Jnaneshwari (Bhavartha Dipika)

by Ramchandra Keshav Bhagwat | 1954 | 284,137 words | ISBN-10: 8185208123 | ISBN-13: 9788185208121

This is verse 9.19 of the Jnaneshwari (Bhavartha-Dipika), the English translation of 13th-century Marathi commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita.—The Dnyaneshwari (Jnaneshwari) brings to light the deeper meaning of the Gita which represents the essence of the Vedic Religion. This is verse 19 of the chapter called Raja-vidya and Raja-guhya Yoga.

Verse 9.19:I give heat, I hold back the shower and pour it forth; I am Immortality as well as Death; I am the Being as well as Non-being, O Arjuna. (296)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

When I glow in the guise of the Sun, the world dries up, and when I descend playing the roll of Indra, it is flooded. Fire consumes fuel, which in its turn changes into fire; thus both what is killed and that which kills are of My essence; and therefore, whatever lies within mortal nature is My outward appearance, while that which is immortal is certainly My being. To cut the long story short, I can give it in a nut-shell that ‘Sat’ and ‘Asat’ (real and unreal) both are all My Being. Therefore, Oh Arjuna is there any nook and comer anywhere in which I am not? And yet how pitiable is human lot indeed that these creatures fail to see Me in the world! See how astonishing it is that they are of My own being and yet they fall into the error of saying that 1 am not, as if waves should dry up saying, there is no water, or rays of the sun be invisible without a candlelight.

The whole world, inside and outside, is full of My divine being and yet how cruel is fate that blinds mortals into saying that I am not! This is just like one falling into a well of ambrosia and wishing himself to be taken out of it! Such an unfortunate one is simply to be pitied. It is as if a blind man running hurriedly for a morsel of food, Oh Kiriti, should stumble on the Chintamani (wish-fulfilling stone) and kick it out of his way in his blindness. Such indeed is the lot of mortals when wisdom leaves them. Therefore, an action done without knowledge is no action worth the name. Of what avail are the wings to a blind eagle? Just so, actions, even if they are good actions, become vain and wasteful efforts, when not backed up by insight and wisdom.

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