The fruits accruing to “THESE MEN OF LITTLE UNDERSTANDING ARE LIMITED.” Fleeting desires for finite objects, even when fulfilled through the impermanent activities, must surely prove to be ephemeral. Out of gold whatever ornament is made, it also must be gold alone; when chocolate is made out of sweet things, the resultant stuff cannot be bitter. The effects entirely depends, for their nature and quality, upon those of the causes.
Finite actions undertaken in finite fields, employing finite instruments, cannot but produce — whether joy or sorrow — finite “fruits.” Joy arrested or ended is sorrow; and therefore, in each instance of a sensuous desire satisfied, though there is a joy and a fulfilment, the sense-of-satisfaction soon putrefies to provide the sourness of dissatisfaction, or more often, the bitterness of sorrow.
This statement of the Lord is supported by the following general rule that, “THE WORSHIPPERS OF THE DEVAS REACH THE DEVAS.” Those who are invoking a desired ‘profit potential,’ in any given field of activity, can, even when completely successful, gain only THAT profit.
The above statement is declared as a contrast to a pure philosophical truth, when the Lord, says: “THOSE WHO DEVOTE THEMSELVES TO ME, COME TO ME.” Seekers of happiness in the world of sense-objects, as a result of their strife and struggle, can gain their insignificant success in the field of sense-enjoyments. If the same effort is applied by them in the right life of constructive living, they can come to discover their identity with the Eternal Absolute, the Self. Due to the extrovertedness of the deluded ego, it comes to identify itself with its finite matter-envolopments, and revels in a world of its endless number of objects, called in Sanskrit as the Jagat.
Discriminative and careful seekers, understanding the utter uselessness of the pursuit of finite pleasures, detach themselves from their false ego-centric lives, and through the process of meditation upon the Self, as advised in the previous chapter, come to rediscover their own Real Nature in the sunny fields of Bliss that lie unrolled beyond the thorny by-lanes of all physical, psychological and intellectual quests.
In the language of the Geeta, the first person singular stands always, at all places, for the Infinite Reality which is the Substratum for the individual as well as for the whole. Therefore, “MY DEVOTEES COME TO ME,” is not the assertion of a limited historical figures as the son of Devaki, but the Singer of the Geeta, in His divine inspiration, entirely identifies Himself with the Principle of Consciousness that is the core of the pluralistic dream of the mind-intellect equipment. Thus, to understand the above statement, without its seeming limitations, is to understand the Geeta, the Scripture of Man, as declaring that the seekers of the Self discover themselves and become the Self.
THEN WHY DO PEOPLE IN GENERAL FAIL TO REACH THE SELF? LISTEN:
