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The Genius of Dnyaneshwar
success, the senses Like the devil tricking the exorcist12 In your mind they come to exist And then, your body cannot resist These senses …267 They defy habit, custom and practice Such is the strength of temptation and its lattice13 …268 Then Shrikrishna summarises it all for the time being The man who destroys temptations And his dependence on sensations Gets ready for yogic redemption14 …269 But, warns Dnyaneshwar It is not enough To turn away from temptation Your heart too Must be rid of temptation Or the world will tantalize With its sensations Like a drop of poison The smallest of temptations Is enough to kill And end any chance of redemption …270 And then When the mind Is not swayed by temptation It will fill With tides of realisation And from his heart ‘I’ will not be subject to relegation15 …271 That Shrikrishna cannot be relegated from the heart of a content man, who has become a yogi is somewhat differently expressed in the relevant verse in the Geeta. It says quite directly in the words of Shrikrishna that ‘the mind should be focused on Him’. The difference between the two verses is subtle, perhaps not even intentional and as in all older languages may be just a matter of interpretation. And this difficulty arises in all philosophic-religious texts. If a certain