Verse 9.15

Verse 9.15: “Others likewise, worshipping Me with the Sacrifice (consisting) of knowledge, in diverse ways direct meditation upon Me, possessing multifarious faces, in my unitary aspect or in my distributive aspect. (239)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

Now listen to what I say about sacrifice that is performed through knowledge. The primeval will is the very pillar of this sacrifice, while the five gross elements are the sacrificial hall (maṇḍapa—temporarily erected open-shed). The separation between the individual Soul and God is a sacrificial beast (fit to be offered). The special qualities of the five gross elements or the senses and the life-breath are the very materials (sāhitya) of the sacrifice. Ignorance is the ghee for oblation and the mind and the intellect are the altar (kuṇḍeṃ [kuṇḍa?]—pits) in which the fire of knowledge is to be kindled. Equanimity is platform of the altar (Vedi—vedī).

Reason—power to grasp self and not self—is the very sacrificial Mantras (Vedic Hymns), while high regard for knowledge and mental peace are a sacrificial ladle (srukasruva [sruksruva?]): the soul is the sacrificer and he destroys duality (distinction between the Jiva and Shiva—the being and the God), offering it in oblation to the sacrificial fire at the altar of Knowledge, using the sacrificial vessels in the form of experience of Supreme Brahman and chanting the Vedic hymns in the shape of right thinking. Ignorance then is at an end, there remaining neither the sacrificer nor the sacrifice, while the soul gets the final ablutions (avabhṛtha) at the conclusion of the sacrifice, in the waters of the blissful state of union of the soul and the sacrificial spirit. Then ceases the awareness of the distinctions of separate beings, the objects of the senses as also the senses themselves, all merging in the Supreme Unity of the Brahman, revealed in the complete intuition of the Self.

Just as, Oh Arjuna, one awaking from slumber says,

“I myself became the wonderful army I saw while in sleep: now that I am awake, the army in the dream was all a delusion: at bottom I am all myself the underlying unity now.”

In the same way, the sacrificer in the sacrifice (consisting) of knowledge, realizes the truth that the entire universe is all inseparable from the Supreme Brahman. Then ends the talk of the existence of all (separate) beings and all existence high and good is pervaded by the unitary experience of the Supreme Brahman. In this way they adore Me through the path of sacrifice (consisting) of knowledge that terminates in the vision of undivided being. Others there are who grant that the universe is beginningless; and in it things separate and dormant are like one another; but to them the differences are due to names and forms.

This makes the universe contain difference of separate things; and yet this plurality does not affect the unity of knowledge. Just as the different senses all belong to one and the same body, or many branches big and small have their life in one and the same tree, or again immeasurable rays all of one and the same Sun—in that way many separate things having diverse names and different forms are yet known by them to be united in the supreme unity. In this way, Oh son of Pandu, those self-seers that keep their inner vision of the unity of the supreme self unbroken by separateness of created things, do perform a superior kind of sacrificial worship by knowledge of unity in diversity. For, have they not realized the highest awareness that whatever they meet, at any time and place—all in fact—is seen to be nought without Me—the supreme Brahman. Just see, whichever way a bubble floats, it is all in water, and whether it bubbles or bursts, it has its being in water: dust raised in the air by wind does not cease to be earthy: and when it (dust) falls down, it must fall on the earth. In that way, whatever the being and whatever the place, and whatever happens to it or does not happen—all that is in Me, for they have realized themselves and all in Me. As far spread is their consciousness as My universal existence, and being one with all, they live in everything.

As the sun’s disc is face to face with every one’s eyes, so does their knowledge mirror in their realized self the entire mass of existence. There is nothing like ‘a here’ or ‘a there’ in their knowledge, Oh Arjuna, since it envelopes the entire universe, like the wind, which is here, there and every-where. The tether of their knowledge-being is so entire and whole as My own complete Being; hence their love and devotion to Me as complete without the least effort. Since I am all in all, can there be a creature that does not worship Me? Since I am the life of everything every creature worships Me. Only the creatures not knowing this, fail to reach Me. Let this suffice: I have said enough of them that worship Me through sacrifice in the shape of knowledge. Whatever actions are done by created beings are verily, without further ado, dedicated to Me: the fools however fail to reach My real self because they lack this knowledge.