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mate realisation by the seeker himself, Sankara is here giving yet another stanza, putting, as it were, the last nail on the coffin of our doubt regarding this problem.
The beauty, the brilliance, the soft glory, the queenly dignity, the serene consolation, the message of love and leisure, of peace and quietude, of music and thrill, which the moon sheds as she glides across the spring-time skies are indeed, not words to be quoted, but are experiences to be enjoyed—a thrill to be lived! The vision of her majestic flight is to be experienced by one's own eyes and realised in a satisfying suggestive silence. The hushed ecstasy that one can enjoy under the spring-time moon cannot be conveyed to us by any one, however vivid his explanation be. It is to be enjoyed by ourselves; the experience must be, with our own instruments, brought into our own bosom. A blind man cannot enjoy the love messages of the moonlit night.
The Self rises in the dark bosom of Ignorance to glide across the horizon of our experiences; those experiences cannot be described to us fully by another who had reached this fulfilment of life. Each must come to witness it in himself. This analogy of the moon-rise in the outer world is indeed the most poetic, and on all sides the perfect example to indicate the soft silvery light of knowledge that comes to illumine with its milky peace and perfection, the dark atmosphere in the bosom of the ignorant.
अविद्याकामकर्मादिपाशबन्धं विमोचितुम् ।
कः शक्नुयाद्विनात्मानं कल्पकोटिशतैरपि ॥५५॥ avidhyākāmakarmādipāśabandham vimocitum kah saknuyādvinātmānam kalpakotiśatairapi55.
अविद्याकामकर्मादिपाशबन्धम् - The bondage caused by the fetters of ignorance, desire and action, fallaah - to get rid of, *: - who, शक्नुयात् - will be able, आत्मानम् विना - except oneself, कल्पकोटिशतैः - by hundred crores of Kalpas, 3119 - even.
Who can, except oneself, help to rid oneself of the bondage caused by the chains of ignorance, desire, action etc.-even in a hundred crore of Kalpas ?
