In this and the following two verses Veda Vyasa makes Arjuna raise a pertinent question, so that Krishna may get yet another chance to bring the supremely optimistic philosophy of Vedanta right in the footlights. None, striving on the Path Divine, can ever be destroyed; and whatever he accomplishes will be faithfully carried over, as a legacy, by the individualised-self in its pursuit here and in the hereafter. Each today is an added link in the endless chain of the dead-and-gone yesterdays. The chain continues growing, by adding to itself link after link, all the yesterdays. Death is only one of the incidents in a human existence and the tomorrow has no accidental, or arbitrary beginning, but it is only a perfect continuation of yesterday MODIFIED by the thoughts and actions of today.
Carefully voicing his vague doubt, Arjuna asks as to what will happen to one, who strives with deep faith (Shraddha), but fails to accomplish complete self-control during his life-time, or due to lack of sufficient self-control falls from Yoga. The doubt is that such an individual may thereby come to lose both the little joys of the sense-objects and the Absolute Bliss in the hereafter. The Vedantins, even while they condemn a mere life of sense-joys, do not for a moment deny the fact that there ARE traces of joy in the sense life also. According to them, daring thinkers that they are, the joys of the sense-objects (Vishaya-ananda) are, in their essence, nothing other than glimpses of the Spiritual Bliss (Brahmananda). The secret import of the question is that those who faithfully follow Krishna’s theory may come to lose both the chances of experiencing the finite and the Infinite joy.
Such a seeker, striving all his life to live in self-control, will be a conscious escapist — avoiding all the finite joy-temptations in the gross world here. But, if the uncertain factor — death — were to creep in to clip the thread of his life with the scissors of time, he would lose his chances of gaining the Absolute Beatitude, which is the goal that Krishna seems to point out in his Divine Song. Again, suppose that a seeker, due to a lack of self-control, falls from Yoga. To win in Yoga, no doubt, is a great victory, a GAIN PAR-EXCELLENCE. But if, in the race, one were to get knocked down by the stealthy club of sensuousness, one would stand to lose both here and hereafter. Naturally, Arjuna wants some guidance from Krishna as to what will happen to such an individual.
In this verse also, we must note very carefully, that the term Shraddha is not some maddening superstition which encourages a blind faith. According to Shankara, Shraddha is the right intellectual apprehension of the deeper import and the fuller significance of what the teachers teach and the scriptures declare. The inspired devotion that springs up in a bosom, from among its solid intellectual convictions, gained through a true appreciation, is the mighty power called faith “that can move mountains” and “can bring the very heavens on the earth.”
TO THROW MORE COLOUR ON TO THE PICTURE OF THE SPIRITUALLY DESPERATE SEEKER, WHOM ARJUNA HAS ATTEMPTED TO PAINT IN THE PREVIOUS STANZA, THE FOLLOWING IS ADDED:
