Gyaneshwari -Sant Gyaneshwar
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Chapter-15
The Supreme Person
17. But different from these two is the Supreme Person called the Supreme Self, the immutable Lord who sustains these worlds after pervading them. In this way the states of wakefulness and dream, which spring from false knowledge, become dissolved in ignorance. Like fire which is extinguished after burning firewood, this knowledge, after destroying ignorance, experiences the Supreme Self and vanishes. That which remains behind after knowledge ceases to exist, is the Supreme Person. This is the third purusha different from the other two purushas. This is the ultimate truth of the doctrine of purusha. O Arjuna, just as the wakeful state, which gives knowledge of the world, is entirely different from the states of deep sleep and dream (526-530) or the sun’s disc is different from the sun’s rays and mirage, so this Supreme Person, is distinct from the two purushas. Just as the fire latent in firewood, is different from it, this Supreme Person is distinct from the perishable and imperishable purushas. In a deluge, the oceans transgress their limits and the whole world becomes a mass of water, leaving no trace of the separate existence of rivers and rivulets; in the same way, the states of dream, deep sleep and wakefulness, cease to exist. Just as the conflagration at the time of world-dissolution consumes day and night, all empirical knowledge, along with monism and dualism, ceases to exist and one does not know whether there is existence or non-existence (531-535). Know this state to be the supreme purusha, who is also known in this world as the Supreme Self. Speech, which returns without touching him, is possible only while one remains in the state of embodied existence. Just as standing safe on the bank of a river, one can talk about a person getting drowned, so the Vedas talk about matters relating to this or the yonder shore. The Vedas think of the perishable and imperishable purusha on this shore as inferior and speak of the purusha who is on a higher plane, as the Supreme Self. Please know, O Partha, that the term Supreme Self, suggests this Supreme Person (536-540). |
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