Gyaneshwari -Sant Gyaneshwar
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Chapter-13
The field and the knower of the field
5. The (five) gross elements, egoism, intellect and the unmanifest, the ten senses and the one (mind) and the five objects of senses, 6. Desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, the aggregate, intelligence, firmness, this is the Field as briefly described together with its modifications. Five gross elements, egoism, intellect, prakriti, ten sense organs and the eleventh mind, ten sense-objects, pleasure and pain desire and hatred, the psychic organism, intelligence and steadiness, these thirty-six principles constitute the Field. Now I shall tell you, one by one what the gross elements, senses and sense-objects are (71-75). It is mentioned that the gross elements are the Earth, the Water, the Fire, the Wind and the Sky. Just as one does not see a dream in the wakeful state, or the moon on the New Moon day, the youth in a child, or fragrance in a bud, in short, O Arjuna, just as fire is hidden in firewood, so egoism is latent in the womb of prakriti. Just as the fever seated in the bones only waits for the faulty diet and then makes itself felt all over the body (76-80), so egoism makes the body dance as soon as the gross elements combine to form a body. This egoism has an unusual feature, namely that it does not affect the ignorant, but seizes the wise man by the neck and makes things difficult for him. Now I shall tell you the characteristics by which you can recognise the intellect, so said the prince of the Yadavas. When the desire grows strong and the senses conquer their objects and offer the booty of pleasure and pain to a person, intellect decides what is the proportion of pleasure and pain in the thing so presented (81-85). It distinguishes between pleasure and pain, merit and sin, the pure and the impure. Thus a living being comes to know what is lofty and low, big and small and examines the sense-objects. So, that which is the source of knowledge and is the advanced state of sattva quality and which is on the borderline of the Self and its embodied form, that, O Arjuna, is the intellect. |
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