Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya

 

Now after this Sri Krishna talks about those in Surrender

Bg 7.16

catur-vidhā bhajante māṁ
janāḥ su-kṛtino ’rjuna
ārto jijñāsur arthārthī
jñānī ca bharatarṣabha

Word for word: 

catuḥ–vidhāḥ — four kinds of; bhajante — render services; mām — unto Me; janāḥ — persons; su–kṛtinaḥ — those who are pious; arjuna — O Arjuna; ārtaḥ — the distressed; jijñāsuḥ — the inquisitive; artha–arthī — one who desires material gain; jñānī — one who knows things as they are; ca — also; bharata–ṛṣabha — O great one amongst the descendants of Bharata.

Translation: 

O best among the Bhāratas, four kinds of pious men begin to render devotional service unto Me – the distressed, the desirer of wealth, the inquisitive, and he who is searching for knowledge of the Absolute.

 

So catur-vidhā, four kinds of people bhajante māṁ, so Sri Krishna is not using the word surrender over here. He is using bhajante so He is saying by the process of worship by rendering the devotional service eventually they will come to surrender but right now they are doing Bhajante now what are the reason janāḥ su-kṛtino ’rjuna, they are having some su-kṛuti this sukruti is contrast to the word duskriti, which is used in 7.15.

ārto jijñāsur arthārthī

Those who are distresses those who are inquisitive those who are seekers of wealth and those who are seekers of knowledge jñānī.

Now among these categories scripture gives example 

ārto -> Gajendra who surrender in distress

jijñāsur -> Saunakadi Risis, not all of them, some were already enlightened, they were inquisitive, they wanted to know

arthārthī -> Dhruv Maharaj, he wanted a kingdom for that he approached and started worshiping Supreme Lord.

Jñānī -> It can refer to various people it can refer to Kumaras, who earlier has knowledge with respect to impersonal aspect of knowledge, but from there they moved forward and came closer to Krishna 

bharatarṣabha, Krishna says, O Arjuna these are four kinds of people who starts worshiping Me. 

su-kṛtina, these people have talent and it is not impiously directed it is piously directed.

When people are in trouble they take shelter of different things in this world, 

  1. the person in ignorance takes shelter of drinking, smoking, violence when there is trouble, 
  2. the person in passion takes shelter of money and sex whatever the problem come throw money and the problem will get solved,
  3. and the person in goodness takes shelter of knowledge try to analyse the reason and try to understand what is it how I should deal with this, 
  4. and person in transcendence takes shelter of Sri Krishna, Krishna please resolve my miseries, 

so now here these people are not transcendental, these people are in goodness so in goodness they don’t surrender to Krishna but they start worshiping Krishna, ok God is there God is supreme may be He will resolve my misery and in this way they will start coming to Krishna. 

Now Srila Prabhupada says these are not pure devotees but eventually they will come to Krishna and how will they come to level of Pure devotion? 

Srila Prabhupada Purport: When these four kinds of persons come to the Supreme Lord for devotional service and are completely purified by the association of a pure devotee, they also become pure devotees. 

That means they come they start the process of worship because of culture because of curiosity because of various other factors but what will raise them to pure devotion is their association with pure devotees in one sense when they are beginning they are at the level of Kanishta Adhikari from Kanista how they will move to Madhamyam Adhikari when they develop appreciation for devotees at that time Lord becomes object of their Prema in the sense He is not just the desire supplier for them He become the object of love for them.

So the next verse describes how this happens.

End of transcription.