After rating a yogi to be superior to
a tapaswi, or a dnyani or a karmi; Lord Krishna opined in the last shloka of the sixth adhyaya as under:
योगिनामपि सर्वेषां मद्गतेनान्तरात्मना ।
श्रद्धावान् भजते यो मां स मे युक्ततमो मतः ॥ 6-47 ॥
“Among all such
yogis also, in my opinion he is the greatest, who is my devotee, who worships
me with full faith and remains totally engrossed in union with me.”
Then, while starting seventh adhyaya, the Lord continued
the note on Bhakti as follows:
मय्यासक्तमनाः पार्थ योगं युञ्जन् मदाश्रयः ।
असंशयं समग्रं मां यथा ज्ञास्यसि तच्छृणु ॥१॥
Lord says: “O Partha, taking refuge in me, and being fully
absorbed in my love and consciousness, you are practicing yoga. Hence I am now advising
you, how you can know me in totality and without any doubts; please listen to
it.”
And in second shloka the Lord advised Arjuna what dnyana is and
what vidnyana is. Then in third shloka Lord tells that out of thousands of
seekers practicing devotion and yoga, rarely someone attains this dnyana and realizes the Self through it.
मनुष्याणां सहस्त्रेषु कश्चिद्यतति सिद्धये । यततामपि सिद्धानां कश्चिन् मां
वेत्ति तत्वतः ॥ ३ ॥
Moreover,
out of so many such realized souls also, scarcely one may truly know my essence
in principle.
On these shlokas, Dnyaneshwar Mauli writes following ovis,
which are self-explanatory.
तैसें आस्थेच्या महापुरीं । रिघताती कोटिवरी । परि प्राप्तीचां पैलतीरीं
। विपाइला निगे ॥ १३ ॥
Mauli
says-- crores of seekers leap into great flood of earnest desire to know the
Brahman, but scarcely someone out of them reaches the other side shore of
accomplishment.
म्हणऊनि सामान्य गा नोहे । हें सांगता वडिल गोठी गा आहे ।
परि तें बोलों येईल पाहें । आता प्रस्तुत ऐकें ।। १४ ॥
Therefore
O dear, this accomplishment is not an ordinary matter. It is indeed a major and
difficult subject to explain, but we will discuss it at a later stage. Now
listen about the worldly knowledge that I was explaining to you.
Then the
Lord proceeds with describing his Maya i.e. prakriti or nature; how it brings
into life all the individual souls and revolves them in the cycle of birth and
death with binding effect caused due to its attributes namely satwa, raja and tama.
The Lord uses a metaphor of river for this Maya and describes how difficult it
is to reach the other side shore of accomplishment by transcending this river of Maya.
In the course of this description Lord
reveals following fact experienced by all the devotees in their efforts to win
over Maya :
येथ एक नवलावो। जो जो कीजे तरणोपावो। तो तो अपावो। होय तें ऐक ॥ ८२ ॥
Lord tells Arjuna --- There is a strange reality about this Maya. Whatever
measures are taken to transcend her, they prove to be harmful for the aspirant. Then he tells about results of some of them. Later, suggesting
solution for winning over the Maya, the Lord says:
येथ एकचि लीला तरले । जे सर्वभावें मज भजले । तयां ऐलीच थडी
सरलें । मायाजळ ॥ ९७ ॥
Here
only those persons can easily transcend, who worship me whole-heartedly and
with full faith. For them, the illusive water of this river vanishes while on
this side itself. (In other words, for them there remains no Maya river to
cross over.) --- Very easy to read, but most difficult to practice! Bhagwad Gita
itself tells us that it takes lives after lives to attain the status of such
dnyani bhakta.
बहूनां जन्मनामन्ते ज्ञानवान् मां प्रपद्यते ।
वासुदेवः सर्वमिति स महात्मा सुदुर्लभः ॥ १९ ॥
After practicing and undergoing meditation in many
births, a Dnyani devotee concludes that everything is Vasudeva i.e. Supreme God
and then reaches me. However, such great soul is indeed very rare.
In the last shloka of seventh
adhyaya, Lord talks about seven philosophical concepts understood and realized
by a dnyani devotee namely “1) Brahma- 2)
Karma 3) Adhyatma 4) Adhibhuta 5) Adhidaiva 6) Adhiyadnya and 7) remembrance of
Lord at the time of death).
This
talk ends seventh adhyaya. Arjuna asks the Lord to explain these expressions,
which explanation appears in the commencing part of the eighth adhyaya. We will
see the same in our next posting on this blog.
