A Devotee Is The Benefactor Of All (Sajjana Sarvopakāraka)

Overview

Continuing with the explanation on the twenty-six qualities of a devotee by Prabhupāda Sarasvatī Ṭhākura. In this article, ‘A Devotee is the Benefactor of All’ (Sajjana Sarvopakāraka) from Sajjana Toṣaṇī (Vol.21, Issue 1) published in 1918, Sarasvatī Ṭhākura describes how the karmīs and the jñānīs can never benefit anyone, including themselves. Only the devotee has the capacity to do so.

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In this world, jīvas are divided into four categories – those with material desires (anyābhilāṣī), performers of pious activities (karmīs), seekers of knowledge (jñānīs), and devotees (bhaktas).

Firstly, the anyābhilāṣīs do not accept the paths of karma, jñāna, or bhakti-yoga and act according to their own inclinations, engaging in whimsical behaviour, and through such conduct, consider the pursuit of their own happiness to be the supreme goal of life (puruṣārtha).

Secondly, those who follow the path of karma engage in pious deeds with the intention of acquiring puṇya (religious merit), being motivated by the desire for personal enjoyment and happiness. Motivated by desires for offering śrāddha to the Pitṛs, enjoyment in the celestial world, or attaining realms such as Maharloka, Janaloka, Satyaloka, and Tapoloka, these individuals endeavour to achieve such goals. Their efforts are directed toward material benefits for the jīvas, and with this intention, they engage in acts such as establishing schools and hospitals, planting peepal trees, constructing roads, providing water, and performing ritualistic activities. They organise feasts for the brahmaṇas, set up charitable institutions for public welfare, build alms-houses, and through such actions, they accumulate puṇya. As a result of these virtuous acts, they aim for either personal recognition or gratification of their material senses. They refer to this as the attainment of the threefold goals – namely, dharma, artha, and kāma. Those persons engrossed in karma-kāṇḍa, being driven by the desire to enjoy the temporary results of their desires, are incapable of bringing about true welfare to the world. The righteous deeds of a pious karmī – such as vows, haṭha-yoga, and varṇāśrama-dharma based upon Vedic rituals etc. – although temporary, are more virtuous than the whimsical conduct of the anyābhilāṣī. Compared to the anyābhilāṣī, a person engaged in pious acts is able to provide temporary and partial benefit to many people, but does not benefit everyone. The karmī is indifferent even regarding his own true welfare, and although he refers to others as persons who are his ‘nearest and dearest,’ he is incapable of realising their true nature. It is an unfortunate thing that apart from the pursuit of temporary benefits, either in this world or the next, eternal and complete happiness is never perceived by the inner vision of such a person. The karmī delivers speeches and gives instructions to the world, but he himself, as a result of such instructions, achieves only transitory mundane pleasure.

Thirdly, the jñānī, unlike the expert performer of karma-kāṇḍa, is not a beggar for partial and temporary pleasure. The jñānī’s consideration is that temporary happiness, during a limited period, can never be complete. Hence, he considers the karmī to simply be a narrow-minded enjoyer. The jñānī’s opinion is that both the attempts of the anyābhilāṣī, and the puṇya of the karmī are to be rejected. He is not a bhogī (sense-enjoyer); rather, he is eager to call himself a tyāgī or a vairāgī. The jñānī states that the mentality of sense enjoyment is based upon ignorance, and on time, it undergoes a transformation. According to his opinion, non-differentiation (nirviśeṣa) is inherently connected with the non-duality of a substance. From the perspective of nirviśeṣa, since there is no actual diversity in a substance, there is no eternal distinction between the draṣṭā, dṛśya, and darśana (the seer, seen and the act of seeing).

The jñānī who seeks liberation and engages in ahaṁgrahopāsanā (worship of the self as Brahman), claims that the concept of duality has arisen in this world of distinctions due to ignorance, and any kind of turmoil is merely imagined. When ignorance is removed, there arises undivided knowledge (akhaṇḍa-jñāna), along with cognisance (sat), consciousness (cit), and uninterrupted bliss (anavacchinna-ānanda). Then, the trio of knowledge (jñāna), the object of knowledge (jñeya), and the knower (jñātā); the seer (draṣṭā), the seen (dṛśya), and the act of seeing (darśana); the existence of bliss (ānandāstitva), the experiencer of bliss (ānanda-anubhavakārī), and bliss itself (ānanda) – all these threefold distinctions are dissolved for eternity, and all that remains is non-differentiation within non-duality.

This attainment of undifferentiated non-dualism by the jñānī is a subject which is greatly respected. He thinks that by preaching that the pure, complete, eternally liberated existence of Bhagavān is merely a variation of matter, he is establishing some benefit to the world. Such an imaginary mundane concept can never reduce the unlimited potency of Bhagavān. Seeing that the anyābhilāṣī and the karmī are incapable of treating the disease of material existence, and observing that the jñānī, who follows the path of jñāna to achieve liberation, glorifies atheism, the devotees of Bhagavān derive no benefit from such a perspective.

By more or less endorsing all those statements made by whimsical individuals that promote atheism, the jñānī has used them to nourish his own clique. Yet the devotees of Bhagavān were not benefitted by this, and even the māyāvādī jñānī can understand this. The seeker of liberation, in the guise of a philosopher, has given various instructions, yet all those words are based on ignorance and under the sway of materialistic conceptions. Therefore, the use of such instruments of reasoning and the greatness of such activities, when seen from the perspective of a bhakti-yogī, are simply worthless and an object of ridicule. If the jñānī were able to turn the object of his aim into action, the ultimate result would be the destruction of the ātmā. Being unable to transform non-differentiation into action, his nourishment of that kind of group is simply a sign of his own immaturity. If an unripe jackfruit is prematurely cut from the tree and forcibly ripened and made to appear mature, then claiming that it is ripe while it is still green hinders its intended purpose.

The all-powerful Bhagavān, who is eternally engaged in fully spiritual pastimes, manifesting His own svarūpa-śakti (internal pleasure potency) who is comprised of sac-cid-ānanda, expands the position of being the benefactor of all. This is not accessible to the knowledge of those that follow nirviśeṣavāda and are constantly opposed to the devotee. The cruel jñānī, who is always an offender to the feet of the devotees, has drawn an imaginary image of mokṣa, based on material reasoning. By doing so, he thinks he is capable of doing good to everyone except the devotee. Jñāna-yoga, which is opposed to bhakti-yoga, can never benefit anyone. With the intention of becoming free from the clutches of the worthlessness of material objects, when one throws the conscious, all-powerful Bhagavān into the blind well of impersonalism, the offence that is accumulated by that brings no benefit to the seeker of liberation, and he is also unable to benefit the devotee.

When the māyāvādī who desires liberation, deliberates by the influence of tamo-guṇa, and places the sac-cid-ānanda bhagavat-tattva within mundane non-differentiation, then how can he become the benefactor of all? Jaḍa-nirviśeṣa (mundane non-differentiation) is never equal to cit-saviśeṣa (consciousness endowed with transcendental attributes). If one speaks about cit-nirviśeṣa, but considers it to be a variation of jaḍa-saviśeṣa (mundane attributes), then ignorance is nourished. Such a thought process can never belong to a mukta-puruṣa (liberated person).

Even if the nirviśeṣa Vedāntist, who worships the self, states that his envious mental tendency is actually śānta-rasa, the devotees will never say that he has attained the title of sarvopakāraka-sajjana (a virtuous person who is the benefactor of all). A deceitful devotee, whether he be a māyāvādī or a prākṛta-sahajiyā, desiring to be recognised as a Vaiṣṇava, says that his is a benefactor of all, because he has taken shelter of kṛṣṇa-bhakti, which alone is the supreme good. Due to a lack of sambandha-jñāna in relation to Kṛṣṇa, he can never be perceived with the designation, ‘pure devotee.’ While narrow sectarian sentiments are being nourished internally, and thoughts filled with malice – like those of the māyāvādīs, karmīs, and the capricious – continue to flow like an underground Phalgu River in their hearts, the true nature of benevolence can never take hold within them.*

*Translator’s Note: The Phalgu River runs through Gaya in the state of Bihar which flows underground due to a curse by Sītā Devī.

Ultimately, it is the pure kṛṣṇa-bhakta alone who is the benefactor of all. He is a sajjana (devotee). Only the pure devotee is capable of freeing the māyāvādī from his philosophical delusions. He alone is strong enough to deliver the karmī from his desires to enjoy the results of his actions. He alone can uplift those who are capricious from the servitude of their petty desires, and engage them in service to Kṛṣṇa. For that very reason, the pure devotee, Kulaśekhara, has explained that the threefold aims of dharma, artha, and kāma, or even mokṣa, which is nothing more than an effort to remove worldly miseries, cannot exist within a pure devotee. The deception known as liberation can never attack a pure devotee. Only hari-sevā, which is the eternal function of the jīva, is capable of bringing about the supreme benefit for the jīva, and only the hari-janas, the associates of Hari, are the true benefactors of all. They are not deluded by opposing selfish motives, such as propagating doctrines like the māyāvādī, or like the enjoyer, based upon sense-gratification. Apart from interests that are centered upon Kṛṣṇa, the selfishness of māyika enjoyment, or anarthas centered on material renunciation can never devour the devotee. Apart from surrender to Kṛṣṇa, the jīva’s imaginary path of liberation can never truly free one from the hands of māyā. Only a devotee, who is exclusively surrendered to Kṛṣṇa, is both beneficial to himself and worthy to be recognised as the benefactor of all, according to the hari-janas. A pure devotee is constantly engaged in the attempt to avoid the bad association of the anyābhilāṣīs, karmīs, and jñānīs. Moreover, the endeavour to give up the association of false devotees is also strong within his heart. The moon of the devotee dynasty, Ṭhākura Narottama, has written:

karmī jñānī michā-bhakta, nā haba tāya anūrakta

Karmīs, jñānīs, and false devotees – I shall not be attached to them. (Prema-bhakti-candrikā 6.16)

May the devotees conceive within their hearts the nectarean expansion of the Benefactor of all; may they render service to Kṛṣṇa, becoming such benefactors themselves. May they make even the non-devotees into devotees – this alone is the only request of the pure devotees. A devotee is non-envious. A non-devotee is envious. When envy becomes strong, the tendency to benefit others vanishes, and this results in causing harm or violence.

The devotee is the eternal servant of Kṛṣṇa, therefore, the envy of the māyāvādī, karmī, or jñānī never subdues him. He eternally benefits the envious community, and thus fulfils the meaning of the name sarvopakāra (the benefactor of all).