In this final installment of Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Arjuna has just experienced one of the most extraordinary mystical visions in the entire text. He’s seen Krishna as the infinite creator, destroyer, and force behind all of reality—and his response is surprising: Please become ordinary again.
Because what happens after the spiritual high?
After the retreat, the awakening, the incredible meditation, or the moment where everything suddenly makes sense, you still have to come back down the mountain and live your life.
In this episode:
🔹 Why Arjuna asks Krishna to return to his familiar human form and what this reveals about our capacity to experience the divine
🔹 The striking parallel between Arjuna’s vision and Jesus’ Transfiguration, including what happens immediately after both spiritual highs
🔹 Why mystical experiences rarely remove our problems, but can change the person who returns to them
🔹 How to stop chasing your next revelation and start embodying the truth you’ve already received
Chapter 11 doesn’t end with fireworks. It ends with practice, devotion, and a return to ordinary life.
So this week, I want you to consider: What truth do you already know that you haven’t started living yet?
Because spiritual experiences don’t change our lives on their own. What changes our lives are the choices we make after them.
💖 If you love exploring yoga this way,not just understanding the philosophy, but actually applying it to your real life, that’s exactly what we do inside Uplifted → https://www.brettlarkin.com/uplifted/
📖 Different translations explored:
Barbara Stoler Miller: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-Krishnas-Counsel-Bantam-Classics/dp/0553213652
Godsong by Amit Majmudar: https://www.amazon.com/Godsong-Verse-Translation-Bhagavad-Gita-Commentary/dp/1524733474
Eknath Easwaran: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-2nd-Eknath-Easwaran/dp/1586380192
Bhagavad-Gita As It Is by Swami Prabhupada: https://www.amazon.com/Bhagavad-Gita-As-Bhaktivedanta-Swami-Prabhupada/dp/0892131233
FREE Practice: Feminine Kundalini Flow w/ Music | Lower Chakras Yoga + Grounding Chakras with Yoni Mudra Meditation
Relevant Blog: How to Resolve Kundalini Awakening
Relevant to Today’s Episode:
🌀 History of Yoga
🎧 Also Listen to:
#427 – What Is Bhakti Yoga? Krishna’s Most Confidential Teaching (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9)
#441– Why Can’t You See God Yet? (Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, Part 1)
#442 – “I Am Time”: The Most Famous Verse in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Part 2)
© 2026 Uplifted Yoga | BrettLarkin.com
Transcript:
Brett Larkin:
Welcome to the Uplifted Yoga Podcast, where ancient yogic wisdom meets modern business strategy. I’m Brett Larkin, creator of Uplifted Yoga, where I’ve certified thousands of yoga teachers, built a multi-seven figure business, and guided over half a million students on YouTube. Here’s the truth.
You don’t have to choose between embodying deep yogic wisdom and building a thriving, freedom-based business. This podcast is your space to integrate both. Because yoga isn’t just what you do on the mat.
It’s how you show up in every part of your life. Whether you’re here to deepen your yoga practice, grow your teaching career, or align your energy with your purpose, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in.
Why is it that we can have the most profound, spiritual experience of our lives, and yet still struggle with the exact same fears a week later? Today’s episode answers that exact question. We’re finishing Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, where Arjuna experiences the greatest mystical vision in the entire text.
He sees Krishna as the infinite creator of the universe. Time itself seems to collapse. It’s breathtaking.
It’s terrifying. But then something unexpected happens. Arjuna asks Krishna to become ordinary again.
That moment reveals something I think so many of us get backwards. Spiritual highs don’t change our lives. The choices we make after them do.
You don’t need to have any prior knowledge of the Gita or the chapter we’re in to enjoy this episode. You can drop right in. Let’s jump in to this third installment on Chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.
Alright, my friends. If you are just joining us for Bhagavad Gita Chapter 11, what we’ve covered so far is that Krishna revealed himself to Arjuna in his universal form. So to recap, we are in the Bhagavad Gita.
This is a battlefield. We are on both a literal and metaphorical battlefield where Arjuna, who’s the stand-in for us as a regular human being, a warrior, is with his cousin, his beloved older cousin, mentor Krishna. But what’s so key and what happens here in Chapter 11, and it’s totally fine if you’re just joining us, is that Krishna goes and reveals himself, instead of his human form as Arjuna’s cousin, he reveals that he’s actually the creator of the universe.
He’s actually the DNA that weaves all of reality together. He shows Arjuna who he is in all his splendor, or perhaps more accurately put, like we discussed in the prior two episodes about this chapter, is that Krishna always was God. It’s just he’s gifted.
He’s given Arjuna different eyes, different perception in order to see clearly who he really is. And what happens is that Krishna, you know, has hundreds of heads and hundreds of arms and is actually terrifying. And Arjuna is quaking in fear.
He’s terrified by Krishna’s full form as this incredible deity. So the cliffhanger we left off on last time was that Arjuna just saw this incredible experience, this huge mystical experience, like the highest of all high spiritual highs. And it wasn’t peaceful.
It was terrifying. And we were comparing and contrasting this a little bit to Jesus’s transfiguration on the mount as well. And we’ll continue to look at some parallels between these two stories that are showing how God reveals himself to humans and what the highest of high spiritual experiences are like.
And bottom line, usually they’re actually pretty scary because in the Bible verses we looked at as well, Peter and the other two disciples in that story were also quite frightened. So we’re picking up with verse 35. You don’t need to have any book in front of you.
You can just absorb. I’m starting with Barbara Stoler Miller’s translation. And so what’s interesting about this chapter too is we’ve had the narrator Sanjaya come back in a couple of times to say a few things.
So Krishna basically just said the most famous line in all of the Bhagavad Gita, the most quoted line, I am time, I am the destroyer of worlds. And I’m paraphrasing, but he says like, yes, I look really terrifying. And that’s because I am beyond time and all these people on the battlefield are already going to die.
So you might as well just do your little human duty as a warrior and kill them. Stop wavering, stop second guessing yourself, fight and you will conquer your foes in battle. So that was somewhat paraphrased, but verse 34.
Now Sanjaya, the narrator comes back in and says, hearing Krishna’s words, Arjuna trembled under his crown and he joined his hands in reverent homage, terrified of his fear. He bowed to Krishna and stammered in reply. So now we’re going to hear Arjuna’s response.
He says, And then the next verse, he keeps saying, I bow in homage. I bow to your omnipresence. You have boundless strength.
You have limitless force. Verse 41, he says, thinking you a friend, meaning like back when I thought you were just my cousin, I boldly said, welcome Krishna, welcome cousin, friend. From negligence or through love, I failed to know your greatness.
So he’s saying, I didn’t recognize you back then. He says, if in jest I offended you alone or publicly at sport, rest, sitting or at meals, I beg your patience, unfathomable Krishna. You are the father of the world of animate and inanimate things.
It’s a venerable teacher, most worthy of worship without equal, where in all three worlds is another to match your extraordinary power. I bow to you. I prostrate my body.
I beg you to be gracious, worshipful Lord. He goes on and says, I am thrilled, and yet my mind trembles with fear at seeing what has not been seen before. Show me, God, the form I know.
Be gracious, Lord of God’s shelter of the world. I want to see you as before, with your crown and mace and the discus in your hand. O thousand-armed God, assume the four-armed form embodied in your totality.
So what’s happening here is that Arjuna is apologizing. He’s suddenly realizing, like, this incredible vision, this incredible person that I just saw, I’ve been joking and fooling around with and cracking jokes and maybe teasing as if he were my older cousin. And so he’s saying now to Krishna, like, if I ever called you friend, if I ever treated you casually, please forgive me.
And then when we look at all this language, the bowing, the prostrating, the how humble he is, how much gratitude he’s giving. So I want you to notice the progression of this chapter. So earlier in verse four, Krishna said, show me your universal form.
He was like, I’m ready. I want to see you in all your glory. Show me, like, who you really are.
You’ve been talking to me about all this philosophy the past 10 chapters. Like, I want to see you as God. I want to see the bigness.
I’m ready. And he’s humble. He asked, like, if you think I’m ready or if you think I’m worthy, like, let me see it.
And then in verses nine through 34, Krishna grants that request, right? And he says, I’m going to give you these divine eyes. I’m going to change your perception because with your human eyes, you can’t see it.
But with the divine eyes I’m going to give you, you can. And that’s the gift of yoga, right? It’s us shifting our perception.
Nothing’s changing, but our perception. And then in verses 35 to 44, you know, we have the whole vision. Arjuna is totally overwhelmed.
He’s trembling. The whole thing’s terrifying. He apologizes.
He realizes who Krishna really is. And then in verse 45, where we left off, he says, I’m thrilled, yet my mind trembles with fear at seeing what has not been seen before. Show me, God, the form I know.
Meaning like, okay, I’ve had enough. Can you go back to just looking like my cousin again? Because my mind is shaken with fear.
So if I can just, like, if you can just show me your gentle form again, that would be great. So what’s going on here? Like, this is a huge moment.
I don’t think Arjuna is rejecting the vision. I think he’s saying, like, I can’t stay here. I can’t live here.
I don’t think he’s saying, I wish I hadn’t seen this. I think he’s saying, like, this is amazing, but also terrifying. And I need to just be able to relate to you again.
So please, like, turn back into my human cousin. And then Krishna is super nice. He’s not like, too bad.
You have to stay here with me in my crazy form. He immediately is like gentle with Arjuna. And he returns.
So if it confuses you in verse 46, it’s like a gradual process of returning human again. So that’s why it says, assume the forearm form embodied in your totality. So first he goes from being the scary, you know, all the visions we saw to a more traditional, like, forearmed Hindu deity.
And then he returns to the familiar human form. So what a compassionate God we’re seeing here in Krishna. And what’s the interesting spiritual lesson here?
Because sometimes I think we tend to think the highest spirituality is having the high spiritual experience or staying in the transcendent moment. But here the Gita is suggesting otherwise. It’s saying the highest spirituality is actually being able to relate to the infinite through the ordinary, through your cousin, through your friend, the person who’s your charioteer, the person who’s your teacher.
That’s a much harder practice than chasing visions. And often when you do get that crazy high spiritual experience, it’s too much. We quake with fear.
It’s overwhelming. Our nervous system can’t handle it. So often we want a firework show and snakes and explosions.
But maybe what we’re seeing here is this idea that the divine isn’t supposed to be this like distant, overwhelming thing. It wants to be manifested in a form that we can actually love and relate to. So let’s look at the God song translation here as we keep going.
And Krishna answers Arjuna. So Arjuna just said, this is too much. I want you to come back to, you know, a more normal form.
And Krishna says, by my grace and my yogic power, Arjuna, this is verse 47, I have shown you this highest of forms. It’s made of light, primordial, cosmic, endless. I have shown it to you and no one before.
Not by Vedic sacrifice or study, not by gifts, not by doing rites or harsh austerities. No one in the human world can see this form. Only you, the hero of the Kurus.
The Kurus is Arjuna’s tribe, his family tribe, who’s fighting on the righteous side of this civil war that’s going on. Verse 49. This is still Krishna talking.
He says, do not tremble. Do not be consumed. Now that you have seen this fearsome form of mine, be free of fear again and in high spirits.
Now look at me in this form. Sanjaya, our narrator, said, Krishna, having said this to Arjuna, showed his own form as before, becoming gentle and wondrously handsome again. He calmed the frightened one.
So God responds. He says, do not be afraid. Krishna says, do not be afraid.
And he returns to his gentle human form. He doesn’t want Arjuna to be overwhelmed forever. He meets him where he is.
He doesn’t say like, you asked for this. We got to stay terrified. He says, okay, we’re going to come back.
If you’re enjoying this podcast, would you do me a quick favor? Think of one person in your life who might benefit from today’s conversation and send them this episode. Some of the best conversations happen after listening together and sharing the podcast is one of the best ways to help these teachings reach more people.
Thank you so much for being part of this community. Then Arjuna says, this is verse 51, Krishna, I see this human gentle form of yours. I am composed now, my mind returning to its nature.
So he’s basically like regaining his stability, his senses. And then here’s the chapter close. Stay with me because then we’re going to go a little bit more into all of this.
Krishna said, this form of mine you saw is hard to see. Even gods are always hoping for the sight of it. Not the Vedas, not the austerities, neither charity nor sacrifices make it possible to see me as you saw me.
It’s possible, Arjuna, through focused devotion alone, to know and witness my reality and enter me. Someone who does my work, depends on me, devotes himself to me, attachments let go, no enmity for any being, Arjuna, he comes to me. Scene, curtains, end of chapter.
So Krishna here kind of recaps what it is that Arjuna did that enabled Krishna to give him this divine sight. And it wasn’t through sacrificing, doing ritual sacrifices. It wasn’t through austerities.
It actually wasn’t through the Vedas. It was through focused devotion alone to Krishna, to know him, to witness him, to devote oneself to him. So here we’re very much talking about like that bhakti yoga, which we also have a podcast episode on because we explored the theme of bhakti and bhakti yoga in the Gita.
So I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. So it seems like it’s this marriage of devotion, but then also Krishna granted this change in perception to Arjuna through grace. And the next chapter is going to go on to talk about this idea of devotion, this idea of worship, personal devotion or worship to a more abstract God.
And Krishna will basically tell us that both ways are possible. However, something that doesn’t happen in the next chapter is that the battlefield’s changed or the war is over or anything has improved. We got this big vision, Arjuna got this big vision, but he’s still on a battlefield, still has to kill his first cousins, like no solution has happened.
So I think that’s really interesting too, because I think oftentimes we’re chasing this big spiritual high, big spiritual experience. We think it’ll solve something, but often it doesn’t, right? We like return to regular life.
And at the end of this chapter, they just return to regular life. Like Krishna turns back into his cousin, they’re still on this battlefield with all the same problems they had before. There’s been no resolution.
It’s not like the enemies saw this and are like, hey, yo, let’s all, you know, have a peace treaty and we live happily ever after. Like, no, nothing, nothing changes. And we see this in the biblical story as well.
I know in one of the prior episodes, we read Jesus’s transfiguration on the Mount where Jesus, similarly to Krishna, you know, appears in white light, his robe became glistening and white. And it’s just like this incredible experience, like God’s voice booms from the sky and says to the disciples, this is my beloved son, hear him. And the disciples are all kind of terrified and out of it.
And then immediately, like note the juxtaposition, the next story, now I’m going to read it. This is verse 37 in Luke 9. Now it happened on the next day, meaning the day after this incredible time on the mountaintop, when they had come down from the mountain, a great multitude met him, meaning Jesus.
Suddenly a man from the multitude cried out, saying, Teacher, I implore you, look at my son, for he is my only child. And behold, a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly cries out. It convulses him so that he foams at the mouth, and it departs from him with great difficulty bruising him.
So I implored your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. Then Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you and bear you? Bring your son here.
And as he was still coming, the demons threw him down and convulsed him. Then Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, healed the child, and gave him back to his father. So what I love about this is that Jesus takes, you know, his like top three disciples up to the mountaintop, reveals himself as he really is, very similar to what we see in this Krishna story in the Gita.
He reveals his godly, pure, white, beyond time form. Both Arjuna and Peter, his disciple, have this like apex of a spiritual high experience. And then afterwards, what happens?
Like nothing’s changed. Arjuna is still stuck in the same civil war, same battle, same problems. Peter and Jesus come down from the mountain, and the other disciples who didn’t come with them have like made a mess of trying to heal this child who sounds like he has epilepsy.
The disciples couldn’t do it. The dad is complaining. The disciples are like, we messed up.
We don’t know what to do. Jesus then has to go and like fix the whole situation and heal the child himself. But it’s basically like back to the office, like back to a regular Tuesday where like my disciples are not properly casting out demons.
Everyone still needs healing from me and has all these problems. For both Peter and Jesus, it’s just like back to business as usual. Like we had this incredible moment of like enlightenment together and transfiguration on top of a mountain.
Moses and Elijah showed up, like God’s voice boomed from the sky. Like I, you know, there was, he was in glistening robes. Peter was shaking with fear and blabbering and like totally awestruck.
And then you have to walk down the mountain back into like regular life and the chaos of like managing your other students and this disgruntled dad. So immediately after these spiritual high of highs, what’s waiting for us? Chaos.
Regular life. I mean, imagine if the Bible had ended there. It’s like, and Peter saw Jesus transfigured on the mountain, glowing white and cut scene.
The end. Obviously, that’s not how that book ends. Same with the Bhagavad Gita.
We’re right at the midpoint. We’re about halfway through, right? So the book could have ended here.
Arjuna sees Krishna in all his glory and all his splendor. He realizes like God is beyond time, that there’s no beginning, middle, and end, that everyone has already died, that there’s all these demons and arms and God is everything, everywhere. And it’s like sparkles and confetti on the stage and cut, right?
Like end scene, end play. No, no, like neither of these stories from these great like wisdom traditions end that way. We have a comedown.
Jesus and Peter walk back down the mountain. Krishna comes to in the same battlefield, in the same war, with the same impossible decisions. Nothing has changed except maybe, right?
Except maybe Arjuna. So I think this is a really central insight from this chapter, which is that mystical experiences rarely remove our problems. I’m going to say that again, because I think it’s that important.
Mystical experiences rarely remove our problems. And yet what are so many of us chasing? Mystical experiences.
Mystical experiences rarely remove our problems, but I do think they change the person who returns to those problems. It’s up to us or it’s up to Arjuna who’s had that expansion of his perception to be changed by this experience. So often I think we as yogis, we think like, okay, well, we need to go on the next retreat or do the plant medicine ceremony or go deeper in meditation or, you know, work on our Kundalini awakening.
And we had this maybe spiritual high of some sort. And like, I wish I could just go back. I wish I could just go back to Bali.
I wish I could just go back to that retreat. I wish I could just go back to that day where I did that meditation and I felt so good. So what I want to reorient us to or the invitation here is that maybe the better question is how am I supposed to live differently after witnessing or experiencing some sort of spiritual high, whether that was a beautiful retreat or beautiful day in meditation or Kundalini awakening or whatever.
Let’s go back to verse 55 and see how Krishna ends this chapter. He says, My dear Arjuna, he who engages in pure devotional service to me, free from the contaminations of fruitive activities and mental speculation, but he who works for me, he who makes me the supreme goal of his life and who is friendly to every living being, he certainly comes to me. This is basically like a summary of the entire Bhagavad Gita.
Krishna is saying, those who are devoted to me, those who work for me, those who are free from attachment, those who love all beings, they come to me. And so notice that this chapter 11, it doesn’t end with the fireworks and Krishna and his splendid, glowing, golden, fearsome state. It ends with this idea of practice, practice and devotion.
So to review chapter 11, we started looking at the opening verses and we did a whole episode on that. We’ll link these in the show notes in case you want to go back and listen to them. But chapter 11 opened with Arjuna asking to be able to see Krishna in his splendid form.
And we explored together in that episode, like why couldn’t Arjuna see this whole time that his cousin was actually God? And we talked about this power of perception, about how yoga is the altering of our perception, expanding our awareness. And then in the second episode, we looked at the middle of this chapter, which was like, what happens when Arjuna actually does see Krishna, does see God in his most fearsome, awe-inspiring form?
And the answer was total overwhelm and essentially nervous system shut down to the point where he’s begging him to turn back, right? And now here in episode three, it’s like, okay, to close this chapter, it’s like, all right, well, now what? We saw all that.
Now what? And the answer seems to be in both of these stories we’ve looked at is like, well, life continues as normal. You just keep living.
Many of us have these ecstatic experiences, but then it’s a regular Tuesday again with laundry and emails and school pickup and back pain and groceries and life. And I don’t think that means anything went wrong. I think what we’re seeing from these stories is that like, actually, that’s how it’s supposed to work.
Peter didn’t stay on the mountain. Arjuna didn’t stay in the vision. The purpose was never about escaping.
It was about returning. So this first part of chapter 11 was like, become teachable, right? Meaning your perception should be able to change.
Part two, like practice awe, experience awe. But then here we are now in part three, which is like return to ordinary life. So our goal shouldn’t be to have these crazy mystical experiences.
It should be integration. So my invitation for you this week until our next episode is instead of orienting or asking yourself, as we all do, I’m guilty of this as well, like, how can I have another spiritual high? Like, what do I need to feel good?
Or what trip or workshop or conditions do I need to have right so that I can have another spiritual high? Instead to ask yourself, like, what was the last meaningful spiritual experience that I had? And what is that experience actually asking me to become?
So think about that right now. What was your last meaningful spiritual experience? Maybe it was going on a retreat or a particular meditation or yoga class or the birth of a child or the death of someone you loved or a moment you had in nature.
Instead of trying to focus on recreating that feeling, consider asking, how am I living differently because that happened? Often we don’t honor that we’ve actually already had very profound moments. How are you living differently today, this week, between now and our next episode because of whatever that experience was that you had?
That would be a great thing to journal on. And if you need something a little bit more concrete, like another way to think of or say this is like, think about maybe an insight that you’ve received through your yoga practice or through your meditation practice that you aren’t living yet. Our culture is so addicted to more and more and more, but many of us have had really profound insights.
Like we know we need more rest or we know we need better boundaries or we know we need to forgive someone or we know we need to trust ourselves. But instead, we just keep looking for more new revelation. So maybe today or this week, practice one you’ve already been given.
Go deep with that. So as we close this three-part journey through chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita, think about what truth do you already know that you haven’t started living yet? Because I think a lot of us don’t need another revelation or spiritual high per se.
We need the courage to embody whatever we learned from the last one. And we’re going to see a change in Arjuna as we go through the next couple chapters. He didn’t leave this vision with any of the answers, but we are going to see that he has the courage now to actually step onto the battlefield that’s been waiting for him this whole journey, that he’s going to eventually be able to take action instead of being paralyzed with fear like we saw in chapters one and two.
Spiritual experiences don’t change our lives on their own. What changes our lives is the choices we make after those spiritual experiences. Thank you so much for being here, for listening all the way to the very end.
And until next time, take care of you. Before we go, I wanted to read something that really landed in my heart this week. It’s a review from Stephanie.
She writes that I love it when I ask guests about their morning routines and what brought them to yoga. These are such relatable, helpful questions. I truly enjoy Brett’s enthusiasm, detailed knowledge, and passion for yoga.
When I read reviews like this, it warms my heart so much. If this show has impacted you in any way, leaving a review is one of the most powerful ways you can support it. We’re building towards 1,000 reviews.
We almost have 700 right now. And every single one helps this show reach more people who are hungry for deeper, embodied, authentic conversations about yoga. I would love for you to be part of that milestone, and maybe I’ll be reading your review on here in a future episode.
I appreciate you being here. Thanks for supporting the show.
