A Study of the Bhagavadgita :10-6. Swami Krishnananda.

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Wednesday, March 30, 2022. 20:10.

Chapter-10. The Hidden Meaning of the Seventh Chapter of the Gita-6.

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Therefore, there can be only one ‘I' behind the cosmos, not many I's. Many I's cannot say, “We are the creators of the cosmos and we are all things,” because two things cannot be all things. So here is the supremacy of the Godhood that speaks in this strain as ‘I': “I am.” That is all. You cannot say anything more. You can only say, “it is.”  You can know God as Existence. It is, that's all. You should not say anything more about God except that He is. What He is, you should not say, because there is no quality, no attribute that can be associated with Him, inasmuch as He is the All. If He is the All, there can be no external attribute. Ahaṁ kṛtsnasya jagataḥ prabhavaḥ pralayas tathā: I am all things.

It is incumbent on the part of the spiritual seeker, as mentioned, to commune himself with this great Reality which is the beginning and the end of all things. The Universal should engulf, as it were, the individual. The waves should subside in the ocean. The little I of the finite individual should get merged in the Infinite One I.

The feeling of the seeker of Truth at the time of his attempt to commune himself with the Almighty is called bhakti or devotion in the language of the Gita. Whoever is devoted to God is also a Yogi. In all practices there is an element of devotion, a longing for something higher than one's own self. You are a devotee of the higher Self. You are a devotee of God. You are a devotee of the infinite Purusha. You are devoted to it in the sense that you want it. Whenever you want something, you become a devotee of that thing.

The Gita tells us that there are varieties of devotees. Your devotion to God is not a uniform attitude commonly discoverable in everybody at the same time. You are placed in a different context on account of your karmas and the nature of your personality. Even when you love or hate a thing, you differ from another person who has a love and hate for different things. The quality or intensity of love and hatred varies in different individuals according to the nature of the object as they conceive it or according to their own psychological circumstance.

"Chatur-vidha bhajante mam janah sukritino ’rjuna

arto jijnasur artharthi jnani cha bharatarshabha." (Gita 7.16). 

Meaning : "O best amongst the Bharatas, four kinds of pious people engage in My devotion—the distressed, the seekers of knowledge, the seekers of worldly possessions, and those who are situated in knowledge."

The Bhagavadgita distinguishes four kinds of devotees. Many people run to God, offer prayers to God every day, but for what is this prayer? What do you want from God? There are people who want something from God. If you want nothing, you will not approach anything. People are distressed in life. There is great sorrow, poverty, ignorance, disease, tension, conflict, and what not. They cry, “God, come and help me.” These devotees who cry for help from God because they are in a state of distress are called arthas, distressed devotees. They want nothing else from God except freedom from distress. Sorrow and pain must be removed; that is all they expect from God. Inasmuch as the expectation is so small, it may even look silly to ask God Almighty for that. But yet, many devotees are of that type, and the Almighty incarnated as Bhagavan Sri Krishna says, “They are also beloved. They are devoted to me.”

But there are other devotees who do not seek this kind of blessing. They say, “Give me wisdom, knowledge, enlightenment.” For instance, Panini did meditation on Lord Siva for wisdom, and Lord Siva appeared before him, and with the sound of his damaru gave him knowledge of all Sanskrit literature. The scriptures contain many examples of these kinds of devotees. “I am ignorant. I understand nothing. Please bless me with knowledge.” These are a higher kind of devotees – jijnasu, they are called. One who wants to know is a jijnasu. One who wants to be free from distress is an artha. So artha and jijnasu are the first two categories.

Artharthi is the third type – one who wants material prosperity. “I would like to be materially rich, socially highly placed. I would like to be even a king, if God is so pleased. Lord, condescend to make me an emperor of this world.” And God will make you an emperor. If not in this world, in the next birth at least you will be born as the son of an emperor. You may be a ruler of a large kingdom. God is not unable to grant even this wish.

To be continued ......

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