Swami Dayananda Saraswati
Excerpted from the Bhagavad Gita Home Study course. Published as Devotion as Jṣāna Yoga in the 9th anniversary souvenir of Arsha Vidya Gurukuam, 1995
Caturvidhāḥ bhajante mām janāḥ sukśtinaḥ, the people, given to good actions who worship me are four-fold (BG 7-16). Among those sukśtinaḥ, who recognize and worship Īśvara, there are four types. Caturvidhāḥ. Vidhāḥ means variety so there are four varieties of devotees. All of them have sufficient recognition of Īśvara 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, ārtaḥ, jijṣāsuḥ, arthārthi, jṣāni.
Ārtaḥ
Ārti means any sorrow or grief. Sadness, distress, discomfort, trouble are all called ārti. Ārtaḥ 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 Śrī Saṅkara 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 puṇya karma, there is Īśvara 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 ārtaḥ, a devotee in distress.
Arthārthi
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 arthārthi 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 Īśvara to control certain factors that he cannot control or even know. He will perform rituals in order to invoke Īśvara’s grace to help him gain whatever he wants. This is kāmya-karma, a karma done with a desire to accomplish a given end within saūsāra. The one who does kāmya-karma is an arthārthi. But he is also an ārta devotee. When he is in trouble he will, of course, invoke the Lord. An ārtaḥ, however, is not an arthārthi because only in distress can he think of God.
Jijṣāsu
The third one is jijṣāsu. The order in the verse ārta, jijṣāsuḥ, arthārthi is for the sake of meter. But in order of their understanding ārta and arthārthi are one group, jijṣāsu and jṣāni, another. Jijṣāsu is the one who desires to know. What does he want to know? That is also important because even the one who does wrong actions, duḥkśtinaḥ, wants to know a lot of things – like how to open locks. But here, the subject matter is Īśvara, the truth of Īśvara, bhagavat-tattvam. He is not invoking Īśvara’s grace for simple accomplishments. He wants to know the truth of Īśvara, the ultimate cause of everything. And this jijṣāsu is a great devotee. He does not use Bhagavan as an accomplice for his small little pursuits; he wants to know who is Īśvara. As a bhakta he invokes Īśvara’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, antaḥ-karaṇa-śuddhi, and the knowledge of Īśvara.
Knowledge of Īśvara is nothing but knowledge of ātmā. Īśvara, the cause of everything happens to be the essence, oneself. If Īśvara were other than ātmā he would be anātmā, and therefore inert. The only conscious being is ātmā, and Īśvara is not separate from it. This seeming difference between Īśvara and the individual is due to upādhi. There is only one reality and that the jijṣāsu wants to know. He is a devotee because he seeks the help of Īśvara and performs prayerful actions to earn this help. But his actions are not for limited ends within saūsāra, kāmya-karmas. The ārta and arthārthi are kāmis because theirs are kāmya-karmas. The jijṣāsu, however, is a karma-yogi so his is a different type of devotion. Because of his extra puṇya, he has discrimination, viveka, and because of that he is a jijṣāsu.
Jṣāni
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 jijṣāsu you necessarily become a jṣāni, one who knows the truth of Lord Viṣṇu, Parameśvara, as himself. He is a real bhakta.
