post on seventh adhyaya-1.

 

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.