Gyaneshwari -Sant Gyaneshwar
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Chapter-18
Release
Therefore, O Arjuna, all actions commence from knowledge, the knowable object and the knower (481-485). If this object of knowledge is by chance agreeable to the doer, he cannot brook even a moment’s delay in its enjoyment. If, on the other hand, the same object is not to his liking, each moment of delay in abandoning it, seems to him as long as an epoch. The same object creates joy or fear in one’s heart according as it appears to him, as a necklace or a serpent. Similar is the state of the knower, when he sees an agreeable or disagreeable object and he starts action to secure it or to abandon it. A warrior, at the sight of an adversary worthy of him, becomes full of ardour and dismounts from the chariot to meet him in combat (486-490). In the same way the knower becomes the agent. Just as one used to eat a ready meal should have to start to cook, or the bee should have to begin to make a garden, or the touchstone should itself become the tester or the deity itself should have to build its own temple, so the knower, longing for the sense-object, makes his senses toil hard to get it and becomes the doer. When the knower becomes the doer, then the knowledge becomes his instrument of action and the object of knowledge becomes naturally the action itself. O wise Arjuna, thus a change takes place in the original nature of the knower. Just as the sight becomes dim at night (491-495) or the luxuries of the rich diminish with bad luck or the moon goes on waning after the night of full moon, so when his senses become active, he becomes wrapped up in the pride of a doer. I shall tell you now his characteristics, please listen. Intellect, the mind, the seat of memory and egoism are the four states of the internal organ, and skin, ears, eyes, the tongue and the nose are the five external organs. With the aid of the internal organs, the agent makes an appraisal of what work he should undertake. If he thinks that a particular action will bring him happiness (496-500), then he makes all the ten sense-organs work hard, until the action bears fruit. |
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