Gyaneshwari -Sant Gyaneshwar
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Chapter-18
Release
Now, I shall explain to you how this chapter is linked with chapter seventeen (46-50). Even though the currents of the rivers Ganga and Yamuna are different, they are one, because of their common element, water. In the case of Lord Shiva in the form of half male and half female (Ardhanari-nateshwara), although the male and female forms have distinctive features, they have one and the same body. The phases of the moon go on increasing, during the bright half of the lunar month, yet they do not appear distinct in the full moon. So although the stanzas appear different because of their four parts and the chapters appear different because of their different stanzas, they form a unity in regard to their import. Just as the thread on which gems are woven is the same (51-55), or the necklace made up of many pearls has the same luster, or the flowers and their wreaths can be counted on fingers, but not so their fragrance, so is the case with the stanzas and the chapters (i.e. they point to the same common Truth). The Gita consists of seven hundred stanzas divided into eighteen chapters, but the theme taught by the God is the same without any difference. I have given the exposition of the Gita, without departing from its meaning. I am now explaining the eighteenth chapter also on the same lines. At the end of chapter seventeen, the Lord had said (56-60), “O Arjuna, any actions performed without uttering the name of Brahman, prove worthless.” Hearing these words of the Lord, Arjuna felt happy. He thought that it was good that the Lord disparaged the activist. Poor fellow blinded by ignorance, he could not realise God, then how could he know the secret of the name of Brahman? |
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