विभूतियोग
Chapter 10
Vibhooti Yoga
Yoga through Appreciating the Infinite Opulences of God · 42 verses
This chapter is traditionally treasured as the Vibhuti Yoga, the yoga of divine glories. Vibhuti means a glory of God: a being or thing in which his power and presence show most plainly. Krishna takes up his teaching yet again, out of love for Arjuna. He says even the gods and the great seers cannot know his origin, because he is their source, and an effect cannot fully grasp its cause. Whoever knows him as unborn and Lord of all is freed from sin. He names the inner states of every being, good and bad alike, and the founding sages and law-givers from whom all people descend, as arising from him. Knowing his glory (vibhuti) and his power (yoga) brings a steady, unshaken joining. Arjuna praises him with the highest names, calls the seers and Krishna's own word as witnesses, and accepts it all as true. He asks to hear the glories in full, since the words are like nectar he can never drink enough of. Krishna then names the chief example in class after class, beginning as the Self seated in every heart. He closes by saying the glories are endless, the list only a sample, and that he holds up the whole world with a single portion of himself. So the aim is not to memorize the list but to see the one Lord everywhere. The schools differ on how close that indwelling is, whether identity, ensouling, or a portion, and on what knowing him finally yields, non-dual realization for Advaita Vedanta or ripened devotion for the Vishishtadvaita, Shuddhadvaita, and Bhakti readers.