Link to purport by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Srila Prabhupada

Transcript of Bhakti-Shastri class on this verse by Chaitanya Charan

So there are number of people who are between these two extremes or spectrum of not surrender to Krishna and fully surrendered. Krishna will talk about them in next verse

Bg 9.15

jñāna-yajñena cāpy anye
yajanto mām upāsate


ekatvena pṛthaktvena
bahudhā viśvato-mukham

Word for word: 

jñāna–yajñena — by cultivation of knowledge; ca — also; api — certainly; anye — others; yajantaḥ — sacrificing;mām — Me; upāsate — worship; ekatvena — in oneness; pṛthaktvena — in duality; bahudhā — in diversity;viśvataḥ–mukham — and in the universal form.

Translation: 

Others, who engage in sacrifice by the cultivation of knowledge, worship the Supreme Lord as the one without a second, as diverse in many, and in the universal form.

 

So Krishna is telling others who worship Him through knowledge jñāna-yajñena cāpy anye.

yajanto mām upāsate, so Krishna is acknowledging that they worship Him and how they worship?

Ekatvena, through oneness 

pṛthaktvena bahudhā, that the Supreme Lord manifest in many forms, 

viśvato-mukham, as the universal form.

So this verse is a seed for lot of discussion  

Ekatvena, through oneness or Brahmavadis, Mayavadis is talked about in 9.11 and 9.12. This Ekatvena, will be elaborated in 12th chapter when Arjuna asked the question who is better personalist or impersonalist.

And the pṛthaktvena bahudhā, refers to those who worship the devatas, of course demi god worship is different conception which we will discuss. 

pṛthaktvena bahudhā, means there are many manifestation of divine and we can worship many manifestations. This conception Krishna will elaborate in this chapter itself, from 9.20 to 9.28. Where He will contrast demigod worship with pure devotional service. 

And then viśvato-mukham, which means the idea of Vishva being the mukha or rupa of the Lord, which is universal form.

This is mentioned briefly from 9.16 to 9.19. And later on it will be elaborated in 11th chapter. And prior to this Krishna has talked about in 9.13 and 9.14 about the pure devotional service, this Krishna will talk about towards the end of this chapter 9.29 to 9.34 and then He will talk about in 10 chapter also, till 10.11 after which Arjuna will ask a question about Vibhuti Yoga, and Krishna will answer that question, so this verse is central to understand subsequent flow of Gita, 

viśvato-mukham, universal form is elaborated in next section (9.16 to 9.19) and in ch 11. After that pṛthaktvena Bahudhā, demigod worship is elaborated (9.20 to 9.28). ekatvena will be talked about in ch 12.

So what are these three conceptions? When people will be God Conscious, it is not that suddenly they start thinking about God, their conceptions evolve gradually, so one may think that around me I think this universe is so great, and so this universe itself is sacred / divine, and this can be a form of Pantheism, the idea that everything is god, so one may start worshiping universe itself as god, And one visualise different parts of universe as parts of absolute truth, so here the conception is associated that bigness is associated with greatness and greatness is associated with god, so God is greatest so He must be biggest and the biggest thing we see is universe, so sun and mon are eyes of Absolute Truth and mountains are bones of Absolute Truth this sort of concept are talked about, and that is what there meditation is and of course certain sacrifices are also performed in Vishva-rupa part which we will discuss in next few verses but the point here is vastness and pervasiveness of universe one conceive as Absolute Truth, then one think that this universe is vast but it is temporary so one thinks beyond this there is some reality, or beyond this there are some beings that are manifested, who are controlling the various aspect of the universe, so pṛthaktvena bahudhā refers to yes there are some ultimate reality and the ultimate reality is manifesting as the various controllers how they are manifesting that may not be clear, but one sees rain but one thinks that there must be controller of the rains, one sees sun and one think about the controller of the sun. And this way they think that there are so many awe features and there must be some controllers, and one is not very clear but one think that there must be some connection with the absolute truth. This is how one comes to the concept of polytheism. So from pantheism to polytheism. Pantheism is the idea that everything is god, polytheism is there are many gods. Then after that one starts thinking that in material world everything is temporary there must be some reality which is eternal and one starts thinking I also have longing for eternity and beyond the changes to this world there must be some unchanging substratum and I and that unchanging substratum are same, that is how one comes to the conception of spiritual oneness, and that is ekatvena.

So viśvato-mukham is the idea that universal form is to be worshiped and the idea that of the various manifestation of Absolute Truth the universal controllers have to be worshiped, and beyond this is spiritual reality so ekatvena so one worships them. Visvanath Chakravarti Thakur explains that this hierarchy progresses from downwards to upwards, that means viśvato-mukham is the lowest, then pṛthaktvena bahudhā is intermediate and ekatvena is highest. Why because the conception is moving from material to spiritual. First one is they think of material bigness in terms of size, then after that one is thinking of controllers, one is thinking about consciousness, then after that one is thinking about spiritual consciousness in form of oneness that lies beyond and underlying matter, controlling matter so in that sense this is the evaluation of thought. Now Srila Prabhupada explains it in opposite manner:

1.Vishvarupa upasana(vishvatomukham) – the aspect of Universal Form are used as material meditational tool to reach the Absolute Truth. 

2.Pratika upasana(prthaktvena bahudha) – different manifestation, different people can do in different way but one way is Pratika upasana – that means one consider demigods as symbols of brahman. As Pratika as representative of Brahman and worship demigod accordingly. 

3.Ahangro pasana(ekatvena) – Ahangropasana, is one worships oneself as absolute truth, they are not mayavadis because they don’t offend Krishna’s form.

Ahangropasana, can be understood that considering oneself as absolute truth in itself is not mayavad and it is not necessarily always offensive, what makes mayavad offensive is the notion that Krishna’s form is material, Krishna’s form is illusory, Krishna’s form is false, and that one has to go beyond Krishna’s form to some other higher reality, that notion is what is offensive, and that is the notion that one needs to give up.  

Srila Prabhupada explained it in different perspective:

Diff perspectives

  1. Philosphical perspective – is mayavadis are better than Karmis, 

Why is that? Because Karmis are engaged in sense gratification, but mayavadis are detached from sense gratification. mayavadis has more philosophical insight and understood to some extent that this world cannot provide happiness, so many mayavadis are renunciate and good in scriptures learning and they are perusing the absolute truth. So they are philosophical sophisticated more insightful than the Karmis, so some of them will live life in goodness but Karmis may be living life in passion also, 

  1. Devotional perspective –Karmis > mayavadis

In devotional perspective one’s position is not determined by where one is but by what one’s attitude towards what Krishna is? That means if one is blasphemer of Krishna, one is offensive towards Krishna then in that sense Karmis can become better than mayavadis, because Karmis has a greater chance of coming closer to Krishna because they are not offensive towards Krishna, whereas mayavadis think that there goal is to go beyond Krishna. So because of their offensive thinking making advancement in devotional service is difficult. 

So Vishvanath Chakravarti Thakur has explained the Vishvarupa upasana(vishvatomukham) is lowest, then is Pratika upasana(prthaktvena bahudha) and then is Ahangro pasana(ekatvena), so this is with respect to Philosophical understanding, that one understand there is spiritual reality and spiritual reality is worshiped.

But when we turn it around then conception of worship is most prominent in Vishvarupa upasana(vishvatomukham), and least prominent in Ahangro pasana(ekatvena), why because if I am worshiping myself then actually it is a paradox of terms, I worship myself, it is not very theistic, and higher than that is  Pratika upasana(prthaktvena bahudha), O there are various Devatas and they should be worshiped and higher than that is the conception that there is one, Absolute Truth, and that Absolute Truth is manifesting as Visva Rupa and I should worship that.

So for Ahangro pasana(ekatvena), Srila Prabhupada mentioned in purport: Such people think themselves to be the Supreme Lord, and in this mentality they worship themselves. This is also a type of God worship, for they can understand that they are not the material body but are actually spiritual soul; at least, such a sense is prominent. So important line is” This is also a type of God worship”.

So this is not Mayavad this is one type of Brahmavad.

End of transcription.