Vyasa was one of the first daring revolutionaries in Hinduism who ever came up to win back the Hindu culture from the decadence it had fallen into, in his time. The Bible of the Revolution that he created was the Geeta. His vigorous criticism is reflected in the words of Krishna when he characterises the ritualistic portion of the Vedas as “the flowery words of the unwise.” We have to live mentally in the orthodox atmosphere of that age to appreciate the daring with which Vyasa then had put up this criticism so strongly.

The ritualistic sections of the Vedas address those who are deeply attached to pleasure and power, whose discriminative power — the capacity to distinguish the Real from the Unreal — is stolen away from them, for they are concerned about the results and rewards of Karma. They were involved in the ritualism as such; not concerned with the Higher, to reach which these are but the means.

These Karmas, which promised the performer a POST-MORTEM heavenly existence, with supra-sensuous carnal pleasures, are to be undertaken and laboriously pursued. In all these activities man’s inner personality has no time or chance to get integrated and evolved, and, therefore, from the spiritual stand-point, Vyasa feels that they are methods of impotent religion. The ritualist gets involved in the means, without aspiring for the Real Goal!

Thus, as an expounder of the TRANSCENDENTAL and the INFINITE, Krishna is here laughing at those who mistake the means for the end; the ritualistic portion is the means and the Vedantic portion dealing with realisation through meditation is the end. The Karma Kanda prepares the mind to a single-pointedness, when it is pursued without specific desires (Nishkama), and such a prepared mind alone is fit for steady contemplation over the Upanishadic declarations.

The passage is concluded with the declaration that such persons, tossed about by their desires, shall never discover and experience of tranquillity in their inner life.

THE LORD NOW SPEAKS OF THE RESULT ACCRUING TO THOSE LUSTFUL PERSONS WHO ARE THUS WANTING IN DISCRIMINATION:

And vyavasayatmika, one-pointed; buddhih, conviction, with regard to Knowledge or Yoga; na vidhiyate, does not become established, i.e. does not arise; samadhau, in the minds — the word samadhi being derived in the sese of that into which everthing is gathered together for the enjoyment of a person –; bhoga-aisvarya-prasaktanam, of those who delight in enjoyment and wealth, of those who have the hankering that only enjoyment as also wealth is to be sought for, of those who identify themselves with these; and apahrta-cetasam, of those whose intellects are carried away, whose discriminating judgement becomes covered; taya, by that speech which is full of various special rites.