THE HOLY GITA
CHAPTER NUMBER 09
RAJAVIDYA RAJAGUHYA YOGA OR THE YOGA OF THE SOVEREIGN SCIENCE AND SOVEREIGN SECRET:
VERSE NUMBER 15
Text in Transliteration:
jnaanayajnena chaa ‘py anye yajanto maam upaasate
ekatvena prthaktvena bahudhaa visvattomukham
Text in English:
Yet others sacrifice with the Yajna of knowledge and worship Me in various ways as the one, as the distinct and as the all-faced.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Worshipping the Lord as the one, undivided Pure Consciousness is the way of Advaita or non-dualism.
Adorning the Almighty as the distinct is the way of Dvaita or dualism. He is held as distinct from the Jagat(the world) and the Jivatma (human beings)—the universe and the beings, both of these categories being dependent on Him.
Invoking Iswara as the all-faced is the way of Visishtadvaita or the qualified non-dualism. The universe and the beings in it are all the insentient and sentient aspects of the body of the Lord. It is, for this reason, He is called the all-faced.
In whatever way the Lord is worshipped, it is acceptable to Him. These several ways of understanding the Lord by the devotees are all their respective Janna-yajnas or sacrifices of Knowledge.
How can the divergent and conflicting forms of worship reach the same Lord, who is one without a second? The Lord Himself gives the answer in the next stanza.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA AS QUOTED BY SWAMI CHIDBHAVANANDA:
Whatever be your concept of God, be it with form or formless, hold fast to it and ardently worship Him. But be not conceited that your concept alone of Him is the finale. In the course of your sadhana (spiritual practice) you will come to know by His grace that His attributes and form are inexhaustible.
COMMENTARY BY DR.S.RADHAKRISHNAN:
Shankara thinks that three classes of worshippers are mentioned here. Ramanuja and Madhva hold that only one class is mentioned. Tilak thinks that Advaita, Dvaita and Vsisitadvaita are meant.
Men worship the Supreme facing us in all ways, as one with all existences and at the same time as separate from them.
COMMENTARY BY SWAMI SIVANANDA:
Others too sacrificing by the wisdom-sacrifice i.e., seeing the Self in all, adore Me the one and the manifold, present everywhere. They regard all the forms they see as the forms of God, all sounds they hear as the names of God. They give all objects they eat as offerings unto the Lord in various ways.
Some adore Him with the knowledge that there is only one Reality, the Supreme Being Who is Existence-Knowledge-Bliss. They identify themselves with the Truth or Brahman. This is the Monistic view of Vedantins. Some worship Him making a distinction between Lord and themselves with the attitude of master and servant. This is the view of the Dualistic School of philosophy. Some worship Him with the knowledge that He exists as the various divinities, Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Siva, etc.
Visvatomukham: others worship Him who has assumed all the manifold forms in the world, Who exists in all the forms as the All-faced (the one Lord exists in all the different forms with His face on all sides, as it were. (Cf. IV. 33)
Comments by the blogger:
In one sloka, Sri Krishna harmonizes all the three classes of worship. But the classes, importantly two classes as Saivam and Vaishnavam still exist!
This is not the first time that the Lord speaks in a spiritually cosmopolitan way.
He has already stated that people from all sides come to Him!
Sri Krishna is a great harmonizer. These three classes had been wrangling over the merits of their individual class of worship during the Gita time. But Sri Krishna is not afraid of stating that all the three classes of worshippers worship Him only.
But we still indulge in nit-picking and disputations about the merits or otherwise of the individual system. This is a disservice to the Lord of Gita.
In Tamil there is a saying, “Hariyum Sivanum onnu, Ariyadhavan vayil mannu”. This roughly translates as “Both Hari and Sivan are one and the same God. He who doesn’t know this fact have dirt in his mouth!”
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