Bhavana Sataka

Author(s): A S Gopani, Dharmshila Mahasati, Girishkumar P Shah Pandit
Publisher: Labhubhai P Mehta

Page 94

रेऽनन्तजन्मार्जितकर्मवर्गणास्त्वं चेनिराकर्तुमपेक्षसेतमाम् । ज्ञानेन सार्धश्च तपस्तदाचर, वह्निविनापो नहि वस्त्रशुद्धिकृत्
॥७३॥
Meaning :- If you have an intense desire to bid good-bye all at once to the Karmas that have come to be accumulated from time immemorial then practise penance but with wisdom, with pure consciousness. Penance without the background of knowledge is not sufficiently efficient and so also is knowledge without the support of penance. A washerman needs both fire and water for washing the clothes cleanly. Fire alone burns off the clothes and water alone cannot remove the dirt altogether with which it is soiled. Therefore, just as a washerman purifies it keeping it in water above and placing it above the fire below, so also knowledge just resembles water and penance the fire. Both these things are together equally indispensable for the Soul's purification and in order to point out this very moral, it is said that emencipation is possible merely through knowledge and penance both. (73)
73