(From the discourses of Pujya Sri Swamiji)

Compiled by Swami Datta Pada Renu

"But the fruit (which accrues) to those men of small intellect is limited. Worshippers of Gods (Devas) go to Gods. My devotees come to Me verily". (23-VII)

Those who worship the Gods or Devas lack wisdom. They are people with little intelligence. Their worship of the Gods is aimed at achieving worldly prosperity, wealth, power or status which are all temporary and finite by nature. A man of wisdom will not think of these temporary benefits. He seeks the eternal and the imperishable. He devotes himself to the worship of the Supreme Lord in order to attain true knowledge and realisation and by dint of his sincere efforts (Sadhana), he attains the Lord, whereas the other devotees who worship Gods reach only the Gods, who can only give them some earthly pleasures which are short-lived and a source of pain and sorrow. But he who attains supreme Lord gets eternal Bliss and eternal Peace.

Why the worshippers of Gods do not resort to the worship of Krishna, the Supreme Lord? Sri Krishna replies as follows:

"The foolish think of Me, the unmanifested, as come into manifestation, not knowing my Supreme State, which is immutable and unsurpassed". (24-VII).

Each individual has to incarnate again and again in order to fulfill his unfulfilled desires. In every birth, he gets a body, mind and intellect based upon the ideas, thoughts and actions of his previous lives. So the birth of the body, mind and intellect is the effect or the result and the cause is the ideas, thoughts and actions of the individual’s previous lives. Thus, a person reincarnates again and again according to the law of cause and effect. But the Lord is not subject to any laws. Although he takes birth as a human being, behaves like a human being, and shows himself to be subject to the universal laws, yet, in reality, he is not bound by the laws. This is the difference between an ordinary mortal and the incarnation of the Lord.

The Lord is Brahman, the pure consciousness, immortal, eternal and infinite. In every age, the Lord incarnates himself as a human being to protect the pious, destroy the wicked and establish virtue. Although He manifests Himself taking the form of Krishna, Rama or any other, He is eternally unmanifested and without form. Therefore, when Sri Krishna says that He incarnates Himself in every age to establish in the world, we have to understand that He speaks from the standpoint of His Supreme status of Brahman, which is immutable and transcendent.

But, ordinary people who are devoid of wisdom are unable to realise this truth. They take Sri Krishna or Rama or any other incarnation as ordinary mortals. They cannot see in these incarnations, the highest essence of the Lord which is immutable and transcendent. What is the cause of their ignorance? Sri Krishna answers:
"I am not manifest to all, being veiled by My Yoga Maya (cosmic illusion). This foolish world does not know Me, the unborn and immutable". (25-VII).

The Lord is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient. He is the one supreme that pervades the entire universe. But all cannot see the Lord as He is veiled by His power of Maya. There is a thick curtain between man and God and that is the veil of cosmic illusion or Yoga Maya which is constituted by the fabrication of Prakriti’s constituents i.e., Sattva, Rajas and Tamas. Being veiled by that power, the whole world is deluded, and no one is able to see the Lord who is present everywhere and in everything. As such the Lord ever remains unmanifest and unrevealed to the whole world.

But the devotee who has purified his mind through intense spiritual discipline can easily tear away the veil that stands between him and the Lord. He can then have the vision of the omnipotent Lord in his own heart. The Lord is seated in the heart of everyone as the Eternal Conscious Principle.

This Yoga Maya or the cosmic delusive power belongs to the Lord and is under the control of the Lord. As the magician’s delusive power does not delude the magician, even so, this delusive power of the Lord does not create delusion in the Lord.

Therefore, the Lord says:
"O Arjuna! I know the beings of the past, the present and the future, but Me no one knows". (26-VII).

The Lord is all-knowing and eternal. He is beyond time, space and causation. The whole universe has come out of the Lord and is sustained by the Lord and there is nothing he does not know. Therefore, the Lord says: "I know all beings of the past, present and future, but no one knows Me". When the Lord says "no one knows Me", it pertains to those who have no faith or devotion to Him. But those who have taken refuge in the Lord and who have purified their mind knows the Lord fully well.