Verse 18.37

Verse 18.37: “That which is at the outset like venom, but in its effect can be compared to ambrosia; that pleasure is declared to be Sattva-dominated, being born of (perfect) serenity of the intellect when engrossed in (meditation on) the Self. (778)

Commentary called Jnaneshwari by Jnaneshwar:

Just as the base of a sandal tree causes fright owing to (the presence of) a serpent; or there abides a ghost guarding the approach (mouth) to the hoard; or the sacrifices, which secure heavenly bliss, are fraught with great difficulties; or childhood has to pass through a period of hardships or one has to put up with the nuisance of smoke before one lights a lamp (flame); or the tongue has first to bear the bitter taste of medicine, in all these ways one has, Oh Son of Pandu, to face at the very entrance to the (spiritual) pleasure, the hardships of selfrestraint and self-governance comprehensively (yamaniyama). There wells up in the heart such a mighty aversion towards worldly affairs that it strangles attachment for all worldly objects, and banishes (the idea of winning) heaven and mundane existence (earth). The intellect is perfected and made whole, its weak points (lit. holes or chinks) disappearing altogether, and sound and lofty principles discriminating the highest Reality by practising hard austerities. The gushes of life-winds, Prana and Apana, get swallowed through the mouth of the air passage ‘Sushumna’ and all these great hardships form only the beginning.

Intense grief is felt by the Chakrawaka [Chakravaka] couple (cakravāka) at its forced separation; or by a (sucking) calf dragged forcibly away from under the udder of the cow; or by making a hungry person leave (untouched) his dinner plate and walk out; or by the mother from whose lap the destructor snatches away her only pet child; or by the fish on being taken out of water. In that way the sense-organs feel as if the end of the aeon (yugātu) has come while leaving the home of sense-objects: yet the heroes of ascetic tendencies (having discarded attachments completely) bear it all. Thus the beginning of that pleasure is prefaced with (lit. indicates) the bursting out of great pain and hardship: yet in the end it secures the ambrosia in the form of deliverance; in the way ambrosia was secured as the result of churning up the sea of milk. If God Shiva in the form of tenacity is able to swallow up (and digest) the venom in the form of asceticism, floating on the surface at the very outset, it (tenacity) would witness the festival of (drinking) ambrosia in the form of knowledge.

The extreme sour taste of green grapes is more burning to the tongue than even a touch of fire-brand; yet when the grapes get ripe they taste so sweet. In that way, when non-attachment and other virtues fully ripen with the light of the knowledge of the self, all duality etc. born of Nescience perishes along with the very non-attachment. Then with the merging of intellect in the soul, in the way the holy Ganges does in the sea, there is naturally revealed a mine of monistic bliss. That pleasure (bliss) which has as its root total indifference to the worldy affairs, the root developing and producing at its end the enjoyment of the bliss of the Self, is Sattva (dominated) pleasure.