THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 07
JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:
VERSE NUMBER 16
Text in Transliteration:
caturvidhaa bhajante maam janaah sukrtino ‘rjuna
aarto jijnaasur arthaarthee jnaani cha bharata rshabha
Text in English:
Four types of virtuous men worship Me, O Arjuna: the man in distress, the man seeking knowledge, the man seeking wealth and the man imbued with wisdom, O the best of the Bharatas.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Distress comes to beings in one form or another and at some time or the other. Avoidance of it is impossible to the embodied. Just as medicine is resorted to, to cure disease, the way of the devoted is to supplicate the Divine for deliverance from distress. When the modesty of the Queen Draupadi was at stake in the assembly of the Kauravas, she piteously sought the protection of Sri Krishna and His help did come to save her from that situation. The lives of many a devotee bear testimony to the fact that the Lord comes to the rescue of the pious in distress.
The man seeking knowledge is here designated as jinjaasu. It is not given to all to become seekers of God-Knowledge. the rare few who seek, obtain it unmistakably. The Lord sees to it that the spiritual thirst of the devotee never goes unslaked. A recent seeker of God-knowledge was Swami Vivekananda and Providence made provision for his obtaining it.
The man seeking wealth usually works for it and that is the proper way. One type of devotees work for it, praying to the Lord at the same time for the easy acquisition of wealth. Another type of devotees have no time to toil for wealth: at the same time they are in need of it for their holy undertakings. They ardently appeal to the Lord and He sensd them the required resources. The man imbued with wisdom is here classified as Jnani, the one who has realized the truth. He is one who has gained the insight that Brahman is the
Reality while the universe and the beings are all mere superimposition of it. Adoring the Reality to the exclusion of the appearance is but natural to him.
Among the people who believe in God, these are the four types who seek to contact Him, each according to his understanding and attainments. All the four groups are virtuous because of their right understanding and right doings.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Blessed are they who keep God as their goal and strive accordingly. Zeros have no value, but they gain in value when linked to the number one. God is the number one and all the worldly things are zeros. Independent of God, they are mere ciphers, but when associated with Him, they gain in importance.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Sukritinah; virtuous ones. Those who are disposed towards the higher life on account of their past virtuous conduct.
The afflicted, those in distress, who have suffered losses are one class. Those who are desirous of wealth, dhanakaama, who wish to improve their material position are another. The third group are devout and upright and wish to know the truth. They are on the right way. The fourth are the jnanis, they who know. Ramanuja interprets jnana or wisdom as devotion to one alone, ekabakthi.
Maha Baratha speaks of four classes of devotees of whom three are phalakaamaa or desirous of rewards while the best are single minded worshippers. Others ask for favours, but the sage asks nothing and refuses nothing. He yields himself completely to the Divine, accepting whatever is given to him. His attitude is one of self-oblivious non-utilitarian worship of God for His own sake.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The distressed is he who is suffering from a chronic and incurable disease, he whose life is in jeopardy on account of earthquake, volcanic eruption, thunder, attack by a dacoit or enemy or tiger, etc. When Draupadi and Gajendra were in great distress they worshipped the Lord. These are instances of Aarta Bhakti.
Jijnasu is the enquirer. He is dissatisfied with this world. there is a void in his life. He always feels that sensual is not the biggest form of happiness and there is yet pure eternal bliss unmixed with greif and pain, which is to be found within. Janaka and Uddhava were devotees of this type.
Seeker of wealth is he who craves for money, wife, children, position, name and fame. Sugriva, Vibhishana, Upamanyu and Dhruva were all devotees of this type.
The wise are the men of knowledge who have attained to Self-illumination. Sukadeva was a Jnanai-Bhakta.
Kamsa, Sishupala and Ravana thought of the Lord constantly on account of fear and hatred (Vaira Bhakti). Hence they are also regarded as devotees.
Be devoted to God, whatever be your motive, Devotion will purify the motive in due course.
Comments by the blogger:
The basic principle is that all the four types are VIRTUOUS!
Whether we seek His help because we are in distress or we seek knowledge or we seek wealth and the man who is imbued with wisdom who prays and worship the Lord right royally for its own sake.
Here, absolutely, those devotees who seek knowledge and seek nothing and full of wisdom are certainly to be applauded.
But most of us, the devotees, belong to the two major groups; it is either to get out of a distress or wishing for more and more wealth.
Of the two, worshipping the Lord wishing for wealth alone is the beginning stage. That kind of Bhaktas or devotees need not necessarily be poopooed. They have just started on their course of devotion to the Lord. There would come a time either in the present incarnation or in the future incarnations when they would no more ask for wealth because either they would have enough or they might have transcended that stage of worshipping the money and wealth.
And what about the distressed people who took to devotional ways? Certainly the types of distresses ably enumerated by Swami Sivananda is not a final and exhaustive list. But he has nicely brought to our mind the distress of Draupadi and Kajendra, the elephant.
In the present scenario the pre-school children are stressed out because of the shots of antibiotics and paracetamal drug. Don’t laugh. If you are in doubt just visit a general practitioner or child specialists and sit there for an hour. The kind of animal cry and the kind of cringe begging on the part of the babies to their loving mothers that they are afraid of the shots! Mothers continuously would tell them all kind of convincing stories and anecdotes to grown-up babies, and repeatedly promise that THIS time there would be no shots. But when the child is brought up before the doctor, they would be the first to beg the physician to give the lovely boy or girl a shot. And when the baby’s trousers are lowered for the doctor to inject on one side of the buttocks, the child would cry out against all the injustice in the world.
If that were the case, the school going children are stressed out because of heavy work schedule at School and homework at home! As though it were not enough, even a five years old boy and girl are raped either by the school watchmen, or the teacher or the Head Master himself. The five years old darlings are taught in a roundabout way that they should not allow anyone to touch her/him here, there, and, and particularly here, ok? If anyone touches you there, you should report to mother the very next time you meet me, ok? The weekly test, monthly tests, and the term tests besides exams. He or she becomes a robot. And the mother teaches him/her to pray to God that the questions should be simple and he/she should get a good grade. So devotion because of stress right royally starts when the boy or girl is just seven or eight!
After the education career job hunting is a big stress. 108 coconuts are broken on the stone in front of the Vinayaka deity under the huge Pupul tree as and when the joy of being employed happens. And if you are a woman, thereafter starts the problem with the superior and the male colleagues who have the main eye on you.
Then you become a mother or father and the stress of begetting the children and then how to bring them up. The seat in the famous pre-school itself is a stress. And you do to your children what your parents did with regard to the regular shots given in the dispensary. And while the child cried out you too are stressed out.
When the boy or girl become young men and women, watching their character is your main stress.
But there is a particular stress no father/mother of a girl or two three girls at marriageable age. You take all sort of vows and actually regularly carry them out. And if you are the unfortunate mother/father of the married daughter, she should not be subject to any dowry death is your primary stress.
Don’t think I have exhausted the list of stresses. I have just added some more to the able list given by Swami Sidbhavananda and Swami Sivananda.
So we are unable to move toward the level whereby we could love and pray to the Lord for Knowledge alone. And those who belong to this type are really very fortunate indeed. But don’t forget that they have evolved into this kind of devotion after a millennial trial and error and practice of prayer because of stresses.
This is why the Lord of Gita put all the four types into VIRTUOUS people.
Don’t fight shy because of your prayer or type of prayer.
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