Gyaneshwari -Sant Gyaneshwar
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Chapter-9
The Esoteric Knowledge
17. The knowers of the three Vedas, who by drinking soma are purified of sins, worship Me with sacrifices and pray for heaven. Reaching the holy world of the king of Gods (Indra), they enjoy in heaven all celestial pleasures. O Arjuna, the Vedic scholars worship Me with sacrifices according to their stage of life and provide the standard of performing them. The Vedas nod with approval at the sacrificial rites performed by them; and the fruit of such rites presents itself before them. Such sacrificers who drink soma become themselves sacrifice incarnate; but know that they have accumulated sin, falsely known as merit. Because, after studying the three Vedas and performing hundreds of sacrifices, they prefer heaven to Me, who am the goal of such sacrifices (306-310). This is like the unlucky person who sits under a wish-fulfilling tree and, knotting his cloth into a wallet, goes out begging in penury. If after offering Me hundred sacrifices they long for heaven, how can you call it merit? It is sin and nothing else. To attain heaven without Me is the meritorious path for the ignorant. The wise, however, regard it as an impediment, leading to a fall. Heavenly life, no doubt, is reckoned as full of happiness, when compared with life in hell, but everlasting and faultless bliss ensues only from Me. On the way to My abode, O great warrior, there are two by-paths of waylayers which lead to heaven and hell (311-315). One leads to heaven through sin mixed with merit and the other leads to hell through unmixed sin. But pure merit alone brings the embodied Self to Me. How is it that the tongue does not fall, which praises any action as meritorious even when it leads men astray from My Divine nature, though they are rooted in it? |
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