THE HOLY GITA, CHAPTER NUMBER 07, JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION, VERSE NUMBER 17

THE HOLY GITA

CHAPTER NUMBER 07

JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:

VERSE NUMBER 17

Text in Transliteration:

tesaam jnaani nityayukta ekabhaktir visishyate

priyo hi jnaanino ‘tyartham aham sa cha mama priyah

Text in English:

Of these, the wise man, ever steadfast and devoted to the One, excels: for, supremely dear am I to the wise and he is dear to Me.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

Seesteshtah is one of the appellations attributed to Vishnu. He who is dear to the good, is the meaning of this name. The highly evolved ones among the human get to love the Lord.

It is but natural for beings to love themselves. The jnani cognizes Brahman as the real entity and the very essence in himself. He is therefore supremely attached to the Reality in himself. That Reality gives the Jnani his true individuality. This is how the Jnani excels.       

SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:

After God-realization the aspirant himself gets at godly qualities.

COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:

So long as we are seekers, we are still in the world of duality but when we have attained wisdom, there is no duality. The sage unites himself with the One Self in all.

COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:

Ekabhaktih means unswerving, single-minded devotion to the Supreme Being.

The Jnani-Bhakta is beyond all cults or creeds or formal religion or rules of society. As the wise man is constantly harmonized and as he is devoted to the One, he is regarded as superior to all the other devotees. As I am his very Self or Antaratma. I am extremely dear to him. Everybody loves his own Self most. The Self is very dear to everybody. The wise man is My very Self and he is dear to Me also. (Cf. II. 49; IX. 29; XII. 14. 17 and 19)

Comments by the blogger:

In verse 16 four types of devotees are elaborated by the Lord with no room for doubt as to the virtuosity of their devotion. First the distressed pray the Lord to help him out. Then the man seeking knowledge prays to the Lord. Then the man seeking wealth prays to him. And then the man imbued with wisdom prays to him for the sake of it.

Clearly, this stanza is devoted to eulogize the man who is wise.

In the previous stanza, God stands in the place of a loving and lovable mother of four children. Of the four the-wealth seeking child is a cripple. The person distressed is mentally having problems. The man seeking knowledge a normal child getting good grades at school and helping out the mother in her household chores too. And that son who is imbued with wisdom is the one least expecting any molly coddling from the mother.

Certainly and obviously, the mother loves all the four children. That is the thing brought out by the previous stanza.

But in the present stanza, the mother in the Lord says that she is proud of the wise child who, apart from loving his mother, bears the burden of the family, financially as well as emotionally. She has a partiality of sort to the wise person. When the neighbours and all the village refers to the wise child as being her son(saying, for example, He is Ravi and he is Shenbagam’s son). Thus when the wise child becomes the mother’s identity card, her melting heart simply puffs out in pride when others speak of him in flowery words and language.

The Lord calls all the four kinds of devotees as virtuous. Because they are not like the Delhi bus rapists! They are not people or beasts who kidnap the harijans or Dhalit women and girls when they, at the sundown, leave their houses for attending the nature’s call and rip-rape them. So God loves all types of devotees. But he simply is proud of the devotee who is wise.