One element of Krishna’s attitude that will impress even the most casual reader is his tolerance and inclusiveness. Even those who don’t know him are held in the truly magnicent embrace of the following quatrain:
However men try to reach me,
I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end. (4.11)
And, at least in the rst two-thirds of the poem, Krishna’s largehearted attitude toward the wicked reminds us of Jesus’s God, who “makes his sun rise on the wicked and on the good, and sends rain to the righteous and to the unrighteous”:
Even the heartless criminal,
if he loves me with all his heart,
will certainly grow into sainthood
as he moves toward me on this path.
Quickly that man becomes pure, his heart nds eternal peace. Arjuna, no one who truly
loves me will ever be lost.
All those who love and trust me,
even the lowest of the low— prostitutes, beggars, slaves—
will attain the ultimate goal. (9.30–32)
The climax of the Gita is its eleventh chapter, in which Krishna appears to Arjuna in his supreme form. It is a terrifying theophany, a glimpse into a level of reality that is more than the ordinary mind can bear.
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