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Chapter 15
INTRODUCTION
In response to Arjuna 's question, "Those devotees who worship Thee with attributes and those who worship the Absolute (the Imperishable and the Unmanifested)—which of them are better versed in Yoga?" The Lord declared the former to be superior to the latter. In the fifth verse, the Lord while comparing the two declared, "The difficulty of those whose thoughts are set, on the Unmanifested is greater, for the goal of the Unmanifested, is hard to reach by the embodied beings." How to overcome this difficulty of body consciousness—this topic, as well as, the description of the Absolute has been given, in the thirteenth and the fourteenth chapters.
In the twenty-first verse of the fourteenth chapter Arjuna asked, "What are the marks and conduct of him, who has transcended the three modes (gunas) and how does he transcend them?" In response to this, the Lord after discussing the marks and conduct of the person who has transcended the three modes, in verses twenty-second to the twenty-fifth, in the twenty-sixth verse He explained unadultered devotion, as the means to transcend, the three modes, for the devotees who worship God with attributes. It means, that devotee who has exclusive devotion to God (who totally depends upon Him) transcends the three modes easily. The expression 'Avyabhicarena bhalctiyogena', stands for devotion free from dependence on the world, the term 'Yah' stands for the embodied soul, while the term 'Mam stands for God. In the fifteenth chapter these very three subjects have been described in detail which are referred in brief just above.
Man (soul) being a fragment of God, is transcendental but he is bound because of his identification with, and attachment to the body (world)—the evolute of the modes. He is not liberated from these modes, so long as he does not know the glory of the Lord, the transcendental one. Therefore, the Lord, introduces the fifteenth chapter in order, to explain His glory and secret, to enable a striver to cultivate unswerving devotion.
A man (soul), is a fragment of God (Gita 15/7) and so he has his affinity, only for God. But by error, he assumes his affinity for the body, senses, mind and intellect, etc., which are evolutes of Nature, by regarding them as T, or 'mine', or for me. This is the main stumbling block, to exclusive devotion. In order to remove this stumbling block, the Lord in the first five verses of the fifteenth chapter, having described the universe as a Pipala tree, exhorts Arjuna, to cut it down with an axe of dispassion.
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