THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 07
JNANA VIJNANA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF KNOWLEDGE AND REALIZATION:
VERSE NUMBER 23
Text in Transliteration:
antavai tu phalam tesaam tad bhavaty alpamedhasaam
devaan devayajo yaanti madbhak taa yaanti maam api
Text in English:
But the fruit that accrues to those men of small intellect is finite. The worshippers of the gds go to the gods; My devotees come to Me.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIDBHAVANANDA:
Endeavours are practically the same in all the mines. But there is a difference between seekers of iron and seekers of the diamond. All men seek to enrich life and to add to happiness. Men of small intellect are they who are unable to distinguish between the fleeting happiness and the lasting happiness. The earthly impermanent attainments and happinesses deified are called the little gods; whereas the permanent spiritual attainments and bliss ever belong to Iswara. The ignorant seek the former while the enlightened seek the latter.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
As the Transcendent Divine cannot be known easily we resort to aspects of the Supreme and offer our worship. We realize the results we seek, for the Supreme is patient with our imperfect vision. He accepts our prayers and answers them at the level at which we approach Him. No devotion is worthless. Gradually even the illiterate devotee will seek his highest good in the Divine and grow into it. Those who rise to the worship of the Transcendent Godhead which embraces and transcends all aspects realize and attain to the highest state, integral in being, perfect in knowledge, absolute in love and complete in will. All other goods are partial and limited and have a meaning only at lower levels of development.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
The exertion in the two kinds is the same yet people do not attempt to worship the Supreme Being in order to attain the maximum benefits or the infinite reward (Liberation or Moksha). The reward obtained by men of small understanding and petty intellect who worship the minor deities is small, perishable and temporary.
Yajnas (Vedic rituals), Homas (rituals in which oblations are offered into the sacred fire) and Tapas (penance) of various sorts can bestow only temporary rewards on the performer. Liberation from the wheel of transmigration alone will give everlasting bliss and eternal peace.
Those who worship Indra and others are Sattvic devotees; those who worship Yakshas and Rakshasas (demoniacal beings) are Rajasic devotees, and those who worship the Bhutas and Pretas (discarnate spirits) are Tamasic devotees.
The knowledge of those who worship the small deities is partial and incomplete. It cannot lead to liberation. (Cf. IX. 25)
Comments of the blogger:
The worshippers of gods go to the gods; My devotees come to Me.
There is an intelligent choice in taking to the worship of the Lord of Gita. They go to Him.
But this should not be taken to mean that the worshippers of Lord Krishna go to Him after the present birth.
Why?
The Lord Himself has said of the thousand who seek me only one seeks vigorously and of the thousand who seek me vigorously only one stays the course and comes to me. Moreover, when describing of the Yoga of Meditation in chapter 6 He openly says that the yogi who meditates on Him is perfected through the series of rebirths before they give up completely the worldliness and come to Him!
The problem here is one of preparedness to give up everything for the sake of the Lord. The yogi Pattinathar spent his life in yoga and as and when he needed food, he used his two hands to get alms in the form of food only. He refused to take with him even a small vessel lest he should develop an attachment to that vessel which is used generally by the ascetics to get food!
Nothing is mine here would at one moment and at a different angle becomes the whole Universe is mine, it being the body of my God. That kind of realization is very sattvic or knowledgeable.
“But the fruit that accrues to those men of small intellect is finite.” This is what the Lord of Gita states as the opening class of this verse. Why should the fruit that accrues to those men of small intellect be finite? Because he is after the worldly benefits or remedy! Here it must be said the Lord has already enumerated His own devotees. One type of devotees worship Him to get away from a crisis. The other type want wealth. The third worship the Lord of Gita for knowledge. And the fourth worship the Lord for the sake of worship alone. But the Lord of Gita Has gone on record that all the four types of devotees are virtuous.
He wants people to worship Him alone even for the sake of getting away from a crisis and those who want wealth. Why? Because, in their case, there is a chance absolute to get up the ladder, birth after birth. But in the case of lower intellect men and women who resort to small deities who is propitiated only for the purposes of getting away from a crisis and ward of danger and secondly for wealth, there is no scope for the embodied beings to rise up the ladder. Because the deities and the form of worship involved is mostly Rajasic. Animal sacrifices are common in this kind of worship. Whereas in the worship of the Lord of Gita, sacrifices involve internalization of the Vedic sacrifices! One sacrifice anything dear to him in his MIND AND INTELLECT and in the ultimate analysis, one sacrifices one’s own Atman for the sake of the Lord. This kind of libation is not known to the Rajasic and Tamasic worshippers of gods.
So we should only worship the Lord of Gita or if those belong to the Saivaite Sect, Lord Siva, alone. The Lord has been very explicit. Even for warding off danger or getting away from a crisis and asking for wealth in the material world SHOULD BE MADE BEFORE THE LORD ALONE.
{Dear Readers, apart from this blog, I’m writing four more blogs; they are as follows:
kaviryinselvan.blogspot.com
raguramkarikalanandthetimemachin.blogspot.com
raguramramayanaforchildren.blogspot.com
myresourcefulaunt.blogspot.com
Please visit them all and strengthen my hands}
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