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Comment from Shri Lalsare, a great devotee of Sant Dnyaneshwar.

Dear Kulkarni, I was happy to know that you have published Dnyaneshwari in English. I will see the chapter suggested by you in next week and give my views on it. Before that let me congratulate you for the work done by you. I am sure it would be a good work. Thanks for your mail.--Lalsare.

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Chapter Thirteen owi 575 - 600
Beware of Old Age

People in neighborhood will
Wake up from sleep due to cough, and say,
The old man will exhaust everyone. 574
Who thus sees the warning of
Oncoming old age in the future while
He is still young, he will get disgusted in the mind. 575
“See, this is coming,” he says,
“Present days will be over in enjoyment.
What will then remain behind for betterment?” 576
So I shall hear everything to be heard,
As long as I am not deaf. I shall go where
I should go (places of pilgrimage), till I am not lame. 577
I shall see whatever is to be seen,
Till I loose my Vision. Before I become Dumb,
I shall recite all the well-spoken words. 578
The hands would get paralyzed.
He comes to know the glimpse of this.
So he completes donating and other noble things. 579
Such state will come in future
When mind will get to madness.
Before that I should think of Pure Knowledge. 580
The thieves would attack tomorrow,
So one departs from his wealth today.
Or before a lamp gets Extinguished,
One covers everything and keeps in order. 581
Like that, one would get old
And everything would be useless.
So he gets that done while still young. 582
In an area surrounded by forts,
In the evening, when birds return to the nest,
Instead of going further, if a traveler enters the fort,
Will he get fleeced? 583
Like that, old age will come, and
The life will go to waste.
One, who is hoping for hundred years of life,
How would he know that? 584
When you beat the already beaten sesame plant,
Would you get more seeds?
Or the fire, when extinguished into ashes,
Would it burn other things? 585
So, one who thinks of old age while young,
He defeats old age (makes it naked).
Understand he has the knowledge. 586
He could face many diseases in future.
So he makes the best use of health while it lasts. 587
The substance caught in the mouth of serpent
Is discarded by wise man.
Thus discarded is a friendship which
Nourishes separation, sorrow, calamity, and grief.
He happily stays neutral. 589
The doors through which forbidden
Behaviors may enter, those openings of actions
He closes permanently by strict restraints. 590
Hey Arjuna, whose behavior is in
The style thus described,
Understand, he is the owner of
The wealth of knowledge. 591
Now one more extraordinary attribute
I shall tell.
Arjuna, listen. 592
Asaktiranabhishvangaha putradaaragruhaadishu.
Nityam cha samachittatvamishtaanishtopapattishu. 9
A traveler settled in the house for a night
Is neutral about that house.
Who is thus neutral regarding his body, 593
A traveler has no attachment to
A shadow of tree met on the way,
Like that he has no love for his own house. 594
Your shadow is always with you.
But you never know it is there, and have no attachment.
Like that he has no attachment to woman. 595
The children he has, he considers them as
Travelers who have come to stay overnight.
Or like cattle sitting underneath the tree. 596
Arjuna, though he is amidst wealth,
He seems not attached to it, like a traveller witnessing
The things happening on the way. 597
What more should I say?
Like a parrot in the cage, he is
In the worldly life afraid of the orders of Vedas. 598
Who doesn’t love his wife, children, and home,
Understand he is the authority on the knowledge. 599
The ocean is equally filled
In the summer and in the winter. Thus
He considers desired and undesired equal. 600

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Gurudeo Shri R. D. Ranade, who was Professor of philosophy and Vice-Chancellor of Allahabad University for some time, was a great devotee and critic of spiritual literature of Dnyaneshwar and four other eminent mystic Sants of Maharashtra. Gurudeo himself was a self-realized Sant from the tradition of Nath Sampradaya. He wrote about Dnyaneshwar in following words.
”Dnyaneshwar was not merely one of the greatest saints of Maharashtra, but also certainly one of the greatest interpreters of Bhagwad Geeta that ever lived….The most distinguishing feature of this interpretation of Bhagwad Geeta - Dnyaneshwari, is his unique contribution of philosophy, poetry and mysticism. Its philosophy is of a higher order no doubt, but its poetry is of a still higher order. And when the mysticism is combined with philosophical insight and poetical imagination, one can easily see how Dnyaneshwari stands, supreme.”


About the style of Dnyaneshwari, Gurudeo Ranade has written as follows.


“As regards style of Dnyaneshwari, there rarely has been even in other languages another work which shows the same flights of imagination that Dnyanadeva shows in his Dnyaneshwari. The employment of analogy at every step in the exposition of any philosophical problem was the most characteristic method in Dnyanadeva’s time. Wide world-experience is evinced by Dnyanadeva at every step; it is really wonderful how at the young age of fifteen or nineteen, such a work should have been composed. Whence could the author have acquired such a vast experience of the world?”


Gurudeo Ranade had studied all the available works on philosophy in all major languages of the world of his time and then sometime in 1933 certified Dnyaneshwari as unique contribution in philosophy and mysticism.


Let me now site a quote from Father Felix Machado’s book “Jnaneshvari-Path to Liberation published in 1998. Father Machado is presently Arch Bishop at Vasai in Maharashtra. He writes:


“The Jnaneshvari has been an unsurpassed literary piece in the Marathi language both from the point of view of high literary excellence and of an elevating philosophy of life. Jnaneshvar opened the hidden treasure and made it easy of access not only to the learned but also to the peasants and farmers and thus brought self respect and dignity to the common people. He couched the commentary in Marathi making the language acceptable in the field of scholarship and also lovable. The uniqueness of the Jnaneshvari is that it is more than a mere reproduction of the Sanskrit Bhagwad Gita into Marathi. Jnaneshvar’s command on both Sanskrit and Marathi enabled him to blend soul of the two languages into a flexible and poetic style which meets the needs of both, the man of learning and layman.”


Having seen old and recent views on the style and importance of Dnyaneshwari, let us now enter into its heart.


The first and very important ovi (couplet) commencing the composition of Dnyaneshwari invokes Aumkar (Pranava) as form of Atman, for realization of which, Lord Krishna had imparted spiritual knowledge to Arjuna in the form of Bhagwad Geeta, even in the midst of battlefield. The Ovi in Marathi and its literal meaning in English is as under: