jauṁ asa hisiṣā karahiṁ nara jaṛa bibēka abhimāna.
parahiṁ kalapa bhari naraka mahum̐ jīva ki īsa samāna. 69.
If a person is foolish enough that he starts comparing his gross mortal existence in this
world with the exalted nature of God due to his misplaced sense of wisdom driven by
ignorance and pride, then surely such stupid person falls in the great hell for a Kalpa
(the duration of one life-time of the universe).
Say, can a ‘Jiva’ (a living being with a gross body which dies and takes birth
in an endless cycle and remains engrossed in the world that itself is gross and
perishable) ever be like the ‘Ish’ or the Lord God (who has characters and virtues just
the opposite of a Jiva). [The answer is ‘No’.]^1 (Doha no. 69)
[Note—^1 The “Jiva” is a living being who takes a birth, has a gross body, remains
involved in the affairs of the gross world of material objects, dies and is re-born, is
subjected to the laws of ‘Karma’ (which states that he is rewarded or punished
according to the deeds that a Jiva does in his life), and so on and so forth. A Jiva has
no control over his fate. He has physical limitations due to his gross physical body.
On the other hand, “Ish” (meaning Lord God) has none of these limitations. The
Lord God neither takes a birth nor dies as he is eternal; he has no physical gross body;
he is not bound to either the deeds or the world; he has no physical limitations as he is
omnipresent, all-pervading, as well as sublime and subtle by nature instead of being
gross and mundane.
The point to note here is that Vishnu and Shiva are manifestations of the supreme
Brahm, the Lord of creation. The Sun is visible manifestation of the supreme powers
of Brahm and also of the fire element which is one of the five basic elements of
creation. The other element is water whose manifested form is river Ganges. None of
these highly placed entities are corruptible by the lower entities of the world.
The entities listed by Narad (i.e. Vishnu, Sun, Fire and river Ganges) are not
regarded as faulty though they possess characters that are ordinarily considered as
negative because they are above the level of lowly existence of the world that is gross
and mundane. Their existence is at a level that is subtle, sublime and transcendental.]
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caupā’ī.
surasari jala kṛta bāruni jānā. kabahum̐ na santa karahiṁ tēhi pānā. 1.
surasari milēṁ sō pāvana jaisēṁ. īsa anīsahi antaru taisēṁ. 2.
[Narad gives more reasoning why even apparently negative traits are deemed to be
positive when they are applied to Lord Shiva.]
Even if wine is mixed with the otherwise holy waters of river Ganges, saints
and holy people will not drink it. [For saints and holy people, wine is a prohibited
liquid. Merely adding the holy water of river Ganges won’t change wine’s basic
character; it will still remain a prohibited drink.]^1 (1)
But the same wine becomes acceptable when it is added (or poured) into the
main body of the river Ganges. [No matter how many bottles of wine are poured in
the river Ganges, no one says that the river has become defiled and its water has lost
its sanctity as being a purifying liquid. People continue to take bath in it and sip the
water of Ganges.]^2