________________
Whoever seeks to rediscover the Self by devoting himself to the fattening of the body, proceeds to cross a river, holding on to a crocodile which he had mistaken for a log of wood!
In this striking stanza Sankara brings out how dangerous and hopelessly suicidal is the attempt of the individual to perfect himself through indulgences and physical enjoyments. Anxiety for the body is an expression of our bitter identification with it. This can come only when we have deluded ourselves, and when in our delusion we have totally forgotten the essential nature of our Divinity.
151
Ignorance and knowledge cannot remain in one and the same place at the same time; the ghost and the post cannot be perceptible at once. Where the post is recognised, there the ghost is non-existent; and one who recognises the post, to him the ghost is not available at all. Similarly, the beloved of the dream is non-existent in the waking state, and it is a folly on the part of man to weep for the Lady-ofhis-dream while he is awake!
Similarly, the one who is attached to his body and is wasting his time and energy for nourshing and fattening it, is indeed, a fool, as far removed from his goal as the consoling vision, and as the recognition of the rope is from the one who is dying in his delusion that he has been bitten by the imaginary serpent in it.
मोह एव महामृत्युर्मुमुक्षोर्वेपुरादिषु ।
मोहो विनिर्जितो येन स मुक्तिपदमर्हति ॥ ८५ ॥
moha eva mahāmrtyurmumukṣorvapurādiṣu moho vinirjito yena sa muktipadamarhati 85.
मोह: - Infatuation, एव-alone, महामृत्यु: a tragic death, मृमुक्षो:for seeker seeking liberation, वपुरादिषु in the body etc., मोह: - delusion, fafia: entirely conquered, DA he, मुक्तिपदम् - state of liberation, अर्हति - deserves,
by whom, : -
-
