Cluster 0163

BG-4.23

Ovi 4.115

Original (Marathi): तो देहसंगें तरी असे । परी चैतन्यासारिखा दिसे । पाहतां परब्रह्माचेनि कसें । चोखाळु भला ॥११५॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna

Voice-anchor: Continuation from cluster 0162's closing 4.114 (म्हणौनि सर्वांपरी मुक्तु । तो सकर्मुचि कर्मरहितु । सगुण परि गुणातीतु । एथ भ्रांति नाहीं — therefore, in-every-way liberated, that-one karma-engaged-yet-karma-free, with-guṇas-yet-beyond-guṇas, here-is-no-confusion). The opening तो (he, that-one) directly references the 4.114 subject — the in-every-way-liberated one. Kṛṣṇa-discourse continues without break. No framing-phrase, no register-shift, no Arjuna-vocative re-emerging because none has yet receded.

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
तो	he, that-one
देहसंगें	with-body-association / by-body-sanga
तरी	yet, still
असे	exists / is
परी	but, yet, however
चैतन्यासारिखा	like caitanya itself / resembling-pure-consciousness
दिसे	appears, is-seen-as
पाहतां	when-examined / on-examination
परब्रह्माचेनि	by-para-brahman's / with-para-brahman's
कसें	touchstone (kaṣa — the jeweler's stone for testing gold)
चोखाळु	pure / unalloyed / without-blemish
भला	good / fine / proper

Literal translation

English: He exists yet in body-sanga, but appears like caitanya itself; when examined on para-brahman's touchstone, he is pure / unalloyed gold, fine.

मराठी (आधुनिक): तो देहाशी संगत असला तरी (देह आहे तरी) चैतन्यासारखाच दिसतो; परब्रह्माच्या कसोटीच्या दगडावर पाहिले तर तो पूर्णपणे शुद्ध (अमिश्र, चोखट) सोन्यासारखा भासतो.

Sanskrit-root etymology note: कसें (kaṣa) — Marathi-Sanskrit cognate for the touchstone used by goldsmiths to test the purity of gold by streaking. The Sanskrit root कष् (to-rub, to-test) gives both Marathi कस (test, criterion) and the technical assay-vocabulary. चोखाळु (Marathi-vernacular) — pure / unalloyed, the same root as the modern Marathi चोख (exact, pure). Together: the para-brahman-touchstone-test reveals the jñāni's pure-gold purity.

Metaphor-unfold

Literal image	Philosophical referent	Modern equivalent
The goldsmith's touchstone (kaṣa) on which gold is rubbed to test its purity by the streak left behind	The criterion of para-brahman against which the jīvanmukta's substance is verified	A laboratory's mass-spectrometry test or a forensic-purity assay applied to an unknown sample to reveal its essential composition
The pure / unalloyed gold (`चोखाळु भला`) that the touchstone reveals	The pure caitanya-substance of the jñāni, unmixed with body-deha-sanga-impurities	A sample that registers as 99.99%-pure under spectrographic analysis
The body-sanga (`देहसंगें तरी असे`) that remains visible	The empirical body of the jīvanmukta which still appears in the world	A pure-gold ingot still wrapped in the dirt-cloth it was found in — the wrapping is irrelevant to the assay

Metaphor-family: touchstone-testing-gold-kasa. The assay-register (kaṣa, choḳhāḷ, niṣkalanka) is one of Jñāneśvar's verification-vocabularies for jīvanmukti — alongside the witness register (sākṣī), the sky register (gagana-vat), and the mirror register (darpaṇa-vat). The kaṣa-test image is the empirical-verification form: the jñāni's purity can be tested by an external assay, not merely asserted by introspection.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The touchstone-test image is craftsman-vocabulary, not tantric-cakra-vocabulary; the देहसंगें तरी असे । परी चैतन्यासारिखा दिसे formulation is standard Vedānta jīvanmukti-doctrine without Nātha-tantric specialization.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 4.102 (cluster 0159 — विश्व जाहला । आंगेंचि तो cosmic-expansion form of the embodied non-dual identification). 4.115 returns to the embodied-state at the chapter's karma-dissolution moment with the testing-form: para-brahman's touchstone verifies the gold as pure. The 4.102 expansion-form and the 4.115 testing-form are two presentations of the same embodied non-dual state.
Tukaram parallel: Tukaram 2937 (project_tukaram_deha_atita_2937.md) — when-we-died-gave-deha-to-Deva; Deva-speaks-through-me — is the vārkarī-bhajan operationalization of 4.115's deha-sangēm-yet-caitanya-resembling paradox. Both texts hold the same structure: the body remains visible, yet the bearer-of-the-body has migrated to the other side of the body/non-body distinction. The Jñāneśvar touchstone-image and the Tukaram deha-given-to-Deva image deliver the same end-state by different vocabularies.
Source citation:
Bhagavad Gītā 4.23 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit गतसङ्गस्य मुक्तस्य ज्ञानावस्थितचेतसः collapses into the Marathi two-move unfolding: (1) the apparent-paradox (deha-sanga still, yet caitanya-appearance) carries gata-sanga + jñāna-avasthita-cetas; (2) the touchstone-test on para-brahma's kaṣa establishing the pure-gold reading carries muktasya. The interpretive amplification is the कसें image — making the abstract Sanskrit honorific empirically-verifiable.

Modern application

The long-time hospice nurse who has done thirty years of the work and whose body still attends shifts, still washes, still administers morphine, still sits with the dying — and to anyone watching, she is exactly a hospice nurse, body-and-all. Yet on the kaṣa-test of para-brahman (apply the criterion: where is the doer here?), the streak reveals pure-gold: the doer-self that used to come home exhausted with the day's weight has dissolved; what walks the ward now is caitanya in body-clothing. The body-sanga remains; the substance reads as pure.
The former addict, fifteen years sober, whose body still navigates the world that used to consume him — the same neighborhoods, the same triggers, the same craving-shaped neural-patterns persisting in the deha — but examined on the para-brahman touchstone of who survived this, the streak reads pure: the addict-self has dissolved, the body-sanga remains because the body kept walking. The kaṣa-test does not require the body to disappear; it requires the substance to be readable as caitanya through the body-wrapping.
The senior monk who, after forty years in the cloister, has stopped appearing monastic in the externally-recognizable ways — robe slightly disheveled, schedule loose, no obvious renunciate-affect. The kaṣa-test of para-brahman does not look at the externals (देहसंगें तरी असे); it looks at the substance (चैतन्यासारिखा दिसे). On that test, the monk reads as pure-gold; on the externals, he is indistinguishable from any householder.

Sādhanā

For 5 minutes today, sit with this question in journaling: if a para-brahman touchstone were applied to my present-moment substance, what would the streak reveal? — not as a self-judgment but as a craftsman's-assay. Where do I read as pure? Where is there alloy? The point of the question is not to find purity but to recognize that the touchstone-test is the right test — not the body-sanga test, not the role-test, not the externals-test.

Arc

4.115 establishes the embodied-jīvanmukti's substance-purity verification; 4.116 will name the mode in which such a one nonetheless performs yajña-actions (kautuka — play) and the result (dissolution into the same ground).

Ovi 4.116

Original (Marathi): ऐसाहि परी कौतुकें । जरी कर्में करी यज्ञादिकें । तरी तियें लया जाती निःशेखें । तयाच्याचि ठायीं ॥११६॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna

Voice-anchor: Continuation of the 4.115 description of the same तो (that-one). Opening ऐसाहि परी (even-so, however) is a within-discourse transition-particle, not a register-shift. Kṛṣṇa-discourse continues. तयाच्याचि ठायीं (in-HIS-own-place) carries the third-person-descriptive of Kṛṣṇa-to-Arjuna about the jñāni.

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
ऐसाहि परी	even-so, however / nevertheless, but
कौतुकें	by-kautuka / playfully, sportively, wonderingly
जरी	if, even-if
कर्में	karmas, actions
करी	performs / does
यज्ञादिकें	yajña-and-such-like (the prescribed-rituals beginning with yajña)
तरी	then, yet
तियें	those (the karmas)
लया जाती	go to laya / undergo dissolution
निःशेखें	entirely / without-remainder (niḥśeṣa)
तयाच्याचि	his own / that-same-one's (the doer's)
ठायीं	in-the-place / in-the-ground

Literal translation

English: Yet even so, if by play (kautuka) he performs karmas such as yajña-and-such, those go to dissolution without remainder — into his-own-very-ground.

मराठी (आधुनिक): तरी सुद्धा जर तो खेळासारखे (कौतुकाने) यज्ञादी कर्मे करत असला तरी ती कर्मे संपूर्णपणे लयाला जातात — आणि ती त्याच्याच मूळ ठिकाणी जाऊन मिळतात.

Sanskrit-root etymology note: कौतुकें (kautuka) — Sanskrit-derived for play / wonder / sportive-engagement, the same root that informs the Gītā's līlā-vocabulary. The Marathi adds the Sanskrit-absent qualifier that the jñāni's yajña is play not duty. निःशेखें (niḥśeṣa) — without-remainder, the Sanskrit BG-4.23 समग्रं (entirely) rendered in vernacular Marathi. तयाच्याचि ठायीं — load-bearing interpretive move: pravilīyate read as homecoming-into-the-same-ground from which the actor has emerged as jñāna-established.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi. The ovi is a doctrinal-statement that names the mode (kautuka) and the result (niḥśeṣa-laya into tayāchyāchi-ṭhāyīm) of the jñāni's-yajña-action. The illustrative metaphor comes in 4.117 (out-of-season clouds).

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The kautuka-and-laya formulation is standard Vedānta jñāna-yoga-bhakti vocabulary; no specifically-tantric register.

Cross-references

Internal: developed-further from 3.81 (cluster 0107 — स्वर्धमु जो बापा । तोचि नित्ययज्ञु जाण पां, the karma-yoga-arc position-3 yajña seam-statement). 4.116's कौतुकें । जरी कर्में करी यज्ञादिकें । तरी तियें लया जाती निःशेखें is the chapter-4 terminal-form of the same yajña-doctrine: the yajña-action that started as svadharma-identity (3.81) now reaches its final state — performed as play, dissolving entirely into the same ground. Position-3 (yajña) → position-4 (jnana-yoga-emergence) consummation.
Tukaram parallel: Tukaram 2922 (project_tukaram_karma_became_narayana_2922.md) — samchita-prārabdha-kriyamāṇa all-became-Nārāyaṇa; Hari-plays-within-us — is the vārkarī formulation of 4.116's kautuka and tayāchyāchi-ṭhāyīm dissolution. Both texts treat the actions of the jñāna-established as play and as returning-to-the-same-ground. The chapter-4 doctrine and the Tukaram all-karma-became-Nārāyaṇa abhang share the structural move: dissolution-into-the-source, not annihilation.
Source citation:
Bhagavad Gītā 4.23 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit यज्ञायाचरतः कर्म समग्रं प्रविलीयते ⇒ Marathi कौतुकें । जरी कर्में करी यज्ञादिकें । तरी तियें लया जाती निःशेखें । तयाच्याचि ठायीं. Two interpretive moves: (1) कौतुकें adds the play-quality absent from the Sanskrit; (2) तयाच्याचि ठायीं reads pravilīyate as homecoming-into-source not annihilation.

Modern application

The retired surgeon who still does pro-bono operations one day a month — not because she has to, not because the credentialing requires it, not because she's tracking patient-count for any record. The cutting and suturing happens with the same precision as her career-decades; on the inside, it is play. The action arrives, the action is done, the action returns to the ground from which her substance has settled — तयाच्याचि ठायीं. The result is not credit. The result is dissolution into the same place she lives from.
The long-married spouse whose anniversary-rituals — the dinner, the gift, the card, the call to the children — are now twenty years post-duty, twenty years into play. The action-form remains identical to year three's effortful do-this-because-the-relationship-needs-it; the substance has changed. Each ritual-act is performed and dissolves without remainder into the same ground the spouse herself rests in.
The grandparent who runs the eight-year-old's birthday party with the same logistical-care he once ran a department. The cake, the games, the favor-bags, the parent-pickup-coordination — these are kautuka-yajña, performed in play. They go to laya. They land in the same ground his retirement has settled into. None of it accrues; all of it returns home.

Sādhanā

Today, pick one action you are about to perform out of long-established duty (the morning email-triage, the weekly grocery-run, the family-call). Before doing it, set the bhāva: this is kautuka, this is play; whatever this generates will return to its source by evening. Then perform it with exactly the same care you would have anyway. At the end of the day, notice: did anything accumulate?

Arc

4.116 names the mode (kautuka) and the result (niḥśeṣa-laya into the same ground) of the jñāni's-yajña; 4.117 will illustrate the dissolution-phenomenology with the out-of-season-clouds image.

Ovi 4.117

Original (Marathi): अकाळींचीं अभ्रें जैशीं । उर्मीवीण आकाशीं । हारपती आपैशीं । उदयलीं सांती ॥११७॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna

Voice-anchor: Comparative-particle जैशीं (just-as, like) opens an illustrative-image within Kṛṣṇa-discourse — standard within-Kṛṣṇa-voice metaphor-introducer (cf. cluster 0159's 4.96 जैसा कां जळापाशीं, 4.99 आणि उदोअस्तुचेनि प्रमाणें, all within Kṛṣṇa-voice). No voice-shift. सांती (śānti, peace) at line-end is descriptive-of-the-clouds'-vanishing-into-stillness, not a Jñāneśvar-aside.

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
अकाळींचीं	out-of-season / untimely (a-kāla-m-cī)
अभ्रें	clouds (abhra)
जैशीं	just-as, like
उर्मीवीण	without-impulse / without-wave / without-momentum (ūrmi-vīṇa)
आकाशीं	in the sky / in ākāśa
हारपती	vanish, disappear (Marathi vernacular for nāśa-gati)
आपैशीं	of themselves / on their own / by-themselves
उदयलीं	having-arisen / having-risen
सांती	into-peace / into-śānti (the cessation-state)

Literal translation

English: Just as out-of-season clouds, without impulse in the sky, vanish of themselves — having arisen, [they pass] into peace.

मराठी (आधुनिक): ज्याप्रमाणे अकाली (बेमोसमी) आलेले ढग आकाशात कोणत्याही वायू-लाटेच्या आधाराशिवाय आपोआप विरून जातात — उगवल्यानंतर शांतीत मिळून जातात — त्याचप्रमाणे...

Sanskrit-root etymology note: अभ्र (abhra) — Sanskrit-Marathi cognate for cloud. उर्मि (ūrmi) — Sanskrit-Marathi for wave / impulse / surge, the same root as in the BG-2.70 ocean-and-river-waters image (आपूर्यमाणमचलप्रतिष्ठं समुद्रमापः प्रविशन्ति यद्वत् — like waters entering the ocean which remains unmoved). उर्मीवीण (without-impulse) is the load-bearing word — the clouds have no causal-momentum to land; they arose at the wrong season (a-kāla) and therefore find no soil. The image precisely captures the phenomenology of karma-without-bīja: the action arises but has no kāmasankalpa-impulse (cf. BG-4.19's कामसंकल्पवर्जिताः) to drive it into a fruit, so it self-dissipates.

Metaphor-unfold

Literal image	Philosophical referent	Modern equivalent
Out-of-season clouds (`अकाळींचीं अभ्रें`) arising in the sky	The karmas of the jñāna-established jīvanmukta arising in his cetas-sky — actions appearing but not from kāmasankalpa	A memory-flash arising in a meditator's mind during sitting — appearing but with no causal-conditions to develop
The absence of wind-impulse (`उर्मीवीण`) to drive the clouds toward rain	The absence of kāmasankalpa to drive the karmas toward fruit (BG-4.19 cross-link)	The absence of the craving-feedback-loop that would normally take a thought into action
Self-vanishing on their own (`हारपती आपैशीं`) without external dispersal	The karmas self-cancelling, niḥśeṣa-laya without active-destruction	A flashback that arises in a healed trauma-survivor and dissipates of itself, without re-traumatization
Having arisen, passing into peace (`उदयलीं सांती`)	The terminal state of the karma's dissolution being śānti — the same śānti-state the jñāni rests in	The post-meditation state where mind-content has risen and dissolved into the underlying stillness

Metaphor-family: out-of-season-clouds-vanishing-without-wind. Complementary to cluster 0160's 4.105 fire-combustion image (ज्ञानाग्नीचेनि मुखें । जेणें जाळिलीं कर्में अशेखें): 4.105 gives the active-destruction form (fire consumes), 4.117 gives the passive-self-cancellation form (clouds vanish). The two-image pair is Jñāneśvar's paired-channel pedagogy for karma-samagram-pravilīyate.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The sky-and-cloud image is widely-shared across Vedānta, Yogavāsiṣṭha, and Buddhist contemplative-literature; no specifically-tantric register here.

Cross-references

Internal: parallel-image to 4.105 (cluster 0160 — ज्ञानाग्नीचेनि मुखें । जेणें जाळिलीं कर्में अशेखें). The two images are paired-by-complementarity: 4.105 active-destruction (fire consumes); 4.117 passive-self-cancellation (clouds vanish). Together they cover the full phenomenology of how karma-samagram-pravilīyate works at BG-4.23: some karmas are destroyed by the inner jñāna-fire, others simply fail to land and self-evaporate. Pair-relation parallel-image because both carry the same doctrinal-load by different metaphor-channel.
Tukaram parallel: [none — no direct vārkarī-bhajan deploys the out-of-season-clouds image at this karma-dissolution doctrinal-position. The image is more Yogavāsiṣṭha-Vedānta than Vārkarī.]
Source citation:
Bhagavad Gītā 4.19 — echo. The कामसंकल्पवर्जिताः (free-of-kāma-sankalpa) and ज्ञानाग्निदग्धकर्माणं (jñāna-fire-burned-karma) of BG-4.19 give the mechanism by which the karmas of the jñāna-established dissolve. The 4.117 out-of-season-clouds image is the visual-form of the same dissolution: karmas arise in the sky but having no causal-conditions to land (no kāma-sankalpa-impulse, no wind-ūrmi), they vanish on their own into śānti.
Yogavāsiṣṭha Upaśama 78 (recurring motif) — echo. The image of clouds arising in the empty sky and vanishing without trace is a stock Yogavāsiṣṭha simile for vāsanā-traces in the jīvanmukta's consciousness. Jñāneśvar's 4.117 deploys the same image at the karma-level (not just vāsanā-traces but the gross karma-actions themselves). The Yogavāsiṣṭha jīvanmukti-doctrine is the broader-tradition source.

Modern application

The healed trauma-survivor for whom the old flashback-content still occasionally arises — a smell, a song, a face — and now finds no soil to land in. The flashback rises into the sky of awareness and vanishes of itself; the body that used to convulse with it now sits unmoving while the cloud passes. उर्मीवीण आकाशीं । हारपती आपैशीं. The healing was not the absence of the flashback-arising; the healing was the absence of the wind-impulse that would have driven the flashback into re-traumatization.
The long-practiced meditator who notices that during a sit, the same five thoughts that used to consume an entire hour now arise and dissolve in under a breath — same content, no traction. The meditation-practice didn't make the thoughts disappear; it removed the wind-momentum that used to push them into a story.
The mature creative-person who has had hundreds of half-formed art-ideas and who now notices that a new idea arises, rests for a moment, and dissolves if it isn't the right one — without the old anxiety of I must capture this, this might be the one, what if I lose it. The right ideas land. The wrong ones return to the source. The discrimination is no longer in the grasping; it is in the wind-impulse that either takes the idea forward or doesn't.

Sādhanā

For 10 minutes today, sit and watch: any thought, image, mood, or impulse that arises, do not engage and do not resist. Simply notice: did this find soil? Did it carry forward? Or did it vanish on its own? The point of the exercise is to notice the self-cancellation phenomenology — that some content arises and dissolves without any effort on your part, like out-of-season clouds.

Arc

4.117 illustrates the self-cancellation phenomenology of the jñāni's karma; 4.118 will deliver the synthesis-closure that all prescribed vidhi-vidhāna karmas attain unity through aikya-bhāva.

Ovi 4.118

Original (Marathi): तैशीं विधिविधानें विहितें । जरी आचरे तो समस्तें । तरी तियें ऐक्यभावें ऐक्यातें । पावतीचि गा ॥११८॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna

Voice-anchor: Comparative-completion-particle तैशीं (just-so, in-the-same-way) closes the 4.117 simile-statement and completes the doctrinal-claim. The closing गा is the Kṛṣṇa-to-Arjuna emphatic-particle (cf. 2.265 गा, 3.150 गा, throughout the Dnyāneśvarī corpus) — direct anchor of the Kṛṣṇa-voice attribution.

Word-by-word gloss

Marathi	Meaning
तैशीं	just-so / in-the-same-way (correlative to जैशीं in 4.117)
विधिविधानें	with-vidhi-vidhāna / by-the-prescribed-procedure
विहितें	the-prescribed-ones / the-enjoined-ones (vihita)
जरी	if, even-if
आचरे	performs / observes (the verb-form for ritual-practice)
तो	he, that-one
समस्तें	comprehensively / all-of-them / completely
तरी	then, yet
तियें	those (the karmas)
ऐक्यभावें	through aikya-bhāva / by-unity-bhāva
ऐक्यातें	unto-unity / unto-aikya (the unified-state)
पावतीचि	certainly attain / surely reach
गा	(emphatic-particle, Kṛṣṇa-to-Arjuna address)

Literal translation

English: Just so, if he performs the prescribed vidhi-vidhāna karmas comprehensively, those, through aikya-bhāva, certainly attain unity — gā.

मराठी (आधुनिक): त्याचप्रमाणे जर तो विहित विधिविधानांची कर्मे संपूर्णपणे आचरत असला तरी ती सर्व कर्मे ऐक्यभावाद्वारे ऐक्यालाच पोहोचतात — हे निश्चित आहे.

Sanskrit-root etymology note: विधिविधान (vidhi-vidhāna) — Sanskrit-derived for prescribed-procedure / ritual-injunction-pair. विहित (vihita) — Sanskrit for ordained / enjoined / properly-prescribed. Together they form the standard Sanskrit-Marathi ritual-vocabulary for śāstra-enjoined karmas. ऐक्यभाव (aikya-bhāva) — the bhāva-of-unity, the inner-disposition that recognizes-the-unity-of-actor-action-and-result. ऐक्यातें पावतीचि — attain unity certainly. The load-bearing interpretive move is reading the Sanskrit pravilīyate as aikya-prāpti (attainment-of-unity), not as nāśa (destruction). The karmas don't cease-to-be; they attain unity with the source.

Metaphor-unfold

No extended metaphor in this ovi. 4.118 is the synthesis-closure — a direct doctrinal-statement that uses the 4.117 simile as its anchor (via तैशीं) but does not introduce a new metaphor. The cluster's metaphor-load was carried by 4.115 (touchstone) and 4.117 (clouds); 4.118 closes by delivering the doctrinal-payload.

Nāth-yogic layer

No Nāth-yogic referent in this ovi. The aikya-bhāva and aikya-prāpti vocabulary is Vedānta-bhakti synthesis-language without specifically-tantric register.

Cross-references

Internal: parallel-image to 2.336 (cluster 0089 — water-into-water samarasa, the contraction-form of non-dual merger). 4.118's ऐक्यभावें ऐक्यातें (aikya-by-aikya-bhāva — the karma-form of non-dual merger) is paired with 2.336's water-into-water samarasa as two statements of the same merger-into-unity doctrine across two ontological-units. 2.336: the jīva merges into brahman like water into water; 4.118: the karmas merge into aikya through aikya-bhāva. Both terminate in the same non-dual ground; both deploy the same Marathi merger-vocabulary.
Tukaram parallel: Tukaram 2474 (project_tukaram_lavana_samarasa.md) — THE most-celebrated samarasa / non-dual-merge abhang: salt-into-water, fire-into-camphor, one-flame — is the vārkarī-bhajan operationalization of 4.118's ऐक्यभावें ऐक्यातें । पावतीचि. Both texts treat the dissolution-into-unity not as annihilation but as samarasa (equal-essence-merger). Same end-state (the merged-non-duality), different unit of merging (Jñāneśvar: karma; Tukaram: jīva). The chapter-4 doctrinal-statement and the Vārkarī samarasa-bhajan share the same theological-grammar of unity-by-bhāva.
Source citation:
Bhagavad Gītā 4.23 — direct-paraphrase. Sanskrit समग्रं प्रविलीयते ⇒ Marathi तरी तियें ऐक्यभावें ऐक्यातें । पावतीचि गा. Reading the Sanskrit pravilīyate as aikya-prāpti (attainment-of-unity) rather than nāśa (destruction) — the Vedānta-bhakti reading.
Bhagavad Gītā 9.27 — echo. BG-9.27's यत्करोषि यदश्नासि यज्जुहोषि ददासि यत् । यत्तपस्यसि कौन्तेय तत्कुरुष्व मदर्पणम् prescribes the operational route by which all karmas attain unity-with-the-source. 4.118's vidhi-vidhāna-vihita karmas reaching aikya through aikya-bhāva is the chapter-4 anticipation of the chapter-9 mad-arpaṇa formulation. Same operational route (perform-the-prescribed-karma-with-the-right-bhāva), different naming of the destination.

Modern application

The long-practiced ritualist — the daily pūjā-doer, the synagogue-Friday-evening observer, the daily-Lectio-Divina-reader — whose accumulated thousands of prescribed-acts no longer accrue as merit-credits. Each ritual is performed; each ritual lands in the same source it came from. There is no spiritual-bank-account; there is only ऐक्यभावें ऐक्यातें पावतीचि — through unity-bhāva, attain unity certainly. The accumulation-frame has dissolved into the homecoming-frame.
The doctor who has, over forty years, performed thousands of small ritual-acts of medicine — the wash, the ask, the listen, the prescribe — and who now experiences each act not as another contribution to a career-arc but as one more drop attaining its ocean through the unity-bhāva she has cultivated. The acts are still comprehensively performed (समस्तें); the destination is no longer recognition but unity.
The householder for whom the prescribed-duties of married-life (the calls to in-laws, the school-pickups, the bill-payments, the household-management) have become an aikya-bhāva-practice. Every duty is performed; every duty attains its source. The household runs; the householder dissolves into the running. पावतीचि गा — certainly, gā.

Sādhanā

For one task today that is genuinely prescribed (a duty, an obligation, a thing-you-have-to-do, not something-elective), do this: before starting, set the bhāva — aikya-bhāva, this attains aikya by aikya-bhāva. Then perform the task with no other inner-framing. At the end of the task, check: where did it land? Did it accumulate, or did it return to the source? The point of the exercise is to feel the difference between an accruing act and a homecoming act.

Arc

4.118 closes the BG-4.23 cluster with the aikya-prāpti synthesis: all prescribed karmas of the jñāna-established attain unity through aikya-bhāva. The next cluster (0164 = BG-4.24) will open the multi-yajña-typology with the brahmārpaṇa-formula — the operational answer to which prescribed-karmas-performed-how deliver this aikya-prāpti.

Cluster summary

Core teaching: Of the one whose sanga has gone, who is liberated, whose cetas is established in jñāna, and who acts for the sake of yajña — even though he still appears in body, on para-brahman's touchstone he tests as pure gold (4.115); if he performs yajña-actions, they are play (kautuka) and dissolve completely into his own ground (4.116); like out-of-season clouds in the windless sky they vanish of themselves into śānti (4.117); and all the prescribed vidhi-vidhāna karmas he performs reach unity through aikya-bhāva — not as destruction but as homecoming-into-source (4.118).

Theme tags: BG-4.23, gata-sangasya, muktasya, jñāna-avasthita-cetas, yajñāya-ācarataḥ, karma-samagram-pravilīyate, touchstone-of-para-brahman, pure-gold-test, kautuka-of-the-jñāni, out-of-season-clouds, aikya-bhāva, aikya-prāpti, embodied-jīvanmukti, samarasa, homecoming-into-source.

Contains extended metaphor: Yes — two of the four ovis carry extended metaphors. 4.115 deploys the touchstone-of-para-brahman image (kaṣa-test of pure gold) for the verification of the jīvanmukta's substance. 4.117 deploys the out-of-season clouds image (उर्मीवीण आकाशीं । हारपती आपैशीं । उदयलीं सांती) for the self-cancellation phenomenology of the jñāni's karma. The two metaphors handle different doctrinal loads — verification and self-cancellation — and are complementary to cluster 0160's 4.105 fire-combustion image, giving the paired-channel phenomenology of karma-samagram-pravilīyate.

Chapter-arc position: THE consummation-verse of the chapter-4 seven-fold jīvanmukta-portrait that began at BG-4.19. The portrait moves from epistemic-criterion (fire-of-knowledge, 4.19) through psychological-criteria (no-desire 4.19, content-with-whatever-arrives 4.21-22, beyond-dvandvas 4.22, equanimous-in-result 4.22) to the terminal ontological criterion (karma dissolves into source, 4.23). Cluster 0163 closes the sixth structural-block of chapter 4 — the chapter now pivots to the multi-yajña-typology (BG-4.24-33) and concludes with jñāna-supremacy-and-faith (BG-4.34-42).

Connects to next śloka: BG-4.24 will open with ब्रह्मार्पणं ब्रह्म हविर्ब्रह्माग्नौ ब्रह्मणा हुतम् । ब्रह्मैव तेन गन्तव्यं ब्रह्मकर्मसमाधिना — the daily-recited brahma-arpaṇa formula. Cluster 0163 has established the result-state of the jñāna-established yajña-doer; cluster 0164 will open the typology-of-yajñas by which different practitioners reach this same state. The 4.118 विधिविधानें विहितें (the prescribed vidhi-vidhāna) is the seam-word: 4.118 ends with all-prescribed-karmas-attaining-aikya, and 4.24-onward enumerates which prescribed-karmas these are.