15. After one has, by the instruction of the guru and the careful practice of the above disciplines, completely overcome the knot of the heart (the ego-sense), which is born of ignorance and forms the seat of tendencies leading to works, one can give up all practices of yoga.
If, by the grace of the guru, one’s ego vanishes, then one is liberated. For, once the ego-sense or self-centredness is shattered, sadhana by conscious effort becomes redundant.
16. These instructions should be given by a father to a son, by a teacher to a disciple, and by king to a subject, if they wish to attain to My state or aspire for My grace. It should be done patiently without getting annoyed even when they are found unreceptive. They should not be allowed to get more involved in works for sensuous gratification with which their discriminative faculty has already been dulled. What gain can a teacher have by inducing such men, already blinded spiritually, for want of discrimination, in their involvement in the whirlpool of samsara, to works and rituals for worldly advantages?
17. The ignorant men of the world without a proper awareness of their ultimate good acquire objects of enjoyment out of their intense desire for them. In mutual competition for these petty objects of enjoyment, they quarrel and fight among themselves and suffer misery without end.
God exists timelessly as the Godhead, as the Brahman whose essence is Being, Awareness and Bliss. God who is Spirit can only be worshipped in spirit and for His own sake. The ultimate good is to be sought in an eternal divine now, which those who sufficiently desire this good can realize as a fact of immediate experience. The peace that passes all understanding is the fruit of liberation into eternity. In everyday life, peace is also the root of liberation. Where there are violent passions and conflicts for petty enjoyment and sensuous pleasures, this ultimate good can ever be realized. This approach promotes tolerance and non-violence. Every event of violence or one-upmanship interferes with the normal and natural relationship between individual souls and the divine eternal Ground of all being. Such conduct is a sacrilegious rebellion against the divine order.
18. No wise person, who knows what is good for man and is endowed with a kindly disposition, would, on seeing another man steeped in ignorance and perverted in intelligence, encourage him to persist in the wrong path he is following, even as he would not do so with a blind man going towards a pit.
19. One, who would not save another from the path of death, on which the latter has entered, cannot be called one’s guru if he is the guru, one’s relative if he is a relative, one’s father if he is the father, one’s mother if she is the mother, one’s deity if it is the deity, one’s husband if he is the husband.
A guru is in the nature of an inner being sent to the seeker (disciple) by the Divine at the appropriate stage of his sadhana (spiritual practice) to attain realization. Age, caste, creed, gender, vocation, etc of the guru is of no relevance to the seeker. The seeker is to feel the guru in his soul and accept him as such. He is the true guide to elevate the seeker to the realm beyond his mind. One who does not satisfy these criteria is no true guru.
20. This body of mine is of an inexplicable nature, as it cannot be accounted for by karma. My mind is dominated by the quality of sattva by virtue of which devotion to God flourishes in it, and adharma finds no place as it has been left far behind. So wise men call me Rishabha.
Every embodied being has a two-fold body. One is the mental body which is restless and which acts quickly and achieves results. The second is the physical body, which does really nothing. When the mind confidently engages in self-effort, it is then beyond the reach of sorrow. Whenever it strives, it surely finds the fruition of its striving. On
the other hand, the physical body is only physical matter. Yet the mind deems it as its own.
The mind experiences only what it contemplates. If the mind turns towards the Truth, it abandons its identification with the body and attains the supreme state. Hence one is to endeavour with the mind consciously to make it taking to the pure path.
Rishabha was so called on account of his constant consciousness of the inherent bliss of the Atman and, as a result, absolute indifference to everything else in the physical world.
21. Hence all of you, who have sprung from my heart, serve, without any reservations, Bharata, your brother, who is adorable for his excellences. Serving him is equal to looking after the subjects.
22. Among objects that have existence, plants with life are superior to lifeless things like stone. Among living objects, moving beings like animals with consciousness are superior to plants. Among creatures with consciousness, man is superior. Higher than man are astral beings; higher than these are beings like gandharvas, siddhas and kinnaras.
23. Greater than siddhas and kinnaras are the asuras; greater than they are the Devas with Indra at their head. Greater than them are the sons of Brahma, the Prajapatis.
Among the sons of Brahma, Rudra is the greatest; greater than Rudra is Brahma who is the devotee of Mahavishnu. And Mahavishnu is the devotee of holy men.
24. I do not consider any one to be equal to a holy man. I do not find any one higher. I accept whatever food men offer Me through holy men with faith and devotion wholeheartedly. This food is dearer than even what is offered in fire at the Agnihotra.
25. In this world, it is the holy man who holds within himself my primeval and the most worshipful form, the Veda. I do not find any one equal to the holy man in whom the supremely pure qualities of sattva, control of mind, control of the senses, austerity, forbearance, truth, benevolence towards all and realization are present.
Attachment breeds desire. Desire leads to anger when desire is frustrated. Anger clouds mind. Such clouding destroys memory and then reason is destroyed, for reason and memory are intimately connected. So the holy man is neither attached to the temporal objects, nor hates them. He performs all actions without any egotism and seeks to attain oneness with the Supreme Being – Nirvana.
