Verse 41 of 68
Harināma Kīrtanam · Verse 41
ഞാനെന്നുമീശ്വരനിതെന്നും വളർന്നളവു
ജ്ഞാനദ്വയങ്ങൾ പലതുണ്ടായതിന്നുമിഹ
മോഹം നിമിത്തമതുപോകും പ്രകാരമപി
ചേതസ്സിലാക മമ നാരായണായ നമഃñānennumīśvaranitennuṁ vaḷarnnaḷavu jñānadvayaṅṅaḷ palatuṇṭāyatinnumiha mōhaṁ nimittamatupōkuṁ prakāramapi cētassilāka mama nārāyaṇāya namaḥ
“When 'I' and 'the Lord' grow up as two, many dual knowings come to be. The cause is delusion, and the way it goes, let that come to my heart too. Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.”
The forty-first verse names the source of every dualistic confusion. When I and the Lord grow up as two, many dual knowings come to be. The cause is delusion, and the way that delusion goes (away), let that come to my heart. The verse is the work's compact summary of the Advaita-Vedānta teaching about the false separation between jīvātma and paramātma: the seer-seen split is the root of every other splitting; when the root collapses, the dual knowings collapse with it. The seeker is asking, in plain Malayalam, that the way the delusion goes be shown to him.
If you have come to this verse with a long history of thinking of the Lord as somewhere else and of yourself as someone here, the verse names that thinking as the cause of the trouble. The verse asks that the way out of the thinking come to the seeker's heart.
The Living Words
Ñān-ennum īśvaran-itennum vaḷarnnaḷavu jñāna-dvayaṅṅaḷ palatu uṇṭāyatu innum iha. When I-am and the-Lord-is grow up (as separate), many dual knowings come into being. Vaḷarnnaḷavu is (at the moment they) grew up; jñāna-dvaya is the dual knowing, the binary cognition.
Mōham nimittam atu pōkum prakāram api cetassil āka mama Hari Nārāyaṇāya namaḥ. The cause is moha (delusion); let the manner-of-its-going also come to my heart. Mōham nimittam is the cause is delusion; prakāram is the manner, the way; cetassil āka is let it be in the heart.
Scripture References
The deluded I-maker thinks: I am the doer.
प्रकृतेः क्रियमाणानि गुणैः कर्माणि सर्वशः । अहङ्कारविमूढात्मा कर्ताहमिति मन्यते ।।
prakṛteḥ kriyamāṇāni guṇaiḥ karmāṇi sarvaśaḥ | ahaṅkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate ||
Actions are performed in every way by the guṇas of prakṛti; the deluded *I-maker* thinks: *I am the doer*.
Krishna's Sanskrit naming of the verse-41 *moha*. The doubling between *I* and *the Lord* is the same doubling between the *I-maker* and the actual doer (the *guṇas*). The verse asks for the going-away of this primary doubling.
The Heart of It
Verse 13 already named jīva-paramātma-aikya, the unity of the individual and supreme Selves. Verse 41 returns to the same recognition by way of its negation. The seeker has been treating I and the Lord as two separate things; from this primary doubling, every other doubling follows: I and the world, self and other, good and bad, life and death. Verse 41 names the doubling itself as moha (delusion).
The Bhagavad Gītā, in its eighteenth chapter, names the same recognition. Ahaṁkāra-vimūḍhātmā kartāham iti manyate. The deluded I-maker thinks: I am the doer. The doubling produces the doer-seer split. The seeker's deepest moha is not a complex error; it is this single primary error of feeling himself as a separate doer.
The verse-41 plea is for the manner-of-going-away of this moha. The seeker is not asking for the moha to be magically removed. The seeker is asking to be shown how the moha goes, so that the seeker can participate in its going. The Sanskrit canon's name for this manner-of-going is vivarta-nivṛtti, the cessation of the apparent transformation: when the seeker recognizes that the moha was always vivarta (apparent change, not real change), the moha ceases by being seen.
If you have come to this verse uncertain how to undo the doubling, the verse offers the simplest possible practice. Cetassil āka mama: let it be in my heart. Not let me undo it by my mind. Let the way of going-away come into my heart by your grace. The going-away is, like the dawning of ekānta-bhakti in verse 23, the Lord's act, not the seeker's. The seeker's act is the bow.
The seeker's deepest moha is not a complex error; it is this single primary error of feeling himself as a separate doer.
The Saints Who Walked This Road
Two saints whose practice undid the verse-41 doubling.
Ramaṇa Mahāṛṣi (already in verses 3, 14, 24), at Aruṇācala, gave every visitor who came with a question the same instruction: find the source of the I-thought. The instruction was not theoretical; it was the practical method by which the jñāna-dvaya of verse 41 collapses. The seeker traces the I to its source; the I, traced, dissolves; the doubling of I and the Lord dissolves with it. The body image is the silent saint on the small couch in the old hall, the seeker's question arriving, the answer arriving without words: who is asking?
Niṣarga-datta Mahārāja, twentieth-century Bombay, was a bīḍī-shop proprietor and householder who, with his guru Siddharameśwar Mahārāj's blessing, lived the Advaita-Yoga path while running the small shop. His I Am That (the English-translated record of his Marathi-Hindi conversations) is the modern Indian Advaita's most-read text. He named the verse-41 moha the same way: the trouble is not that you are confused; the trouble is that you have taken yourself to be a person. The body image is the bīḍī-shop on the Khetwadi lane in Bombay, the seekers gathered upstairs, the answer arriving in plain Marathi between customers.
The Refrain
ഹരി നാരായണായ നമഃ
Salutation to Hari Nārāyaṇa.