“Shri Manache Shlok” — Shloka/Verse 138 — a Dialogue With Our Mind
By: Shashi Kulkarni
Tags: Life, Mindset, Soul, Mindfulness, Spirituality

Introduction

Samarth Ramdas Swami teaches us how our mind is our friend, our enemy, and how it can be our Guru.

Note that this is focused on our own internal dialogue, with ourselves, with our mind, so wherever there are references of God, it will still apply to every human being, irrespective of religions and beliefs about God. Just replace the name of God with the one from your own religion, and if you don’t believe in one, talk with your mind.

Marathi Language Phonetics Transliteration

Refer to my article on the Marathi language phonetics transliteration — which is being used in these shloka explanation articles.

Shlok/ Verse # 138 from “Shri Manache Shlok”

Shloka in Marathi (Verse in the Marathi language)

भ्रमे नाढळे वित्त तें गुप्त जाले।

जिवा जन्मदारिद्र्य ठाकुनि आले॥

देहेबुद्धिचा निश्चयो ज्या टळेना।

जुने ठेवणे मीपणे आकळेना॥१३८॥

Shloka/verse in English

Bhr̥ame nāḍhaḷe vitta te gupta jāle

Jivā jaṅma dāridr̥ya ṭhākuni āle

Dehe buddhica niścayo jya ṭaḷenā

June ṭhevaṇe mīpaṇe ākaḷenā — 138

Meaning

Some people have lost the treasure due to the delusion. Right from the birth, a life of poverty came to stay for them.

He who has engrossed himself in the bodily pleasures and has resolved not to quit from those, cannot get out of the egoistic mind and cannot understand the old age wisdom.

Keywords and their meanings

भ्रमे —bhr̥ame — due to delusion; नाढळे — nāḍhaḷe— not find; वित्त —vitta — wealth; गुप्त —gupta— hidden; जाले —jāle — became

जिवा —jivā — to the creatures; जन्मदारिद्र्य — jaṅma dāridr̥ya— born in poverty; ठाकूनि — ṭhākuni— followed; आले — āle— came

देहेबुद्धिचा —dehe buddhica — of body awareness; निश्चयो —niścayo — resolve; ज्या —jya — to whom; टळेना —ṭaḷenā — escape not

जुने —June — old; ठेवणे — ṭhevaṇe— wealth (eternal truth; मीपणे — mīpaṇe— due to egoism; आकळेना —ākaḷenā — understand not.

निरूपण — Explanation or conceptualization

Samarth Ramdas Swami continues to explain the theme of these five shlokas which is about how our ego comes in between and prevents us from the understanding of the eternal truth.

If you have been to the theme parks, chances are that you have come across a powerful spinning ride where even the bravest of the brave riders experience gravity defying hang time, stomach-churning spins and swings.

Or simply, if you ever did try spinning around yourself a few times, probably the same effect happens.

For a few minutes after that, you just cannot control yourself and your mind. The world around you just becomes dizzy and you don’t know what is what and where is something actually.

A delusion of the mind — भ्रम — is something which lasts for much more time, and the person under delusion completely looses track of where something is. It becomes hard for them to recollect and find exactly where they kept something. Most of the times they cannot even recollect.

Samarth Ramdas Swami gives the example of someone who have a treasure with them but have completely forgotten it due to the delusion of the mind. Right from the start of the life, they are under this delusion.

They have forgotten what knowledge they acquired about the truth of life, and have instead got involved into satisfying the bodily pleasures like lust, greed and attachment.

Some have the thought process that this life is a one time opportunity so use whatever time is available to try and get everything to satisfy the desires which the mind and body throws at them.

They find the pleasure from the activities and things which are outside in the world. They never peek inside their mind to find the reality.

One reason is that they are not even aware of the spiritual knowledge and the concept of non-dualism. Other reason is they have completely forgotten it as all they care about is keep feeding their bodily senses.

They have such a determination to not leave their ego, that they just cannot find the truth.

The greatest delusion according to many sages is the thinking that ‘I am this body.’

Think about how we introduce ourselves to others.

My name is xyz, I am a doctor/engineer/artist/.. by profession, I have two kids, my hobbies are…, I like doing the activities like…

Everywhere there is “I”, “Me”, “My” — and all of these are referring to the body and bodily pleasures or senses.

Only when this delusion of dualism will go away, then we will realize our true self and understand the non-dualism, understand that we are one with the brahman.

We need to understand the scriptures and the tremendous knowledge which has been shared by great sages and is still being explained by many spiritual Gurus, and for that make every effort to get out of this delusion.