Bg 7.13
tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam
Bg 7.14
daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te
Bg 7.15
na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ
māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ
Translation
13. Deluded by these natures (states or things) composed of the three GUNAS (of PRAKRITI ) all the world knows Me not as Immutable and distinct from them.
14. Verily, this divine illusion of Mine, made up of GUNAS (caused by the qualities) is difficult to cross over; those who take refuge in Me, they alone cross over this illusion.
15 The evil-doers, the deluded, the lowest of men, do not seek Me; they, whose discrimination has been destroyed by their own delusions, follow the ways of the demons.
Commentary
If there be such a Divine Factor, beyond the usual cognition of the ordinary mortals, how is it that they are not in a position to understand, at least the presence, if not a complete realisation of this great Truth? This question is answered here in this verse.
DELUDED BY THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE THREE gunas, the worlds of living creatures become blind to the divine possibilities in themselves, and live totally a life of mere identification with the matter-envelopments. The post is covered by the ghost --- vision for the deluded. It is a fact that as long as the ghost is viewed, not even a portion of the post will be available for the perception of the deluded!
Similarly, identifying with the Maya-products, the Self comes to play the tragic role of the ego, and the ego, in its preoccupations with the outer-world and with its idle imaginations, finds itself incapable of knowing its own true nature. This play of hide-and-seek --- ourselves with ourselves in ourselves --- is the strange and mysterious play of the ego, creating the universal sorrow and the endless mental squalor therein.
THIS "POWER OF VEILING" IN EVERY ONE OF US IS DEFINED AND DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA:
Lord Krishna himself admits that it is not easy for any ego-centric individual to transcend this delusion in himself which is caused by "My Maya." If a doctor were to come and diagnose a disease and declare that there was no cure for it, nobody will have the faith to follow that doctor's prescription and advice carefully and cheerfully. Similarly here, if Krishna's diagnosis of the world's sorrows and problems is to be defined by the term Maya, and if the Doctor of the Universe declares that this Maya-disease is difficult to cure, nobody would faithfully follow such a sad pessimistic philosophy.
Krishna realises these defects and therefore, immediately removes any such misconception from the minds of the students of the Geeta. Sometimes a doctor will have to use strong words in describing the illness to the patient in order to bring home to the sufferer the seriousness of his malady; so too, Krishna is here only bringing home to us, by a direct merciless thrust, the seriousness of the mental tragedy into which the Supreme has seemingly fallen, to become the finite mortal ego! After declaring the seriousness of the disease and after giving the prescription, He hastens to guarantee a complete cure for this painful malady of man.
THOSE WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO ME ALONE shall cross over their subjective delusion, which has created for man the objective worlds of sorrows and imperfections. How to do this has been already explained while discussing the technique of meditation, in the last chapter. With single-pointed mind, to contemplate upon the Self is the direct path; and in order to walk this narrow-way, the mind is to be made steady and concentrated, through the processes that have already been discussed. (in Chapter VI-14).
THEN WHY ALL THOSE WHO MEDITATE UPON THEE ARE NOT EXPERIENCING THE GLORY?
The last stanza talked of those that can successfully transcend their own subjective delusion, and here, naturally, Krishna is trying to talk about the negative nature in those who cannot overcome this delusion to realise the Divine in themselves. Unless the contrast of ideas is given, the student will not be in a position to understand properly what exactly are the mind's tendencies and appetites that are the true symptoms of delusion.
LOW MEN, DELUDED AND INDULGING THEMSELVES IN EVIL ACTIONS FOLLOW THE PATH OF THE DEVIL (ASURA) AND GET DEPRIVED OF THEIR DISCRIMINATION --- We all know that the insignia of the higher evolution in man is his rational intellect, which can discriminate between the good and the bad, the high and the low, the moral and the immoral. This discriminative awareness is the subtle instrument by which individuals are rendered capable of awakening from the dream of their imperfections to their own Essential Nature of Absolute Divinity.
This faculty can function effectively only in a bosom that is unagitated by sense-impulses. The more an individual misunderstands himself to be only a mere mass of flesh, and continuously pants for self-gratification through sense indulgences, the more is he considered a sinner. Sin, in this sense, is but a devolutionary action which is not appropriate to the dignity and status of the highest evolutionary glory in man. Sin can be perpetrated only by those who have deluded themselves, believing that they are masses of flesh, with minds hungry for emotional satisfactions and intellects trying to assert and express their own ideas. Such people are here called by the Geeta, as deluded (Moodhah). The way-of-life, in such "deluded men" (Asura bhava) has been exhaustively described to us by indicating the opposite good qualities of the "perfect one" (Daivi bhava), later in the Geeta (XVI-3).
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam
Bg 7.14
daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā
mām eva ye prapadyante māyām etāṁ taranti te
Bg 7.15
na māṁ duṣkṛtino mūḍhāḥ prapadyante narādhamāḥ
māyayāpahṛta-jñānā āsuraṁ bhāvam āśritāḥ
Translation
13. Deluded by these natures (states or things) composed of the three GUNAS (of PRAKRITI ) all the world knows Me not as Immutable and distinct from them.
14. Verily, this divine illusion of Mine, made up of GUNAS (caused by the qualities) is difficult to cross over; those who take refuge in Me, they alone cross over this illusion.
15 The evil-doers, the deluded, the lowest of men, do not seek Me; they, whose discrimination has been destroyed by their own delusions, follow the ways of the demons.
Commentary
If there be such a Divine Factor, beyond the usual cognition of the ordinary mortals, how is it that they are not in a position to understand, at least the presence, if not a complete realisation of this great Truth? This question is answered here in this verse.
DELUDED BY THE MODIFICATIONS OF THE THREE gunas, the worlds of living creatures become blind to the divine possibilities in themselves, and live totally a life of mere identification with the matter-envelopments. The post is covered by the ghost --- vision for the deluded. It is a fact that as long as the ghost is viewed, not even a portion of the post will be available for the perception of the deluded!
Similarly, identifying with the Maya-products, the Self comes to play the tragic role of the ego, and the ego, in its preoccupations with the outer-world and with its idle imaginations, finds itself incapable of knowing its own true nature. This play of hide-and-seek --- ourselves with ourselves in ourselves --- is the strange and mysterious play of the ego, creating the universal sorrow and the endless mental squalor therein.
THIS "POWER OF VEILING" IN EVERY ONE OF US IS DEFINED AND DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING STANZA:
Lord Krishna himself admits that it is not easy for any ego-centric individual to transcend this delusion in himself which is caused by "My Maya." If a doctor were to come and diagnose a disease and declare that there was no cure for it, nobody will have the faith to follow that doctor's prescription and advice carefully and cheerfully. Similarly here, if Krishna's diagnosis of the world's sorrows and problems is to be defined by the term Maya, and if the Doctor of the Universe declares that this Maya-disease is difficult to cure, nobody would faithfully follow such a sad pessimistic philosophy.
Krishna realises these defects and therefore, immediately removes any such misconception from the minds of the students of the Geeta. Sometimes a doctor will have to use strong words in describing the illness to the patient in order to bring home to the sufferer the seriousness of his malady; so too, Krishna is here only bringing home to us, by a direct merciless thrust, the seriousness of the mental tragedy into which the Supreme has seemingly fallen, to become the finite mortal ego! After declaring the seriousness of the disease and after giving the prescription, He hastens to guarantee a complete cure for this painful malady of man.
THOSE WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO ME ALONE shall cross over their subjective delusion, which has created for man the objective worlds of sorrows and imperfections. How to do this has been already explained while discussing the technique of meditation, in the last chapter. With single-pointed mind, to contemplate upon the Self is the direct path; and in order to walk this narrow-way, the mind is to be made steady and concentrated, through the processes that have already been discussed. (in Chapter VI-14).
THEN WHY ALL THOSE WHO MEDITATE UPON THEE ARE NOT EXPERIENCING THE GLORY?
The last stanza talked of those that can successfully transcend their own subjective delusion, and here, naturally, Krishna is trying to talk about the negative nature in those who cannot overcome this delusion to realise the Divine in themselves. Unless the contrast of ideas is given, the student will not be in a position to understand properly what exactly are the mind's tendencies and appetites that are the true symptoms of delusion.
LOW MEN, DELUDED AND INDULGING THEMSELVES IN EVIL ACTIONS FOLLOW THE PATH OF THE DEVIL (ASURA) AND GET DEPRIVED OF THEIR DISCRIMINATION --- We all know that the insignia of the higher evolution in man is his rational intellect, which can discriminate between the good and the bad, the high and the low, the moral and the immoral. This discriminative awareness is the subtle instrument by which individuals are rendered capable of awakening from the dream of their imperfections to their own Essential Nature of Absolute Divinity.
This faculty can function effectively only in a bosom that is unagitated by sense-impulses. The more an individual misunderstands himself to be only a mere mass of flesh, and continuously pants for self-gratification through sense indulgences, the more is he considered a sinner. Sin, in this sense, is but a devolutionary action which is not appropriate to the dignity and status of the highest evolutionary glory in man. Sin can be perpetrated only by those who have deluded themselves, believing that they are masses of flesh, with minds hungry for emotional satisfactions and intellects trying to assert and express their own ideas. Such people are here called by the Geeta, as deluded (Moodhah). The way-of-life, in such "deluded men" (Asura bhava) has been exhaustively described to us by indicating the opposite good qualities of the "perfect one" (Daivi bhava), later in the Geeta (XVI-3).
Sources: vedabase.com; The Holy Geeta
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