated Arjuna from Aśvatthāmā.

Again, rishis ask us to take the “kundalini descent” very seriously. Otherwise the downside risk is too high!

Satsanghis, this blub, along with last three blurbs, is the “yoga” story of Arjuna’s experience with Kundalini ascent, vision, and descent, in the eleventh chapter of Gita – Viswaroopa Sandarsana Yoga.

May we all be blessed with a “contemplative and controlled” mind_/\_/\_/\_