For this Sunday, I turn to two passages from Jnaneshwar, the "King of Saints", poet, philosopher and yogi of India. In his short life span, Jnanseshwar was the first to translate the Bhagavad Gita, written in the then secret sacred language of Sanskrit. in Marathi, a common language, making the text widely available. He then wrote a brilliant commentary in over 9,000 verses which remains a classic text in Avaita Vedanta (non dualism) philosophy. These passages are from Two Suns Rising, A Collection of Sacred Writings, by Jonathan Star (1992). (Susan Nettleton)
Jnaneshwar (1271-1293)
Krishna:
"If it is said that I am concealed by the existence of the world, then who is it that blossoms in the form of the world? Can a red jewel be concealed by its own luster? Does a chip of gold lose its goldness if turned into an ornament? Does a lotus lose itself when it blossoms into so many petals? When a seed of grain is sown and grows into an ear of corn, is it destroyed or does it appear in its enhanced glory? So there is no need to draw the curtain of the world away in order to have my vision, because I am the whole panorama."
"Therefore, giving up the conception of difference, a person should know Me alongside himself. He should not regard himself as different from Me, as a speck of gold is not different from the whole block of gold. He should understand well how a ray of light, though proceeding from an origin, is continuous with it. Like molecules on the surface of the earth, or flakes of snow on the Himalaya, all individual souls dwell in Me. A ripple, small or great, is not different from water. So he should know himself as not different from Me. Such insight is call Devotion. This is the supreme knowledge the essence of all Yoga."
And from the Bible:
"I am the vine, ye are the branches." (John 15:5)