Date: May 12, 2025
Part 3: Vishnu, the Lord of the Universe
Continued from Part 3
The word Vishnu is derived from the Sanskrit root “vish” which means “to pervade.” So, Vishnu is “the one who pervades” or “the all-pervasive”. Vishnu is the inside-out of the whole creation. Vishnu symbolises Brahman, the Ultimate Source of all that is. Vishva – the universe and Vishnu – are one and identical.
The blue complexion of Vishnu indicates his Infinite nature. The colour blue is associated with the sky which has no bounds. If we have to convey Infinity which is formless, in a form – then a person having a blue complexion is a closest representation that we can think of to convey that the person is really infinite.
In his four hands Vishnu holds the sankha (conch), chakra (Disc), cada (Mace) and padma (Lotus). The lotus is a symbol for spiritual perfection, or enlightenment. By holding the lotus in his hand, Vishnu is indicating to man his ultimate goal, the purpose of life, i.e., spiritual perfection. So, Vishnu blows the sankha, the conch which is a divine call to lead the higher life. All the scriptures, all the teachings of our great sages and saints – all of them exhort us to shun the lowly, material life that we are leading and to make efforts to take to the path of the Spirit and make efforts for self-purification and self-perfection. This is the meaning of the divine call of the sankha.
Swami Chinmayananda writes in his book Symbolism in Hinduism,
“He blows the Conch, calling man to live the nobler values of life so that he may turn away from all his worldly preoccupations and ultimately reach Him and receive from Him the Infinite Bliss of unbroken peace and perfection. The final goal indicated in our scriptures, is represented in Hindu tradition as the Lotus. With a tender anxiety to give the devotee the highest experience of perfect happiness He calls, and man, roaming with his sensuous urges and animal propensities, hears the echoes of the shrill notes of his inner conscience calling him to stop and retire.
“Generally, man has no ears to hear, or even when he hears, he has no heart to obey. He still dashes forth in the quest for sense gratifications; it is at such times, out of sheer love, the Lords wields His Mace to knock man down with disappointments, dissatisfactions and a growing sense of restlessness.”
When we continue with our lowly lives steeped in material and sensual indulgence and ignore the higher call to lead a spiritual life, then we are inevitably punished by the various knocks and shocks of life. Disappointments and frustrations which totally wreck our mental equipoise and peace. These are the blows of Vishnu’s gada. These blows, these knocks and shocks that come repeatedly are in fact indications that we are not leading our lives rightly and could be called divine warnings to fall in line. That we are going down on the wrong path.
What is the sure indication that we are leading a good life? It’s a sense of peace and blissfulness – and that can only come through a well-lived spiritual life. No amount of material acquisition and sensual indulgence can ever bring into our lives the divine gifts of peace and blissfulness. This truth is repeated to us again and again by the scriptures, by the teachings of the sages and saints (call of the sankha) but still we continue our same old lives of material living.
However, things cannot continue in this vein forever. When we do not undertake a course correction despite the knocks and shocks, despite the disappointments and frustrations (blows of the gada), then we would be marked for self-destruction. This function Vishnu performs with his chakra (Disc). Repeated acts of self-defeat and acting against our own good enamoured by the material and sensual life, can only lead to self-destruction.
The all-pervading Lord holds the promise of the padma and calls us with his sankha. When we ignore the call, come the blows of the gada. And when we continue persisting with the same folly, comes the final destruction through the weapon of the chakra. This is the lesson that is being given by the Sankha, Chakra, Gada and Padma of Lord Vishnu.
There is another mystical interpretation of Vishnu’s chakra which says that the spinning motion of the chakra is the cyclic motion of Time. Whom Vishnu wishes to destroy, he unleashes his chakra on him, i.e., he accelerates the movement of the remaining time span allotted for the chosen victim. In other words, time gallops and runs out for him.
This happened to Shishupala in the Mahabharata. As long as he was abusing Krishna and his abuses kept on piling till they reached one hundred, he remained alive. Had he stopped at the hundredth insult, he still would have remained alive. But as soon as he uttered the 101st insult, time ran out for him. The menacingly spinning Sudarshana Chakra came flying at him and consumed his remaining life time in a single stroke. So, the Sudarshana Chakra basically consumes the future and annihilates life in the present moment itself. This is the significance of Sudarshana Chakra. Time runs out for the one whom the Lord chooses to destroy.
So ultimately for us, the choice is between the padma and the chakra. Spiritual liberation and Immortality as represented by the padma; or death and mortality as represented by the chakra. For if we do not achieve liberation in this life, then our life would culminate with death – the Chakra would strike, i.e., time would run out for us in this life. Then we would be faced with a fresh round of birth, life and death.
The crown which Vishnu wears on his head denotes his Lordship and Sovereignty over the entire universe. He is the supreme emperor of all that is there because he is Jagannath – the Lord of the Universe.
And finally, we have Garuda, the vahana of Vishnu. Garuda has the head and wings of an eagle. Garuda is shown as an eternal enemy of the snakes. A snake generally stands for the human ego. Garuda has the capacity of liberating us from the bonds of ego, thus signifying freedom. This is the inner meaning of Garuda coming to liberate Rama and Lakshmana from Meghnad’s Nag pasha (a trap made of million snakes).
Garuda is the human capacity to break free from all the bonds of ego that hold us down. And when we achieve this capacity, we become a vehicle of the Lord himself. Becoming Garuda-like is to develop the capacity to subdue the snake of the ego in us. To have the capacity to soar into the spiritual sky with two powerful wings of our Sadhana (Knowledge and Devotion) and doing works with our hands (Karma) is to become Garuda-like. It is then that we become an instrument of the Divine for doing His works in this world. We become the vahana, the vehicle of Vishnu.