In anushAsana parva, while explaining to umA about the various sAdhanAs that rishis adopt, mahAdeva makes the following statement
सर्वेषु एवर्षिधर्मेषु जेय आत्मा जितेन्द्रियः . कामक्रोधौ ततः पश्चाज् जेतव्याव् इति मे मतिः+
mahAdeva - “All the rishis who are situated in different sAdhanAs for jIvAtma-sAkShAtkAratva should have conquered their mind and subdued their senses. It is my opinion that they should then afterwards conquer desire and anger”
Whatever sAdhana rishis practice in attaining a vision of the jIvAtma - various branches of karma & j~nAna yogAs which are numerous - they must restrain the mind from contemplation on sense objects and then restrain senses from such activity.
Now how can one keep the senses & mind restrained without wavering?
It is only by conquering kAma and krodha - rooting it out completely.
That is stated by mahAdeva - if you want to keep the senses & mind restrained, desire and anger must be conquered next.
Note something curious. When he says “Next, conquer desire and anger”, he says “इति मे मतिः” - “This is my opinion”.
Why does he say “my opinion”, when he could have said, “it is mentioned in shAstrAs” instead?+
Because, in order to attain a vision of the self, some rishIs meditate on the jIvAtma directly. This is a hard path and it is not possible to eliminate desire completely.
It also leads to the trap of kaivalya -- I have described this while posting about vR^iddhakShatra+
Whereas, desire and anger are truly conquered only when one meditates on bhagavAn’s form, as Krishna has said तानि सर्वाणि संयम्य युक्त आसीत मत्पर:… (~ gIta 2.61).
Thus, bhagavAn’s form is a means to attain the vision of the self quickly+
Not all rishis practice this due to lack of interest in bhagavAn. Therefore mahAdeva says, “इति मे मतिः” - “It is my opinion that they should meditate on bhagavAn rather than meditating on the jIvAtma, for only his beautiful form can conquer desire & anger for them”
“इति मे मतिः” also means the following - mahAdeva tells umA, “devI! bhagavAn alone can conquer desire & anger. It is my opinion based on my personal experience when I tried to meditate on the jIvAtma directly & failed. Then, I started meditating on bhagavAn and attained success+
mahAdeva himself mentions in harivaMsha that he had become a kaivalyArti in his younger days & was directly meditating on the self. He was rescued by bhagavAn who sent kAmadeva (through Indra) to disrupt that penance. He started meditating on Brahman after that+
In 3 simple words - “इति मे मतिः” - many tattvAs are conveyed by mahAdeva. This is the beauty of our shAstra.
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