The Soul Must Not Imitate the Lord
Bala Kanda, Doha 69
Doha 69 · Movement 2 of 2
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A clear boundary is drawn around the sacred examples. What arises from divine freedom cannot become a pretext for human pride. The Lord's acts belong to the one who is never mastered by the forces through which he moves.
A foolish person who casts aside discernment and imitates sovereign Leela from ego does not attain equality with Ishvara. The same outward act carries a different truth when performed from bondage rather than freedom.
The individual soul must receive the Lord's conduct as revelation, not costume. Reverence ripens into transformation; arrogant imitation only deepens the prison it claims to transcend.
The jiva bows before the divine fire instead of pretending that borrowed flame is its own.
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AI-created devotional illustration · Doha 69
A symbolic unnamed human sits in thoughtful humility before a broad quiet valley; no actual source episode or punishment is depicted.
Source reference and artistic choices
Gita Press code81 undated · PDF pages 89 · printed pages 87. Reader passage: bala-kanda-doha-070. Printed numbering may differ.
Source facts
- The verse warns against foolish proud imitation of divine freedom and distinguishes jiva from Isha
- It narrates a kalpa in hell as the warning's consequence; the image does not depict punishment or assert a witnessed episode
Artistic choices
- An unnamed ordinary symbolic human in thoughtful humility, not a named scripture character or actual source event
- Chosen adult tan face, short dark hair/trimmed beard, cream/ochre robe, cross-legged position, resting hands, mat, tree bough, vast valley, stream/distant hills and natural dawn light added; no embodied god or miraculous manifestation
An imaginative interpretation, not a historical portrait or documentary evidence.
जौं अस हिसिषा करहिं नर जड़ि बिबेक अभिमान। परहिं कलप भरि नरक महुँ जीव कि ईस समान।।69।।
But if foolish men, stripped of viveka (discernment) and swollen with pride, harbor such desires, they fall into naraka (hell) for an entire kalpa. How can the jiva (individual soul) ever be equal to Ishvara (the Lord)?