Shloka 37
Nondual Vision Beyond Praise and Blame
Dvandva-nivṛtti and Ātma-viveka
यन्नामाकृतिभिर्ग्राह्यं पञ्चवर्णमबाधितम् । व्यर्थेनाप्यर्थवादोऽयं द्वयं पण्डितमानिनाम् ॥ ३७ ॥
yan nāmākṛtibhir grāhyaṁ pañca-varṇam abādhitam vyarthenāpy artha-vādo ’yaṁ dvayaṁ paṇḍita-māninām
ပစ္စည်းဓာတ်ငါးပါး၏ နှစ်မျိုးကွဲမှုကို အမည်နှင့် ရုပ်ပုံတို့ဖြင့်သာ သိမြင်နိုင်သည်။ ထိုနှစ်မျိုးကွဲမှုကို အမှန်တကယ်ဟု ဆိုသူများသည် ပညာရှင်ဟု ကိုယ်ကိုယ်တိုင် အထင်ကြီးသူများသာ ဖြစ်ပြီး အခြေခံမရှိသော စိတ်ကူးယဉ်သီအိုရီများကို အလဟဿ တင်ပြကြသည်။
Material names and forms, subject as they are to creation and annihilation, have no permanent existence and so do not constitute essential, fundamental principles of reality. The material world consists of variegated transformations of the potency of God. Although God is real and His potency is real, the particular forms and names that temporarily or circumstantially appear have no ultimate reality. Gross ignorance occurs when the conditioned soul imagines himself to be material or a mixture of matter and spirit. Some philosophers argue that the eternal soul in contact with matter is permanently transformed and that the false ego represents a new and permanent reality of the soul. Śrīla Jīva Gosvāmī replies that spirit is the living, superior energy of the Lord, whereas matter is the inferior, unconscious energy of the Lord, and that these two energies thus possess opposite qualities, as with light and darkness. The superior living entity and inferior matter therefore cannot possibly merge into a common existence, since they eternally possess opposite and incompatible characteristics. The hallucination of a mixture of matter and spirit is called illusion; it becomes specifically manifest as false ego, which identifies with a specific material body or mind created by illusion. Clearly those scientists or philosophers who are embedded in gross ignorance cannot be real scientists and philosophers. The simple criterion of spiritual self-awareness unfortunately eliminates a huge percentage of modern so-called scientists and philosophers, who bury their foolish noses in the Lord’s material energy, without any knowledge of or interest in the Lord Himself.
FAQs
This verse teaches that when the unimpeded Absolute is approached only through names, forms, and conceptual categories, discussion can become merely interpretive talk that reinforces duality rather than direct realization.
In the Uddhava Gītā, Krishna is guiding Uddhava from conceptual understanding to realized knowledge—warning him not to mistake scholarly explanations and dualistic argument for true spiritual vision of the Absolute.
Use study and discussion as support, but prioritize sincere sādhana—hearing, chanting, prayer, and inner contemplation—so that spiritual life becomes lived realization rather than only analysis and debate.