"Disciple and Guru ( Verses 48 to 55.)"

 

 

Questions of disciple (verses 48 & 49):
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48.  The disciple said:
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Kindly listen, O Master, to the questions that I now raise. Hearing their answers from your lips, I shall feel entirely blessedly gratified.

49. What, indeed, is bondage? How has it come? How does it continue to exist? How can one get out of it completely? What is this not-self? Who is the supreme Self? And what is the process of discrimination between these two (Self and not-self)? Please explain all these to me.

Intelligent disciple appreciated (verse 50):
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50. The Guru replied:
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Blessed you are. For you wish to attain the absolute Brahman by freeing yourself from the bondage of ignorance. Indeed, you have fulfilled your life and have glorified your family.

 

Glory of self-effort (verses 51-55)
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51. A father has his sons and others to save him from his financial debts, but there is no one other than oneself to redeem one from one‘s bondage.,

 

52. Exhaustion and fatigue caused by carrying a load on the head can be relieved by others coming to one‘s help. But none save one‘s own self can end the pangs caused by hunger etc.

 

53. The patient who faithfully follows the right diet and takes the proper medicine alone is perceived to recover from illness; no one recovers because another undergoes the treatment.

 

54. The true nature of Reality is to be known by a first-hand personal experience through the eye of clear understanding, and not through the report of learned men. The beauty of the moon is enjoyed through one‘s own eyes. Can one appreciate it through the description by others?

 

55. Who else, but oneself can help rid oneself of the bondage caused by the chains of ignorance, desire, action, etc.—even in a hundreds of millions of years?