Commentary on the Bhagavadgita

by Swami Krishnananda

Ananyas chintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesham nityabhiyuktanam yoga-kshemam vahamy aham (9.22): “If you resort to Me, it shall be My duty to take care of you. I shall provide you with all your requirements, and I shall also see that what you have been provided with is secure.” A compassionate statement – not only you will be given what you want, but that which is given will be protected, safeguarded.

Commentators have a question: Is not God kind to everybody, or is He kind only to those who resort to Him in consciousness? Does He not provide food, clothing and shelter to everybody, or does He give it only to those who resort to Him?

Yes, it is true that everyone is taken care of by the Almighty Lord, and that even an ant that crawls is given what it needs. But it is said that in the case of ordinary individuals, the protection is granted through a series of operations. Their karmic bodies are  associated with the Supreme Being in a very indirect manner, whereas direct action is different from indirect help given through accessories, agents, lesser gods, or through the fructification of karma. In the case of those who are perfectly united with God – like saints Tukaram, Jnanadev, Ekanath and others – God does not merely provide what they need; He becomes a kind of servant, as it were, of these bhaktas.

There was a Brahmin who was fond of this sloka. He devoted himself entirely to this one verse, and trusted entirely in God’s mercy and compassion and capacity to provide him everything. He was a beggar, and had to go for alms every day. He had a family which he had to feed – children crying for food – and every day he had to go about to get enough alms for the maintenance of his family. One day it so happened that even when he wandered throughout the streets the entire day until till sunset, he could not get even one grain. He came back disappointed. The children asked, “Papa! Where is the food?” His wife asked, “What has happened?” He replied, “I do not know. God has deserted me. He has not fulfilled His promise. I tried my best by wandering throughout the day, but I could not get even one grain of cereal.” He children were crying and his wife was anxious. “False is this promise!” the Brahmin exclaimed in anger. In those days, scriptures were written on palm leaves, as there was no printing on paper. So the verse from the Bhagavadgita – ananyas chintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesham nityabhiyuktanam yoga-kshemam vahamy aham – was written on a palm leaf. He tore that sloka with a nail and left the house in disgust.

About an hour or so after he had left, a boy came to the house with a big bag full of cereals and grains, etc., threw it on the veranda and loudly called to the Brahmin’s wife who was inside: “Here are the rations sent by your husband.”

But the boy’s tongue was torn and bleeding. The wife asked, “Who sent this?”

“Your husband has sent,” the boy replied.

“My husband? I am very glad. What is the matter with you?”

“He was very angry with me because I was a little late, so he tore my tongue.”

She said, “This is a horrible man! What kind of person is he? You are a servant, you brought the rations, and he had the cruelty to tear your tongue?” As she was saying this, the boy vanished.

When the Brahmin came back, his wife said to him, “What has happened to you? You are a fool. Are you out of your mind? You tore the tongue of the boy who brought the rations which you sent.”

“I didn’t send any rations,” he said. “I didn’t tear the tongue of any boy. Where are the rations?”

She showed him the bag. “The rations are sufficient for a month,” she said, “but blood was pouring from where the boy’s tongue had been torn.”

He fell at the feet of that lady. “You are my Guru from today because you had darshan of the Lord. I am a sinner. Because I tore the sloka, I could not see Him.”

There are many stories of this kind. This is an incident that took place in Punjab sometime back. There was a railway guard who had to be on duty at 8pm in the evening, and before that he happened to go to a satsang. He thought that he would remain in satsang until 8 o’clock and then go to the station. The satsang inspired him to such an extent that he fell into a state of ecstasy. He remained in this state all night, and forgot the time. In the morning he became conscious that he had not gone on duty at the railway station and thought, “What happened to the train? What is the matter? Now what will happen to me?”

He repented very much, and went to the chief officer and said, “I am very, very sorry. I could not come on duty. I do not know what happened to the train. I was to be on guard duty.”

“What is the matter?” the officer asked. “You were on duty. I saw you,” he said.

“Don’t talk to me sarcastically. I could not come,” said the guard.

“What are you saying? The train went on time. You were there. See your signature in the attendance register.” It was there. His attendance was marked and his signature was also there.

He was stunned.It seems he wept before the Almighty and said, “O Lord! If Thou art so kind to me, I shall devote my entire life to you only!” He immediately submitted a letter of resignation, left the service, and spent the rest of his life doing bhajan and kirtan.

The lives of saints are replete with instances of this kind. Another case is Bhadrachalam Ramdas, who was put in prison because he could not replace the gold coins of a Nawab, which he had distributed to the poor. Immediately somebody came with a bag of gold coins and threw it in front of the Nawab. The lives of saints are standing illustrations of the truth of this great statement of the Almighty, which is applicable not only to saints and sages, but to every one of us. Perhaps we are saints in the making.

Ananyas chintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesham nityabhiyuktanam yoga-kshemam vahamy aham. If we are undividedly united with Him in our soul, in our heart, in our spirit, thinking only That, brooding over only That, and every day there is no occupation except this, to those who are ever united in the deepest spirit of their being, to them there is no fear, no lack, no penury, no sorrow, no suffering, no fear – because it shall be seen by God that all things are put in order. Eternally awake is the Almighty in His omniscience. Here is a gospel in a single verse, considered by devotees as a precious jewel, an ornament in the middle of the great scripture of the Bhagavadgita.

Ye’py anya-devata bhakta yajante sraddhayanvitah, te’pi mam eva kaunteya yajanty avidhi-purvakam (9.23). What about those who worship minor gods? They also get their fruits. It has already been explained in the Seventh Chapter that the fruits they get will have a beginning and an end. They worship the Supreme Being unconsciously, through limited concepts of lesser divinities. They do not know what they are actually worshipping. They have only a narrow notion of a located god, who will give only a prescribed grant and a thing asked for, for the given moment of time. “Unconsciously they are worshipping Me, because even the little blessing that comes from the lesser gods is actually a grant acceded to by Me.” We need not go into the details of this subject, as we already have studied it in the Seventh Chapter.

Aham hi sarva-yajnanam bhokta cha prabhureva cha (9.24): “I am the Lord of all the fruits of sacrifices, I am the enjoyer of all these offerings made in the sacrifices, and I am also the impeller to the action of the performance of sacrifice; but people do not know that I am that.” Na tu mam abhijananti tattvena: “In reality, people cannot know Me. They know Me only as invested with form and shape and name and location, according to their capacity to think in terms of space, time and objects. They suffer on account of limited vision, even though I pervade all things and am shining before their eyes as this world. But their inner perceptive insight cannot visualise that what they see with their eyes as this world of manifestation is I Myself shining through these names and forms. Through all the eyes I see and through all the ears I hear, through all the feet I walk and through all the hands I grasp. All the activities of all individuals are really My activities. I am doing all things. Even the perception through the sense organs is conducted by Me only, but people do not know this reality.” Ataschyavanti te: “Therefore, they fall down into the state of rebirth on account of attachments to limited concepts of what is good and bad for them.”

Yanti deva-vrata devan (9.25): “If you worship gods like Indra, Varuna, Mitra, etc., you will go to them.” Pitrn yanti pitr-vratah: “If you worship the forefathers, pitrs, you will go to them. Bhutani yanti bhutejya: “If you worship demons, you will go to demons.” There are demoniacal pisachas, etc., who are considered to be lower divinities capable of granting small rajasic and tamasic blessings. If you worship them, you will become that. Yanti madyajino’pi mam: “If you want gods, go to gods; if you want pitrs, go to pitrs; if you want demoniacal natures to immediately come to your help – okay, do that; but if you come to Me, you are really safe. Those who worship Me in truth – ‘in truth’ is the word that has to be underlined, tattvena – not as I appear but as I am really in Myself – if one can contemplate on Me as I really am in Myself – as the eternal principle not involved in the perishable names and forms – if they can resort to Me by meditating on Me in this way, they shall be really blessed and they shall not return to a mortal coil.”

“I shall be easily pleased. My worship is not difficult.” We do not require large assets to please God. The samarpana, or the naivedya that we have to offer to God is simple. Patram pushpam phalam toyam (9.26): “You can offer a leaf; I shall be satisfied. You can offer a single flower; I shall be satisfied. You can offer Me a spoon of water with devotion to Me; I am fully satisfied with it. But it has to be offered with devotion.” What is offered is not of consequence in the eye of God. The bhava, or the feeling, or the mode, or the attitude with which it is offered is what counts. God does not want anything from us – not large wealthy estates and naivedyas, not many kinds of delicacies. God has enough of these in His Vaikuntha, in His Kailasa, in His Brahmaloka. These are not going to be the means of His satisfaction. But if our heart is there, then of course He will accept it. If our heart is not there, the offering is devitalised. Devitalised naivedyam is not accepted. And, finally, the vitality comes from us only. If we offer ourselves, that shall be the greatest pleasure to God. If we offer something that is dear to us, that is also a pleasure to God, but a lesser pleasure. But if we offer something that is not dear to us – an old coin, or a torn note – that is not going to satisfy God because He knows our feelings, our motives. Even before we think, He knows what we are going to think. So no deception, no trick, can be played here. “I am simple and accessible in a very, very, easy manner.”

It is said that Arjuna and Bhima were worshiping Lord Siva. Arjuna was collecting tons and tons of bilva leaves and offering mountains of these leaves to Lord Siva in worship; and Bhima was also worshipping Lord Siva, but he did it only in his mind. He had no physical leaf, and did not bring anything from the forest to offer to Lord Siva. One day, it seems, Arjuna and Bhima were taken to Kailasa for some reason. They saw cartloads and cartloads of bilva leaves being brought by the ganas of Siva, and they were poured at his feet. And some people were also bringing little handfuls of leaves, and throwing them. Arjuna asked, “Who are these people that are bringing little bunches of leaves and offering them, and who are these who are offering cartloads?” “That little bit is what that has been offered by Arjuna, and the cartloads are the offerings of Bhima.” “Bhima! He never does any worship,” said Arjuna. “He has done the worship, and Lord Siva is pleased,” they replied. Bhima offered cartloads, because his mind was there; and Arjuna offered a little bit, because it was a physical offering.