Gyaneshwari Geeta-14

Gyaneshwari Geeta-14

The blessed Lord said:

11. You grieve and yet spout words of wisdom. Neither for the dead nor for the living the wise men grieve. Then he said to Arjuna: I am really surprised by what you propose to do in the midst of war. You call yourself clever, but you are not conscious of your ignorance. Well, if I wish to enlighten you, you raise various moral issues. When a person blind from birth becomes mad, he runs
helter-skelter; your cleverness seems to me like that. You are ignorant of your Self and grieve for the Kauravas. This is what amazes me over and over again. Tell me, O Arjuna, do you support these three worlds? Do you think that this beginning less creation of the world is untrue (91-95)?

When we talk of God as the originator of all creatures in the world, is it a mere empty talk? Is it the case that you have created birth and death and the Kauravas will meet death only if you kill them? Or tell me, if you, deluded by egoism, refuse to slay them, will they live in eternity? Do not delude yourself that you are the one who kills, and they are the ones to get killed. All these things happen as ordained from time without beginning. Why should you then grieve over it without reason (96-100)?

Not knowing this, you think the unthinkable out of folly and on top of it profess to give us lessons in morality. The discriminating do not grieve over birth and death, as all our thinking about them is due to delusion.

12. Never was there a time when I was not, nor you nor these kings; nor shall we ever cease to exist hereafter. Now listen, as regards ourselves and all these kings and others who have gathered here, it is not true to say that they will live long or meet with sure death. If you get rid of your delusion, you will realise that it is not so. What we see as birth and death are due to illusion, Maya; otherwise the entity which really exists is indestructible (101-105).

Look, if the wind produces ripples on the water, can we say that something is really produced? And when the wind ceases and the water becomes flat, what is it that has ceased? Think over it.

13. Even as the Self has in this body, childhood, youth and old age, so he passes into another body. A wise man is not bewildered thereby. Consider this, although the body is the same, it becomes different with age. Perception itself is the source of knowledge for this. First we see childhood, which changes to youth. But the body does not perish with childhood. In the same way the conscious Self assumes many bodies. Whoever knows this does not suffer from the sorrow of delusion (106-110).

14. The sense contacts, O Arjuna, give rise to heat and cold, pleasure and pain; they come and go and do not last, endure them, O Bharata. Man does not know this, because he is a slave to the senses. His mind is attracted by the senses and so he becomes deluded. When the senses perceive an object, and experience pleasure and pain, his mind becomes attached to the sense-objects. The senses lack definite relationship with their objects, and so they sometimes feel pleasure, sometimes pain. Now censure and praise belong to the sphere of the word, which, when heard, gives rise respectively to hatred and fondness. Soft and hard are the two qualities of touch; and its contact with the body produces joy and sorrow (111-115).

Likewise ugly and beautiful are the two qualities of form, which produce through sight pleasant and unpleasant sensations. So also fragrance and stink are the two forms of smell, and their contact with the nose gives rise to pleasure and pain. Likewise taste is also of two kinds according as it produces liking and nausea. Attachment to the sense objects corrupts a person. Those who depend upon the senses suffer heat and cold and are bound by pleasure and pain. The senses find delight only in the sense-objects and nothing else; this is the peculiar nature of the senses (116-120).

What then is the nature of the sense-objects? They are like the mirage or like the elephants seen in a dream, so never become attached to them; ignore them, O Arjuna.

Om Namah Shivay