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
