Verse 11.1

Verse 11.1: Arjuna Spake: “To confer favour upon me, the supremely secret word designated as the Adhyatma (concerning the Atman) which Thou hast uttered: thereby is my delusion all dissipated. (44)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

Then Arjuna said to the Lord, “O my Lord the treasure house of Mercy, thou for my sake, hast given utterance to the deepest truths that are beyond words. That is the last abode of rest whereto all Gods retire when the five gross elements dissolve in Brahman and even the last traces of the play of soul and Prakriti are wiped out. That truth treasured in thy heart like the miser’s hoard, and held back as the deepest secret even from the Vedas is the truth for which God Shiva, spuming at all divine grandeur, became the hermit. That great mystery of thy divine Being, thou hast laid bare at one stretch before me. Yet being united to thy divine Being, how can I bethink myself and speak thus? Thou hast indeed rescued me as I was plunged head foremost in the great ocean of ignorance and error.

Except thy divine Being in this universe there is nought else that can be so much as named? Yet how relentless is cruel fate that makes us the victims of this illusion of bodily self. There swelled in me the self-conceit that in this world, I am somebody famed as Arjuna, and I held the Kauravas as my own kinsmen. On the top of that, I was the victim of the most grievous dream, that by slaying them, I was plunging myself into sin. Just then, thou hast indeed waked me up. Leaving, Oh God my real abode, I entered the imaginary city in clouds (gandharvanagarī), and was swallowing a drought of mirage. Albeit made of rags, the serpent made me wrench as of a real serpent bite, and it is to thine eternal glory that thou saved my soul that was all but ruined for nothing.

Like a lion who being duped by his own image in water jumps into the well I was drawn on the verge of self-destruction; Thou, Oh Anant, hast saved me. Otherwise I would have rather preferred the waters of the seven oceans to meet and deluge the world, or the heavens fall in a crack of doom than have any warfare with my kith and kin; so unflinchingly I had set my face against such warfare. Self-conceit had plunged me headlong into the abysmal depth of obstinacy: and Thou standing close by hast rescued me; who else could have saved me from destruction? A mere nothing as it is, my own self I counted as real and dubbed the wrong men my kinsmen. Indeed sheer madness had possessed me and you saved me. Once didst thou take us safe from lac-made burning house, which was a danger only to the body. But here was a disaster of the soul-destroying fire of delusion. As Hiranyaksha (hiraṇyākṣa)—brother of Hiranyakashyapu (hiraṇyakaśyap [hiraṇyakaśyapu?]) seized upon the earth and putting it under his arms hid himself in ocean, so did perverse error snatch my wits away and smother them in the subterranean abyss of ignorance.

By thy Supreme power, Oh my master, my wits have been restored to my soul. You have thus had to pass through another incarnation of Varaha (Boar). Boundless has been Thy mercy to me and its handiwork is beyond the power of my words. Thou hast indeed offered Thy very life-breath for my sake! And never a whit of thy work is lost; for, to thy eternal glory it has borne rich fruit by uprooting the illusion from my soul. In the lake of eternal bliss are blooming these lotuses of thine eyes. Let them but beam with glances of grace to dwell on that blessed soul and what a futile mockery would it be to talk of the soul as wrapped up in ignorant! How indeed can a shower of mirage touch the submarine fire? As for me, Oh Thou merciful God, I have entered the innermost sanctuary of thy heavenly grace, to experience complete union with Thy Divine self; what wonder then that my ignorance is dispelled, and I am finally delivered from that ignorance by the mere touch of Thy feet!