One day Bhishma Pitamah (grand elder of the Kuru dynasty) was showing his skill so much on the battlefield (Kurukshetra, the great war field of the Mahabharat [ancient Indian epic]) that it looked like he was going to destroy the whole army of the Pandavas (the five righteous brothers) single-handedly. So Shree Krishna (the Supreme Divine personality) jumped down from the chariot and picked up a wheel of another chariot that had been smashed, and raising that wheel above His head, He started (running) towards Bhishma.
So Bhishma is there on his chariot, and he notices,
“Oh Krishna, my beloved Krishna, the one I worship, the beloved of my soul, He’s looking at me, and His eyes are angry! His brow is furrowed! He’s holding this wheel above His head, and now He’s running towards me! And look how His pitambar (yellow garment) is fluttering as He’s running towards me! And oh, look! It looks like He’s going to throw that and kill me!”
And as He’s looking, He’s just so blissful, looking at His beloved Krishna, having this jhanki (Divine vision) of Krishna coming to kill him! So seeing the look on Bhishma’s face, Shree Krishna also stopped in His tracks, and He remembered,
“Oh yeah! I had made a vow that I wasn’t going to raise a weapon in this war!”
So He put down His weapon. Now Bhishma had also made a vow on that day that today ‘I’m going to show that bhakti (devotion) is more powerful than God, because God has vowed not to pick up a weapon, and I’m vowing I’m going to make Him pick up a weapon today, and the devotee won’.
It shows that the devotion of the devotee is more powerful than God Himself. So Bhishma made Krishna pick up that weapon, and he also got to have the jhanki (Divine vision) of Krishna with that angry face running towards him.
A few days later, once Arjun (the warrior disciple of Krishna) had shot Bhishma Pitamah with the arrows and he was lying on that bed of arrows. In fact, for months he remained in that state; he was doing roopdhyan (meditation on the Divine form) the whole time, thinking of Krishna.
So was he thinking of ‘tribhangi’ Lal (Krishna in the three-fold bending posture) Krishna holding the flute and smiling at him? No. He was thinking of ‘paiya dhari’ Shree Krishna (Krishna holding a wheel as a weapon), Krishna holding that wheel of the chariot with that angry look, bloodshot eyes, clenched teeth, furrowed brow, red face, running towards him to kill him.
He just did roopdhyan of that and thought of Krishna all the time.
