Cluster 0273
BG-7.25
Ovi 7.158
Original (Marathi): कां जे योगमायापडळें । हे जाले आहाति आंधळे । म्हणौनि प्रकाशाचेनि देहबळें । न देखती मातें ॥१५८॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| कां जे | because, for-the-reason-that |
| योगमायापडळें | by-the-yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa (paḍaḷa = cataract, film-over-eye) |
| हे | these (worldly beings) |
| जाले आहाति | have become |
| आंधळे | blind |
| म्हणौनि | therefore |
| प्रकाशाचेनि | by-the-prakāśa's (genitive-instrumental) |
| देहबळें | by-bodily-might, by-physical-power |
| न देखती | do-not-see |
| मातें | Me (accusative — first-person Kṛṣṇa-speech) |
Literal translation
English: Because by the yoga-māyā-cataract (paḍaḷa, film-over-the-eye) they have become blind; therefore, by the prakāśa's very bodily-might, they do-not-see Me.
मराठी (आधुनिक): कारण योगमायेच्या पडळ्यामुळे (डोळ्यावरील आवरणामुळे) हे (लोक) आंधळे झालेले आहेत; म्हणूनच प्रकाशाच्या स्वतःच्या देहबळाने (शरीर-शक्तीने) ते मला पाहत नाहीत.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Yoga-māyā-paḍaḷēm — the yoga-māyā as paḍaḷa (cataract, film-over-the-eye) | The veiling is not an objective screen between Lord and world but a perceptual defect of the seer. The yoga-māyā-cataract is over-the-eye, not between-the-eye-and-the-Lord. The Lord remains fully manifest; the eye has become incapable. The Sanskrit samāvṛtaḥ (veiled-over) read subjectively, not objectively | The person with cataracts who concludes there is no light because they cannot see; the light is fully present, the receiving-apparatus has become opaque — the deficiency is in the eye, not in the day |
| Prakāśācēni dēha-baḷēm na dēkhatī mātēm — by the prakāśa's own bodily-might, they do-not-see Me | The paradox of the seer being-blind-by-the-very-source-of-seeing: the prakāśa (light, perceptual-power) by which they have the capacity to see anything at all IS the Lord's power; with this very power they see everything-except-its-Source. The self-veiling-by-self-power doctrine | The person reading these words by the light of consciousness who never wonders about consciousness itself — the very awareness by which they read is the unread; the medium is the unseen of all the seeing it permits |
Metaphor-family: yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa — the yoga-māyā as cataract-film-over-the-eye (perceptual-defect of the seer, not objective screen).
Nāth-yogic layer
(none — 7.158 is a doctrinal-diagnostic ovi naming the yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa as the mechanism of not-seeing; the paḍaḷa image is folk/medical-perceptual, not Nātha-yogic specifically. No cakra-name, no suṣumnā reference, no kuṇḍalinī content.)
Cross-references
- Internal: 7.157 (developed-further — 7.157 named the jīva's-not-comprehending; 7.158 now gives the diagnosis: yoga-māyā-paḍaḷēm jālē āhāti āndhaḷē — by-the-yoga-māyā-cataract they-have-become blind); 7.69 (developed-further — the BG-7.14 mama māyā duratyayā region named the māyā as hard-to-cross; 7.158 names the same māyā now as paḍaḷa, shifting from external-river-to-cross to internal-cataract-over-eye); 13.x (foreshadows — BG-13.27-28's yaḥ paśyati sa paśyati seer-discrimination)
- Tukaram parallel: 1834 (doctrinal-parallel — देवाचे घरीं देवें केले चोरी — the Lord-self-veils-by-Lord's-own-power paradox)
- Source citation: BG-7.25 (direct-paraphrase — nāham prakāśaḥ sarvasya yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ rendered as yoga-māyā-paḍaḷēm → āndhaḷē → na dēkhatī mātēm); BG-7.13 (echo — guṇa-mayair bhāvair . . . mohitam nābhijānāti); BG-7.14 (echo — daivī hy eṣā guṇa-mayī mama māyā duratyayā the same māyā named); Īśa Upaniṣad 15 (echo — hiraṇmayena pātreṇa satyasyāpihitam mukham the satya-face-veiled doctrine)
Modern application
- When you have been concluding the spiritual is not real on the basis of I cannot perceive it — and 7.158 invites the diagnostic-reversal: the conclusion may be the cataract reporting, not the absence of light; the question becomes what is the paḍaḷa over my eye? rather than does the prakāśa exist?
- When you have been criticizing someone else's spiritual blindness as if it were a moral failing — and 7.158 invites the structural reframing: āndhaḷē jālē (they-have-become-blind) is a perceptual condition, not a moral one; the appropriate response is compassion-for-cataract, not contempt-for-failure
- When you have been using your full conscious-attention to read, work, plan, and worry — never noticing that the attention-by-which you do all this is itself the Lord's-prakāśa — and 7.158's prakāśācēni dēha-baḷēm na dēkhatī mātēm (by the prakāśa's own bodily-might they do not see Me) invites the iconic paradox-recognition: the medium of all your seeing is the one thing you have never directly seen
Sādhanā
For 3 minutes, sit and try to notice the awareness by which you are noticing everything else. Not the contents of awareness (sounds, body-sensations, thoughts) but the awareness itself. Watch the cataract-effect: each time you try to look at the awareness, attention slides instead to a content. Notice the structural-impossibility — and let 7.158's prakāśācēni dēha-baḷēm na dēkhatī mātēm settle without trying to fix.
Arc
7.158 names the mechanism (yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa-cataract → āndhaḷē-blindness → not-seeing-Me by the prakāśa's own power); 7.159 will pivot immediately with the rhetorical-counter eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm — kāya vastu-jāta asē? (otherwise — where-am-I-not — what category-of-thing exists?) and open the implicit-positive-half of BG-7.25.
Ovi 7.159
Original (Marathi): एऱ्हवीं मी नसें ऐसें । काय वस्तुजात असे ? । पाहें पां कणव जळ रसें । रहित आहे ? ॥१५९॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| एऱ्हवीं | otherwise, in-fact |
| मी | I |
| नसें | am-not |
| ऐसें | such (i.e., such-a-place) |
| काय | what |
| वस्तुजात | category-of-thing, sort-of-thing |
| असे | exists |
| पाहें पां | look, behold |
| कणव | earth-clod, lump-of-earth (also: a fragment, a small piece) |
| जळ | water |
| रसें | of-rasa, of-juice/essence |
| रहित | devoid-of |
| आहे | is |
Literal translation
English: Otherwise — where am I not — what category-of-thing exists? Look — is the earth-clod devoid of water and rasa?
मराठी (आधुनिक): अन्यथा (खरे म्हणजे) — मी जिथे नाही असा — कुठला वस्तू-प्रकार आहे का? पाहा बरं — मातीचा कणव (कण) पाणी आणि रसाशिवाय आहे का?
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm — kāya vastu-jāta asē? — otherwise, where am I not, what category-of-thing exists? | The rhetorical-counter to BG-7.25's nāham prakāśaḥ sarvasya: the not-manifest-to-all is epistemic (the perceivers are blind) — but ontologically where is there a thing without Me? The pervasion is prior to and unaffected by the veiling | The light of consciousness in dreamless-sleep, dream-state, and waking-state — the not-manifest-to-the-sleeper does not mean not-there; the consciousness pervades all three states; the not-knowing is the state's mode, not the consciousness's absence |
| Kaṇava jaḷa rasēm rahita āhē? — is the earth-clod devoid of water and rasa? | The pervasion-by-essence doctrine via a rural Marathi image: even an apparently-dry clod-of-earth contains water-moisture-and-essence-rasa; nothing is utterly devoid of the pervading element. The Lord pervades every vastu-jāta as water-rasa pervades every clod | The cell of any living tissue containing cytoplasm-water-electrolytes — there is no living cell that is dry; the pervasion is at-the-substrate-level, prior to any macroscopic observation of dryness |
Metaphor-family: kaṇava-jaḷa-rasa — the earth-clod-and-water-rasa pervasion-image (no vastu is devoid of the pervading essence).
Nāth-yogic layer
(none — 7.159 is a counter-affirmation ovi using the rural earth-clod-rasa pervasion-image; not specifically Nātha-yogic. The image is general Vedānta-Sānkhya pervasion doctrine in Marathi vernacular.)
Cross-references
- Internal: 7.158 (developed-further — the yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa-and-blindness of 7.158 is dialectically-balanced by the eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm counter-affirmation of 7.159; the eṟhavīm marker is the rhetorical-fulcrum); 7.160 (developed-further — the single kaṇava-image of 7.159 escalates to the triadic-cosmic-images of 7.160); 9.x (foreshadows — BG-9.4 mayā tatam idam sarvam jagad avyakta-mūrtinā the adhyāya-9 pervasion-doctrine)
- Tukaram parallel: (none — no substantive abhang-resonance identified for the specific kaṇava-clod-rasa rural pervasion-image; the general pervasion-doctrine resonates with 1823 but the specific image-pair does not have a direct Tukārām parallel)
- Source citation: BG-7.25 (direct-paraphrase — the implicit positive-half rendered as eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm); BG-7.7 (echo — mayi sarvam idam protam sūtre maṇi-gaṇā iva the chapter-7 pervasion-doctrine); BG-9.4 (echo — mayā tatam idam sarvam jagad avyakta-mūrtinā); Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.12.1-3 (echo — the nyagrodha-seed dialogue: pervasion-by-essence-though-invisible)
Modern application
- When you have been searching for the Lord in some special category of vastu (in temples, in scriptures, in saintly people) and concluding the search has failed elsewhere — and 7.159's kāya vastu-jāta asē? (what category-of-thing exists?) invites the structural-recognition: there is no vastu-jāta where He is not; the search-for-special-place was already a category-mistake
- When you observe something apparently-utterly-mundane (a soil-clod, a glass of tap-water, a piece of office furniture) and find yourself unable to imagine the sacred-pervasion of it — and 7.159's kaṇava jaḷa rasēm rahita āhē? (is the clod devoid of water and rasa?) invites the structural-shift: pervasion is the default, sacred-absence is the (incorrect) interpretation
- When you read a Sanskrit verse like nāham prakāśaḥ sarvasya and interpret it as the Lord's self-concealment-from-the-world — and 7.159 invites the immediate balancing-reading: the not-manifest-to-all is the perceivers' epistemic condition; the eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm (otherwise — where-am-I-not) is the ontological fact
Sādhanā
Pick one ordinary object near you (a pen, a cup, a piece of paper, a leaf). Hold it for 2 minutes and ask: kāya vastu-jāta asē? (what category-of-thing exists where He is not?). Notice if the asking changes the perception of the object. No need to feel anything special — just let the question sit alongside the object.
Arc
7.159 begins the counter-affirmation with a single rural pervasion-image (clod-and-rasa); 7.160 will escalate with two-more cosmic pervasion-images (wind, ākāśa) and close the cluster with the iconic hēm asō — eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm (let-this-be — I-alone am in-the-viśva).
Ovi 7.160
Original (Marathi): पवनु कवणातें न शिवेचि । आकाश कें न समायेचि । हें असो एकु मीचि । विश्वीं आहें ॥१६०॥ Voice: krishna-to-arjuna
Word-by-word gloss
| Marathi | Meaning |
|---|---|
| पवनु | the wind (pavana) |
| कवणातें | whom (accusative) |
| न शिवेचि | does-not-touch (negative + emphatic -ci) |
| आकाश | ākāśa, space, sky |
| कें | where |
| न समायेचि | does-not-fit-itself, does-not-pervade (negative + emphatic -ci) |
| हें | this |
| असो | let-it-be |
| एकु | one, single |
| मीचि | I-alone, Me-itself (emphatic -ci) |
| विश्वीं | in-the-viśva (locative) |
| आहें | am |
Literal translation
English: The wind — whom does it not touch? The ākāśa — where does it not fit-itself-into? Let this be — I, alone, am in the viśva.
मराठी (आधुनिक): वारा — कोणाला स्पर्श करत नाही? आकाश — कुठे सामावत नाही? हे (दृष्टांत) राहोत — एक मीच विश्वामध्ये आहे.
Metaphor-unfold
| Literal image | Philosophical referent | Modern equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Pavanu kavaṇātēm na śivēci — the wind touches whom not? | The wind as the first cosmic-pervader: the most-tangible pervasive-element (everyone has felt wind, everyone has been touched by it); the Lord pervades as wind touches — there is no body the wind has not touched, no place the wind has not reached | The atmospheric circulation that has touched every cubic-meter of inhabited Earth — there is no person who breathes whose breath has not contained molecules that were once-elsewhere; the pervasion is empirically-traceable |
| Ākāśa kēm na samāyēci — the ākāśa fits-itself-into where not? | The ākāśa as the second cosmic-pervader: the most-subtle pervasive-element; space-itself goes-into every container, every gap, every interior; nothing has-no-ākāśa-in-it. The Lord pervades as ākāśa pervades — at the most-subtle substrate-level | The space-time continuum within which every physical object exists — there is no object that is not in space; the pervasion is at the existential-substrate, prior to any localizable property |
| Hēm asō — eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm — let this be — I alone am in the viśva | The Vedānta non-dual climactic statement: the cosmic-images have done their work (pervasion via wind, via ākāśa); but the doctrinal-point is simpler-and-more-radical than any image — eku mī-ci (Me-alone, emphatic) am viśvīm (in-the-viśva). The Lord and the viśva: not two, but the viśva is where-and-what He alone is | The realization that there are not many things with a Lord also among them — there is one mode-of-being, and the universe is its expression; the question shifts from "where in this universe is the Lord?" to "the universe IS the Lord-alone in expression" |
Metaphor-family: pavana-ākāśa-eku-mī-ci-viśvīm — the wind-and-ākāśa cosmic pair with the I-alone-am-in-the-viśva climactic statement; the pervasion-doctrine via the two-most-pervasive physical elements and the Vedānta non-dual finale.
Nāth-yogic layer
(none — 7.160 uses wind (pavana) and ākāśa as the two most-pervasive pañca-mahā-bhūta elements; these are general Vedānta-Sānkhya cosmic-pervaders, not specifically Nātha-yogic. No prāṇāyāma technique, no cidākāśa yogic-interiorization, no cakra-name. The eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm finale is Vedānta non-dual, not Nātha-tantric specifically.)
Cross-references
- Internal: 7.159 (developed-further — the single kaṇava-clod-rasa image of 7.159 escalates to the triadic-cosmic-images of 7.160 — clod-rasa → wind → ākāśa, a graduated rural-meteorological-cosmological progression — closing with eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm); 9.x (foreshadows — BG-9.6 yathākāśa-sthito nityam vāyuḥ sarvatra-go mahān / tathā sarvāṇi bhūtāni mat-sthāni — the adhyāya-9 wind-and-ākāśa simile-pair); 13.x (foreshadows — BG-13.16 bahir antaś ca bhūtānām . . . dūrastham cāntike ca tat — pervasion + not-knowing-because-subtle)
- Tukaram parallel: 1823 (doctrinal-parallel — सर्वां ठायीं तूं चि सर्व ही जालासी — दुजें नव्हे "in all places You alone became all — no second" — the iconic Marathi advaita non-dual finale parallel to 7.160's eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm)
- Source citation: BG-7.25 (direct-paraphrase — the implicit positive-half climaxed as eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm); BG-9.6 (echo — yathākāśa-sthito vāyuḥ sarvatra-go mahān the wind-ākāśa pervasion-pair); Īśa Upaniṣad 5 (echo — tad antarasya sarvasya tad u sarvasyāsya bāhyataḥ simultaneous-pervasion-inside-and-outside); BG-13.16 (echo — bahir antaś ca bhūtānām . . . sūkṣmatvāt tad avijñeyam pervasion-yet-unknowable-because-subtle)
Modern application
- When you have been imagining the Lord as one entity among many entities in the universe and asking where is He? — and 7.160's eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm (I-alone am in-the-viśva) invites the structural-shift: the question is wrongly-formed; the Lord is not in the viśva as a content-among-contents; the viśva is the Lord-alone in expression
- When you observe the wind moving through a room (a curtain rustling, a leaf turning, a strand of hair lifting) and read it as one-physical-event-among-others — and 7.160's pavanu kavaṇātēm na śivēci (the wind touches whom not?) invites the recognition: the wind is the most-tangible cosmic-pervader; every contact with wind is a contact with what-touches-everyone — a small-non-dual pervasion-confirmation
- When you notice space-itself (the gap between you and the screen, the interior of a coffee-cup, the hollow inside a doorframe) and never give it ontological-weight — and 7.160's ākāśa kēm na samāyēci (the ākāśa fits-itself-into where not?) invites the structural recognition: the ākāśa is the substrate of all-existing; the Lord pervades as the ākāśa pervades; the eku mī-ci is everywhere your perception lands
Sādhanā
For 5 minutes, sit and alternate attention between: (1) feeling the wind/air-movement on your skin, (2) noticing the space inside the room you are in, (3) repeating slowly: eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm (I alone am in the viśva — said as if from the Lord's voice). Let the three pervasion-recognitions (wind, ākāśa, eku-mī-cī) interweave. No special experience needed — just the recognition itself.
Arc
7.160 closes cluster 0273 with the climactic hēm asō — eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm (let-this-be — I-alone am in-the-viśva) — the Vedānta non-dual finale to BG-7.25's yoga-māyā-veiling + mūḍha-loka not-knowing mechanism. The next cluster (0274, BG-7.26) opens with vedāham samatītāni vartamānāni cārjuna / bhaviṣyāṇi ca bhūtāni mām tu veda na kaścana (I know past, present, and future beings, O Arjuna; but Me no-one knows) — pivoting from the yoga-māyā-mechanism-of-not-knowing of cluster 0273 to the epistemological-asymmetry between Lord-knowing-all-beings and no-being-knowing-the-Lord of cluster 0274.
Cluster summary
Core teaching. BG-7.25 names the mechanism of the world's not-recognizing the Lord — yoga-māyā-veiling — and the resulting mūḍha-loka state of not-fully-knowing Me un-born un-decaying. Jñāneśvar's compact 3-ovi treatment operates as a paḍaḷa-and-blindness → cosmic-counter-images → I-alone-am-in-the-viśva mini-architecture: 7.158 renders yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ as yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa (cataract over the eye — veiling as perceptual-defect of the seer, not objective screen); 7.159 immediately counters with eṟhavīm mī nasēm aisēm — kāya vastu-jāta asē? (otherwise — where-am-I-not — what category-of-thing exists?) and the rural earth-clod-water-rasa pervasion-image; 7.160 closes with the cosmic wind-and-ākāśa pair and the iconic hēm asō — eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm (let-this-be — I-alone am in-the-viśva).
Theme tags. BG-7.25, yoga-māyā-samāvṛtaḥ, yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa cataract-image, āndhaḷē blind, prakāśa-deha-baḷēm (by-the-light's-own-power they-don't-see), kaṇava-jaḷa-rasa clod-and-water pervasion, pavana-ākāśa cosmic pair, eku-mī-ci-viśvīm-āhēm iconic finale, ajam-avyayam (un-born un-decaying), mūḍho-'yam-loko (deluded world), veiling-as-perceptual-defect, ontological-pervasion-counter-affirmation.
Contains extended metaphor. Yes — three principal metaphor-families (yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa cataract-of-the-seer; kaṇava-jaḷa-rasa pervasion-via-rural-earth-image; pavana-ākāśa-eku-mī-ci-viśvīm cosmic-pair with non-dual finale).
Chapter arc position. Cluster 0273 sits at the doctrinal-interior of the chapter-7 closing-arc (BG-7.24-30) — third in the closing-pentad and the verse that names the mechanism of the not-knowing. BG-7.3 + BG-7.13 established not-knowing as fact; BG-7.24 (cluster 0272) named the abuddhi's specific mistake (mistaking the avyakta-having-become-manifest); BG-7.25 (THIS cluster) now names the cause: yoga-māyā-veiling + mūḍha-loka. The next clusters BG-7.26 through BG-7.30 will operationalize this mechanism into specific epistemological-modes. The cluster's distinctive Marathi contribution is the paḍaḷa (cataract-film-over-eye) reading of samāvṛtaḥ — relocating the yoga-māyā from objective screen to subjective perceptual defect — balanced immediately by the eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm ontological-pervasion counter-affirmation.
Connects to next śloka. Cluster 0273 closes BG-7.25 with the eku mī-ci viśvīm āhēm ontological-pervasion-counter-affirmation balancing the yoga-māyā-paḍaḷa perceptual-defect. The next śloka BG-7.26 (vedāham samatītāni vartamānāni cārjuna / bhaviṣyāṇi ca bhūtāni mām tu veda na kaścana — I know the past-gone, the present, and the future beings, O Arjuna; but Me no-one knows) pivots from the yoga-māyā-mechanism-named of BG-7.25 to the epistemological-asymmetry-named of BG-7.26: the Lord knows-all-beings; no-being knows-the-Lord. The 0273 → 0274 transition is the yoga-māyā-veiling-mechanism → resulting-epistemological-asymmetry doctrinal-pivot.