Caturvidhah bhajante mam janah sukrtinah, the people, given to good actions who worship me are four-fold (BG 7-16). Among those sukrtinah, who recognize and worship Isvara, there are four types. Caturvidhah. Vidhah means variety so there are four varieties of devotees. All of them have sufficient recognition of Isvara to be devotees but among them there is a gradation. The degree of recognition, their attitude, approach, prayers, etc., all determine the four types. And they are, he says, artah, jijnasuh, artharthi, jnani.
Artaha :
Arti means any sorrow or grief. Sadness, distress, discomfort, trouble are all called Arti. Artaha is one who is seized by a distress, caused by a thief, tiger, or disease. Tigers were common in those days when India was full of forests, so Sri Shankara commonly uses the tiger as an example. When a person is seized by some distress, whom he will call as a last resort? If he has some punya karma, there is Ishvara in his life and he will call upon Him. But only when he is in distress. Till then he does not think of Him. But at least during that spell of distress he does think of Him – because he does not see anyone else who can help him. This kind of devotee is called artaha, a devotee in distress.
Artharthi :
Artha means what is desired. In this context it means wealth and things similar to it – power, progeny and so on. One wants all these and to get them, the artharthi invokes the grace of Bhagavan. He thinks he cannot live happily without these things and so he makes use of various means to get them. He uses local influence, money etc. – plus Bhagavan, because he recognizes that there is always a factor over which he has no control. As a devotee, he is mature enough to recognize the chance element. That he recognizes as daivam. And there is no way of having any control over it without some grace. So whenever he wants to accomplish something, he invokes the grace of Isvara to control certain factors that he cannot control or even know. He will perform rituals in order to invoke Isvara's grace to help him gain whatever he wants. This is Kamya-Karma, a karma done with a desire to accomplish a given end within Samsaara. The one who does Kamya-Karma is artharthi. But he is also an arta devotee. When he is in trouble he will, of course, invoke the Lord. An artah, however, is not an artharthi because only in distress can he think of God.
Jijnasu :
The third one is jijnasu. The order in the verse arta, jijnasu, artharthi is for the sake of meter. But in order of their understanding arta and artharthi are one group, Jijnasu and jnani, another. Jijnasu is the one who desires to know. What does he wants to know? That is also important because even the one who does wrong actions, duskrtinah, wants to know a lot of things – like how to open locks. But here, the subject matter is Isvara , the truth of Isvara, bhagavat-tattvam. He is not invoking Isvara’s grace for simple accomplishments. He wants to know the truth of Isvara, the ultimate cause of everything. And this Jijnasu is a great devotee. He does not use Bhagavan as an accomplice for his small little pursuits; he wants to know who is Isvara. As a bhakta he invokes Isvara’s grace for this. He also offers his prayers; he also performs his daily and occasional duties, nitya-naimittika karma. But he does all this to gain a clear mind, antah-karana shuddhi, and the knowledge of Isvara.
Knowledge of Isvara is nothing but knowledge of Atma. Isvara, the cause of everything happens to be the essence, oneself. If Isvara were other than atma he would be anatma, and therefore inert. The only conscious being is atma, and Isvara is not separate from it. This seeming difference between Isvara and the individual is due to upadhi. There is only one reality and that the jijnasu wants to know. He is a devotee because he seeks the help of Isvara and performs prayerful actions to earn this help. But his actions are not for limited ends within samsara, kamya-karmas. The arta and artharthi are kamis because theirs are kamya-karmas. The jijnasu, however, is a karma-yogi so his is a different type of devotion. Because of his extra punya, he has discrimination, viveka, and because of that he is a jijnasu.
Jnani :
And then there is a fourth bhakta. All four recognize me and to the degree they recognize me they are in union with me. The fourth one’s recognition is complete so his identification is total. When you are a jijnasu you necessarily become a jnani, one who knows the truth of Lord Visnu, Paramesvara, as himself. He is a real bhakta.
~ Pujya Swami Dayananda Saraswati
