BG-2.7 — Arjuna's Surrender: "I Am Your Disciple, Instruct Me"
BG-2.7
कार्पण्यदोषोपहतस्वभावः पृच्छामि त्वां धर्मसम्मूढचेताः । यच्छ्रेयः स्यान्निश्चितं ब्रूहि तन्मे शिष्यस्तेऽहं शाधि मां त्वां प्रपन्नम् ॥७॥
"My very nature struck down by the fault of pitiable weakness, my mind confused about my duty, I ask you: tell me decisively what is good. I am your disciple — instruct me; I have taken refuge in you."
This is the hinge of the whole Bhagavad Gītā. Across BG-2.4-6 Arjuna argued — refusing to fight the elders, preferring beggary to slaughter, confessing at last that he could not even weigh which outcome was the greater evil. Here the arguing stops. For the first time he names his own collapse correctly — not as righteousness but as kārpaṇya-doṣa, a defect of nature; he confesses dharma-saṃmūḍha-cetāḥ, that he can no longer tell his own duty; and he does the one thing that changes everything: he asks, and he surrenders — śiṣyas te'ham … tvām prapannam, I am your disciple, I have taken refuge in you. Before this verse, Arjuna speaks; after it, Kṛṣṇa teaches. Jñāneśvar's nine ovis dwell on the inner shape of that surrender — the eye darkened so it cannot see the near thing, the litany of everything Kṛṣṇa is to him, and three images of a refuge that cannot turn anyone away.
Ovi 2.55
Original (Marathi): आम्हां काय उचित । तें पाहतां न स्फुरे एथ । जें मोहें येणें चित्त । व्याकुळ माझें ॥५५॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; the embedded speaker is Arjuna — माझें "mine" anchors the first person)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| आम्हां काय उचित | what is fitting / proper for us |
| तें पाहतां न स्फुरे एथ | even looking, it does not arise / spark into clarity here |
| जें मोहें येणें चित्त | because by this delusion (moha) the mind |
| व्याकुळ माझें | this mind of mine is agitated / distraught |
Literal translation
English: What is fitting for us — even when I look for it, it will not become clear to me here; for this mind of mine is agitated by delusion.
मराठी (आधुनिक): आपल्यासाठी काय योग्य आहे, ते कितीही पाहिलं तरी मला इथे सुचतच नाही; कारण या मोहानं माझं चित्त व्याकुळ होऊन गेलं आहे.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. स्फुरे ("spark/arise into clarity") is a single verb, not a sustained image; the eye-darkness image arrives at 2.56.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. This is the opening of Arjuna's surrender-speech; no esoteric frame is active.
Cross-references
- Internal: Ring-companion to 2.63 — the उचित ("what is fitting for us") that Arjuna cannot find here is the very उचित he will ask Krishna to supply at the cluster's close. The nine ovis are bracketed between losing his duty and being told it.
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — धर्मसम्मूढचेताः ("mind confused about dharma") + कार्पण्यदोषोपहतस्वभावः; न स्फुरे renders the non-discrimination, मोहें व्याकुळ the struck-down nature.
Modern application
- When every option looks equally wrong and your mind won't settle on one. Not indecision from too many good choices, but paralysis where the looking itself produces nothing — न स्फुरे, it won't even spark. The harder you stare, the blanker it gets.
- When you can tell your judgement is compromised but can't fix it from inside. Arjuna knows his चित्त is व्याकुळ — agitated — and that the agitation is the problem. The lucid awareness that you are not currently fit to decide.
- When grief or attachment (मोह) is the real thing clouding a "rational" deliberation. You frame it as weighing duty; underneath, an attachment is making the answer impossible to see. Naming the moha is the first honest move.
Sādhanā
Today, find one decision you keep "looking at" without resolution. Write a single sentence: "I cannot see this clearly right now, and here is the attachment that may be clouding it: ____." Fill the blank. Don't solve the decision — just name the moha.
Arc
2.55 confesses the deluded mind that cannot make its duty arise; 2.56 gives the image for exactly that — the eye whose light is intact but darkened, blind to the thing standing close by.
Ovi 2.56
Original (Marathi): तिमिरावरुद्ध जैसें । दृष्टीचें तेज भ्रंशे । मग पासींच असतां न दिसे । वस्तुजात ॥५६॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — the जैसें simile opens, completed at 2.57)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तिमिरावरुद्ध जैसें | as when obstructed by timira (eye-darkness / gloom-of-cataract) |
| दृष्टीचें तेज भ्रंशे | the light / power of sight fails, falls away |
| मग पासींच असतां | then, though it stands right close by |
| न दिसे वस्तुजात | the thing / the class of objects is not seen |
Literal translation
English: As when, obstructed by timira-darkness, the eye's own light fails — then, though a thing stands right beside you, it is not seen at all.
मराठी (आधुनिक): जसं तिमिरानं (दृष्टिदोषानं) अडवलं की डोळ्याचं तेज मावळतं — मग वस्तू अगदी जवळ असूनही दिसत नाही.
Sanskrit-root note
timira = ophthalmic darkness, the gloom of a cataract or failing sight (not external night). The point is precise: the object is present and the eye exists; only the seeing-power is obstructed — a disability of judgement, not of the world or the faculty.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| The eye obstructed by timira, its तेज (light of sight) fallen away | Delusion (moha) that does not destroy the mind but darkens its discriminating power | A clear-thinking person whose judgement is, right now, fogged — the faculty intact, the function disabled |
| "Though it stands close by, it is not seen" (पासींच असतां न दिसे) | The right course is present and near — the problem is not its absence but the seer's blindness to it | The obvious answer everyone else can see, that you genuinely cannot, because the obstruction is in you, not in the situation |
| वस्तुजात — the very class of things goes unseen | Not one fact missed but the whole field of duty gone dark | The way despair greys out all options at once, so nothing reads as the right one |
Metaphor-family: darkness-blinds-the-eye (the seeing-power obstructed, not the object removed). The जैसें...तैसें simile-frame spans 2.56-2.57. This is the cluster's first extended metaphor and its diagnostic centre: Arjuna's failure is not ignorance of the facts but a darkened capacity to see them.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. तिमिर here is the ordinary folk-image of failing eyesight used to figure deluded judgement; it is not the ājñā-cakra darkness or any suṣumnā-referent, and reading one in would be fabrication.
Cross-references
- Internal: Vehicle-half of the two-ovi simile completed at 2.57 (देवा तैसें मज जाहलें).
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — कार्पण्यदोषोपहतस्वभावः, amplified into the timira-eye simile; the Sanskrit names only the struck-down nature, the eye-darkness image is wholly Jñāneśvar's.
Modern application
- When the answer is obvious to everyone but you. पासींच असतां न दिसे — it is standing right there, and you cannot see it. Not because you lack the information, but because something in you is darkened. The friend who can't see the toxic relationship the whole room sees.
- When you mistake a fogged judgement for a clear one. The dangerous version: you don't feel blind, you feel certain — the timira lets through some light, just the wrong picture. Suspecting your own clarity is the beginning of sight.
- When despair greys out every option at once. Not "I can't find the one right path" but "nothing looks right" — वस्तुजात, the whole field gone dark. Depression and acute grief disable the category of good options, not just one.
Sādhanā
Today, take the decision you marked yesterday as unclear, and ask one person who is not inside it: "What's the obvious thing here that I might not be able to see?" Write down their answer without arguing. You are testing whether your eye, not the world, is dark.
Arc
2.56 builds the vehicle — the eye darkened, the near thing unseen; 2.57 lands it with तैसें: just so it has become for me, O Lord.
Ovi 2.57
Original (Marathi): देवा तैसें मज जाहलें । जें मन हें भ्रांती ग्रासिलें । आतां काय हित आपुलें । तेंही नेणें ॥५७॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — देवा "O Lord" + मज "to me" anchor the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| देवा तैसें मज जाहलें | O Lord, just so it has become for me |
| जें मन हें भ्रांती ग्रासिलें | this mind of mine — delusion (bhrānti) has devoured it |
| आतां काय हित आपुलें | now what my own benefit / good is |
| तेंही नेणें | that too I do not know |
Literal translation
English: O Lord, just so it has become for me: delusion has swallowed this mind, so that now I do not even know my own good.
मराठी (आधुनिक): देवा, माझी अवस्था अगदी तशीच झाली आहे — भ्रांतीनं हे मन गिळून टाकलं आहे; आता आपलं हित कशात आहे, तेसुद्धा मला कळत नाही.
Metaphor-unfold
No standalone extended metaphor in this ovi; it is the तैसें-application that closes the 2.56 timira-eye simile (the unfolding lives at 2.56). भ्रांती ग्रासिलें ("delusion has devoured the mind") is the application-clause, not a new image.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: Application-half completing 2.56's eye-darkness simile.
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — धर्मसम्मूढचेताः ("mind confused about dharma"); काय हित आपुलें तेंही नेणें ("I do not even know my own good") precisely sets up the यच्छ्रेयः-request — not knowing his śreyas is why he must ask.
Modern application
- When you reach the point of admitting "I don't even know what's good for me here." Not a rhetorical shrug — a genuine confession that your sense of your own interest has failed. हित नेणें. This is the floor, and oddly it is the most honest a person can be.
- When you finally address the question to someone you trust, by name. देवा — the speech turns from internal churning to you. The pivot from talking-to-yourself to actually asking another person is itself the breakthrough.
- When delusion has eaten not just your decision but your read on yourself. भ्रांती ग्रासिलें — devoured. You can't trust your own preferences right now because the thing doing the preferring is compromised. Knowing that is the first thing not-deluded about you.
Sādhanā
Today, say or write the exact sentence to one trusted person: "I don't know what's actually good for me in this — I need your read." The discipline is to ask without then immediately defending your existing view. Just ask, and listen.
Arc
2.57 confesses "I don't know my own good"; 2.58 makes the only move that follows — then YOU must know it; tell us the good one — turning the not-knowing into the request and the first naming of the refuge.
Ovi 2.58
Original (Marathi): तरी श्रीकृष्णा तुवां जाणावें । निकें तें आम्हां सांगावें । जे सखा सर्वस्व आघवें । आम्हांसि तूं ॥५८॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — श्रीकृष्णा vocative + आम्हांसि तूं "you are ours" anchor the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तरी श्रीकृष्णा तुवां जाणावें | then, O Śrīkṛṣṇa, YOU must know it |
| निकें तें आम्हां सांगावें | tell us that good / right one (the निकें) |
| जे सखा सर्वस्व आघवें | because you are the friend (sakhā), the entire everything (sarvasva) |
| आम्हांसि तूं | to us, you are |
Literal translation
English: Then, O Śrīkṛṣṇa, you must know it — tell us what is good; for you are our friend, our entire everything.
मराठी (आधुनिक): तर श्रीकृष्णा, ते तुलाच ठाऊक असायला हवं — जे हितकारक आहे ते आम्हांला सांग; कारण तूच आमचा सखा, आमचं संपूर्ण सर्वस्व आहेस.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. सखा सर्वस्व ("friend, everything") is the first beat of the relation-litany that 2.59 itemises, stated directly rather than imaged.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: Opens the surrender-litany completed at 2.59 (तूं गुरु बंधु पिता…) and grounded by the non-abandonment similes of 2.60-2.61.
- Tukaram parallel: (none asserted — the सर्वस्व-to-the-Lord exclusivity is near to many abhangs, but no specific abhang was verified on-disk for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — निश्चितं ब्रूहि तन्मे ("tell me that, decisively") + the प्रपन्नम् refuge-frame; निकें तें सांगावें renders the यच्छ्रेयः…ब्रूहि request, सर्वस्व तूं begins the surrender.
Modern application
- When "you must know" is an act of trust, not a demand. तुवां जाणावें — you know it — places the answer in another's competence precisely because your own has failed. Asked rightly, it is the humility of the disciple, not the entitlement of the helpless.
- When you tell someone they are your "everything" and mean the weight of it. सर्वस्व आघवें — the entire everything. The relationships where one person has, rightly or dangerously, become the whole center. The verse will spend two more ovis testing whether such a center can be trusted to hold.
- When asking for guidance, you first re-establish why you trust this guide. Arjuna doesn't just ask — he says because you are my friend, my all. Naming the basis of the trust is part of asking well.
Sādhanā
Today, before asking someone important for real guidance, first tell them — in one sentence — why you are bringing this to them specifically: "I'm asking you because ____." Make the basis of your trust explicit, to them and to yourself.
Arc
2.58 names the first relation (friend, everything); 2.59 unfolds it into the five-fold litany — guru, brother, father, chosen-deity, ever-protector.
Ovi 2.59
Original (Marathi): तूं गुरु बंधु पिता । तूं आमुची इष्ट देवता । तूंचि सदा रक्षिता । आपदीं आमुतें ॥५९॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — तूं…आमुची "you…ours" anchors the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तूं गुरु बंधु पिता | you are guru, brother (bandhu), father (pitā) |
| तूं आमुची इष्ट देवता | you are our chosen / cherished deity (iṣṭa-devatā) |
| तूंचि सदा रक्षिता | you alone are always the protector (rakṣitā) |
| आपदीं आमुतें | of us, in calamity / distress (āpad) |
Literal translation
English: You are guru, brother, father; you are our cherished deity; you alone are forever our protector in every calamity.
मराठी (आधुनिक): तूच गुरु, तूच बंधू, तूच पिता; तूच आमची इष्ट देवता; आणि संकटात आमचा सदैव रक्षणकर्ता तूच एक आहेस.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. This is a relation-litany (five named relations), enumeration rather than a sustained simile — honestly distinguished from the extended metaphors that follow at 2.60-2.61.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. गुरु here is the relational guru of the surrender-speech (Kṛṣṇa as Arjuna's teacher), not a Nāth-lineage guru-tattva or initiatory referent.
Cross-references
- Internal: Itemises the सर्वस्व of 2.58; the गुरु named here is developed into the guru-non-abandonment simile of 2.60.
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation:
- Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — शिष्यस्तेऽहं + त्वां प्रपन्नम्, amplified into the five-fold relation litany; रक्षिता आपदीं anticipates the शाधि-मां "rule/protect me."
- Bhagavad Gītā 11.44 — पितेव पुत्रस्य सखेव सख्युः प्रियः प्रियायार्हसि देव सोढुम् ("as a father to a son, a friend to a friend, a lover to the beloved, you should bear with me"): the same relational-litany for Kṛṣṇa (father/friend) that 2.59 deploys (guru/brother/father), a thematic-echo foreshadowing the viśva-rūpa address.
Modern application
- When one person genuinely occupies several roles for you at once. Guru and brother and father and protector — the mentor who is also family, the friend who is also your steadying anchor in crisis. The verse honors that such concentration is real; it does not yet warn against it, because here the object is the Lord.
- When you reach for "you're the only one who's always been there in trouble." सदा रक्षिता आपदीं — the protector in calamity. The relationship defined by who showed up when it was bad. True, and worth naming aloud to the person.
- When surrender is built on a relationship, not on rules. Arjuna can surrender his judgement because of who Kṛṣṇa is to him — five relations deep. Trust that lets you be instructed is relational before it is rational.
Sādhanā
Today, think of one person who has, over years, quietly become several things to you at once — and tell them one of those roles they may not know they hold: "You've been a kind of ____ to me." Say the role out loud.
Arc
2.59 names the guru-relation flatly; 2.60 develops it into the cluster's second extended metaphor — the guru who never knows how to spurn a disciple, paired with the sea that never rejects the rivers.
Ovi 2.60
Original (Marathi): जैसा शिष्यांतें गुरु । सर्वथा नेणें अव्हेरु । कीं सरितांतें सागरु । त्यजीं केवी ॥६०॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — the जैसा similes argue the refuge he is claiming)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| जैसा शिष्यांतें गुरु | as a guru toward his disciples |
| सर्वथा नेणें अव्हेरु | in no way knows (how to do) spurning / rejection (avhera) |
| कीं सरितांतें सागरु | or, as the ocean toward the rivers |
| त्यजीं केवी | how would it ever forsake (them)? |
Literal translation
English: As a guru simply does not know how to spurn his disciples — or as the ocean, how would it ever forsake the rivers? —
मराठी (आधुनिक): जसा गुरु आपल्या शिष्यांना कधीच नाकारत नाही — किंवा सागर नद्यांना कसा बरं सोडून देईल? —
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| The true guru who सर्वथा नेणें अव्हेरु — does not even know how to reject a disciple | The Lord's constitutional incapacity to turn away one who has surrendered; non-abandonment as part of his nature, not his choice | The mentor/parent for whom abandoning the one who came to them is not a hard choice resisted but a thing they cannot do at all |
| The ocean that could never forsake the rivers running into it (सरितांतें सागरु त्यजीं केवी) | The all-receiving ground that cannot reject what flows to it — refuge as a structural fact of the receiver | The whole that absorbs every tributary; you cannot be "too much" or "wrong" for something whose nature is to receive all |
Metaphor-family: non-abandonment — here split across two vehicles, guru-cannot-spurn and sea-receives-rivers (ocean-and-rivers family). These two, plus the mother-child image of 2.61, form a deliberate three-vehicle triad arguing one point: the refuge Arjuna is taking cannot reject him. The सरितांतें सागरु sea-receives-all-streams image recurs across the Dnyāneśvarī as a figure for the One that absorbs the many.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The guru here is the relational/teaching guru of the simile; no cakra, suṣumnā, or initiatory esotericism is invoked.
Cross-references
- Internal: Parallel-image to 2.61 — the mother-child non-abandonment vehicle that नातरी ("or else") chains as the third instance of the same motif.
- Tukaram parallel: (none asserted — the sea-receives-rivers and guru-non-abandonment images are common Vārkarī figures, but no specific abhang was verified on-disk for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — शिष्यस्तेऽहं ("I am your disciple"), amplified into the guru-cannot-spurn + sea-cannot-reject similes; both vehicles are wholly Jñāneśvar's, supplying the non-abandonment that makes surrender safe.
Modern application
- When you hesitate to ask for help because you fear being turned away. The verse's whole reassurance: a true refuge cannot spurn you — सर्वथा नेणें अव्हेरु, it doesn't even know how. The fear of rejection often outruns the actual nature of the person you'd be asking.
- When you worry you are "too much" for someone who has offered support. सरितांतें सागरु त्यजीं केवी — how would the ocean reject a river? Some grounds genuinely cannot be overwhelmed by what you bring to them. Test whether yours is one before assuming it isn't.
- When you confuse a person's capacity to abandon you with their nature. The point is constitutional: for the right guide, abandonment isn't a restrained option, it's an impossibility. Recognising who is actually like that — and who only seems it — is the discernment surrender requires.
Sādhanā
Today, name one source of help you've been avoiding because you fear rejection or being "too much." Ask yourself honestly: is this person a sea that cannot reject rivers, or am I projecting? If they are, send the message you've been holding back.
Arc
2.60 gives two non-abandonment vehicles (guru-cannot-spurn, sea-cannot-reject); 2.61 supplies the third and most absolute — the mother whose abandonment the child could not even survive.
Ovi 2.61
Original (Marathi): नातरी अपत्यांतें माये । सांडूनि जरी जाये । तरी तें कैसेंनि जिये । ऐकें कृष्णा ॥६१॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — ऐकें कृष्णा "listen, O Krishna" anchors the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| नातरी अपत्यांतें माये | or else, the mother toward her infant / offspring (apatya) |
| सांडूनि जरी जाये | if she were to abandon (it) and go away |
| तरी तें कैसेंनि जिये | then how would it live / survive at all? |
| ऐकें कृष्णा | listen, O Krishna |
Literal translation
English: Or else — if a mother were to forsake her infant and go, how could it possibly live? Listen, O Kṛṣṇa.
मराठी (आधुनिक): किंवा आई जर आपल्या तान्ह्या बाळाला सोडून निघून गेली, तर ते बाळ जगेल तरी कसं? ऐक रे कृष्णा.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| The mother who, if she abandoned her infant, would leave it unable to live (कैसेंनि जिये) | The disciple's total dependence: abandonment is not merely cruel, it is fatal — the surrendered one has no independent means of survival | The dependence so complete that being dropped isn't a setback but an end — the patient, the infant, the one with no other recourse |
| The shift from "she would not" (2.60: the guru wouldn't want to) to "the child could not survive if she did" (2.61) | The ground of refuge moves from the Lord's disinclination to spurn to the devotee's inability to exist if spurned | The argument escalating from "they wouldn't leave you" to "you literally couldn't make it if they did" — surrender as acknowledged life-and-death dependence |
Metaphor-family: non-abandonment (mother-and-child). The third and most absolute vehicle of the triad begun at 2.60. Where the guru and sea images say the refuge will not reject you, the mother-child image says you could not live if it did — completing the case by grounding it in the surrenderer's helplessness rather than the refuge's kindness.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The mother-child image is bhakti/relational imagery of dependence, not a kuṇḍalinī-as-mother or cakra referent.
Cross-references
- Internal: Third member of the non-abandonment triad begun at 2.60 (guru, sea, now mother); all three are landed on Krishna by the तैसा of 2.62.
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — त्वां प्रपन्नम् ("refuge taken in you"), amplified into the mother-child simile; the vehicle grounds the surrender in the surrenderer's helplessness — abandonment is not refused, it is unsurvivable.
Modern application
- When you finally admit a dependence you've been minimizing. Not "it would hurt if they left" but "I genuinely could not manage if they did" — कैसेंनि जिये, how would I even live. The honesty of naming a dependence at its real depth, without dressing it as preference.
- When you are the one others cannot survive being abandoned by. The mother in the image. The parent, the caregiver, the keystone person — recognizing that for someone, your staying is not kindness but their survival. The weight of being depended on absolutely.
- When surrender means accepting helplessness, not performing strength. Arjuna's surrender is not noble resignation; it is the admission of an infant's dependence. The most mature move here is the least self-sufficient one.
Sādhanā
Today, name one dependence in your life you've been calling a "preference." Say the truer sentence to yourself once: "I am not just choosing this support — I would not be okay without it right now." Sit with the honesty for one minute without rushing to fix it.
Arc
2.61 completes the three-vehicle non-abandonment triad; 2.62 lands all three on Krishna — just so, in every way, you alone are everything to us.
Ovi 2.62
Original (Marathi): तैसा सर्वांपरी आम्हांसी । देवा तूंचि एक आहासी । आणि बोलिलें जरी न मानिसी । मागील माझें ॥६२॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — देवा + तूंचि एक "you alone are the one" anchor the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तैसा सर्वांपरी आम्हांसी | just so, in every way, to us |
| देवा तूंचि एक आहासी | O Lord, you alone are the one (everything) |
| आणि बोलिलें जरी न मानिसी | and if you do not honor / accept what was spoken |
| मागील माझें | my earlier words / my previous (plea) |
Literal translation
English: Just so, in every respect, O Lord, you alone are the one for us. And even if you will not honor what I said before —
मराठी (आधुनिक): अगदी तसाच, सर्व बाजूंनी, देवा, तूच एक आमचं सर्वस्व आहेस. आणि माझं आधीचं बोलणं जरी तू मानणार नसलास —
Metaphor-unfold
No standalone extended metaphor in this ovi; it is the तैसा-application landing the three similes of 2.60-2.61 onto Krishna (the unfolding lives there). तूंचि एक is direct statement, not image.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: Application-clause closing the 2.60-2.61 non-abandonment triad; the conditional मागील माझें ("my earlier words") chains into the final request of 2.63.
- Tukaram parallel: (none asserted — the तूंचि एक prapatti-exclusivity is thematically near to many abhangs but none was verified on-disk for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — त्वां प्रपन्नम् ("you, in whom I have taken refuge"); तूंचि एक ("you alone, the one") is the precise prapatti-exclusivity.
Modern application
- When you complete a long appeal by collapsing it to one trust. After the litany and the images, it reduces to तूंचि एक — you, alone, are the one. The moment an elaborate case for trust simplifies into a single clause.
- When you surrender even the outcome of being heard. आणि बोलिलें जरी न मानिसी — even if you don't honor what I said. Real surrender includes releasing the demand that your plea be answered your way. You ask, and you let go of controlling the response.
- When "you alone" is said with full knowledge of its risk. The pativrata-like exclusivity of 2.58-2.59 here becomes तूंचि एक — and the whole Gītā's lesson is that this exclusivity is sacred toward the Lord precisely because he can bear it. Said to the divine it liberates; said to a human ego it crushes.
Sādhanā
Today, take one request you've made (or are about to make) of someone you trust, and add silently the surrender-clause: "…and even if the answer isn't what I want, I will still trust the asking was right." Notice how releasing the outcome changes the asking.
Arc
2.62 restates the total surrender and opens the conditional "if you don't honor what I said"; 2.63 completes it with the actual request — then tell me, now, what is right and does not stray from dharma.
Ovi 2.63
Original (Marathi): तरी उचित काय आम्हां । जें व्यभिचरेना धर्मा । तें झडकरी पुरुषोत्तमा । सांगें आतां ॥६३॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna (chariot-frame; Arjuna speaking — पुरुषोत्तमा vocative + सांगें "tell" anchor the address)
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| तरी उचित काय आम्हां | then, what is fitting / right for us |
| जें व्यभिचरेना धर्मा | that which does not stray from / violate dharma (vyabhicāra) |
| तें झडकरी पुरुषोत्तमा | that, quickly, O Puruṣottama (Supreme Person) |
| सांगें आतां | tell now |
Literal translation
English: —then tell me now, quickly, O Puruṣottama: what is right for us, that does not stray from dharma?
मराठी (आधुनिक): तर मग, आमच्यासाठी काय योग्य आहे — जे धर्माला सोडून जाणार नाही — ते लवकर सांग, हे पुरुषोत्तमा, आत्ताच.
Sanskrit-root note
vyabhicāra (व्यभिचरेना = "does not vyabhicarate") = vi + abhi + √car, "to go astray, deviate, be unfaithful" — the same root used for an unfaithful spouse; here, of a course that "strays from" dharma. Arjuna asks not merely for the good but for the good that stays faithful to dharma — qualifying the śreyas as dharma-consonant.
Metaphor-unfold
No extended metaphor in this ovi. व्यभिचरेना ("does not stray") carries a faint dead-metaphor of faithfulness but functions here as a plain qualifier of धर्म, not a sustained image.
Nāth-yogic layer
No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi.
Cross-references
- Internal: Ring-companion to 2.55 — the उचित ("what is fitting for us") that opened the cluster as the thing Arjuna could not see (न स्फुरे) is here the thing he asks Krishna to supply. The nine ovis run from "I cannot find my duty" to "you tell me my duty."
- Tukaram parallel: (none confidently identified for this ovi)
- Source citation: Bhagavad Gītā 2.7 — यच्छ्रेयः स्यान्निश्चितं ब्रूहि तन्मे ("what may be the decisive good, tell that to me"); उचित जें व्यभिचरेना धर्मा qualifies the श्रेयस् as dharma-faithful, झडकरी सांगें renders ब्रूहि with the urgency of निश्चितम्.
Modern application
- When you finally ask the clean, answerable question. After all the anguish, it lands as one request: what is the right thing here that doesn't betray what I stand for? The whole storm resolving into a single, askable sentence.
- When you want the good, but not at the cost of your integrity. जें व्यभिचरेना धर्मा — that does not stray from dharma. Not "what works" or "what wins" but "what is right and keeps faith with my values." The qualifier that separates counsel from mere strategy.
- When urgency and surrender finally coexist. झडकरी…आतां — quickly, now. Arjuna has surrendered the answer but not the need; the asking is still urgent. Surrender is not passivity; it is active, pressing, dependent asking.
Sādhanā
Today, take the unresolved decision you've carried through this cluster and write it as one clean question, with the integrity-clause built in: "What is the right thing to do here that I won't have to betray my values to do?" Then take it to your trusted person and ask it exactly as written.
Arc
2.63 closes the cluster by ring-completing 2.55's उचित Arjuna could not see — the surrender is now total and the question is finally clean; the next śloka (BG-2.8) is Arjuna's confession that he sees nothing that could remove his grief, deepening the helplessness that Kṛṣṇa's teaching (beginning BG-2.11) must answer.
Cluster summary
Core teaching: BG-2.7 is the structural hinge of the entire Bhagavad Gītā — the verse in which Arjuna stops declaring and starts asking. He names his collapse correctly at last (kārpaṇya-doṣa, a defect of nature, not righteousness), confesses that he can no longer tell his own duty (dharma-saṃmūḍha-cetāḥ), demands the decisively-good (yac chreyaḥ … niścitam), and formally surrenders: śiṣyas te'ham … tvām prapannam — I am your disciple, I have taken refuge in you. Jñāneśvar's nine ovis dwell on the inner architecture of that surrender: the eclipse-blinded eye that cannot see the thing standing close by (2.56-2.57), the five-fold litany of everything Kṛṣṇa is to Arjuna — guru, brother, father, deity, protector (2.58-2.59), and a three-vehicle non-abandonment triad — the guru who cannot spurn a disciple, the sea that cannot reject the rivers, the mother whose child could not survive abandonment (2.60-2.61) — establishing the unconditional refuge that surrender presupposes. The cluster runs as a ring: it opens with the उचित (duty) Arjuna cannot see and closes by asking Kṛṣṇa to supply it.
Chapter arc position: This is the pivot of adhyāya 2 (Sānkhya-yoga) and of the Gītā as a whole — the last movement of Arjuna's own voice (BG-2.4-7) before Kṛṣṇa's teaching begins. BG-2.4-6 hardened his chapter-1 collapse into despair-arguments and the epistemic floor giving way; BG-2.7 converts that not-knowing into surrender and a request for instruction. Everything before this verse is Arjuna arguing; everything after — beginning at BG-2.11 (aśocyān anvaśocas tvam) — is Kṛṣṇa teaching.
Connects to BG-2.8: न हि प्रपश्यामि ममापनुद्याद् — यच्छोकमुच्छोषणमिन्द्रियाणाम् — Arjuna continues the same speech: having surrendered and asked for the decisive good, he now confesses that he sees nothing — not unrivalled earthly sovereignty, not lordship over the gods — that could remove the grief drying up his senses. The non-abandonment Arjuna leaned on in 2.60-2.61 was the refuge's side of the surrender; BG-2.8 deepens the surrenderer's side, the bottomless helplessness that makes the prapatti of 2.7 total and that Kṛṣṇa's teaching must finally answer.