चतुर्विधा भजन्ते मां जनाः सुकृतिनोऽर्जुन
आर्तो जिज्ञासुरर्थार्थी ज्ञानी च भरतर्षभ
caturvidhā bhajante māṃ janāḥ sukṛtino'rjuna
ārto jijñāsurarthārthī jñānī ca bharatarṣabha
TRANSLATION
Four types of men of good deeds worship Me, O Arjuna, These are the distressed, the seekers after knowledge, the wealth-seekers, and the men of knowledge.
PURPORT
‘Men of good deeds,’ i.e., those who have meritorious Karmas to their credit, and who resort to Me and worship Me alone-they too are divided into four types according to the degrees of their good deeds, each subsequent type being better than the preceding, because of the greatness of their good deeds and gradation in respect of their knowledge. (i) The ‘distressed’ is one who has lost his position in life and his wealth, and who wishes to regain them (ii) He who ‘aspires for wealth’ is one who desires for wealth which he has not till then attained. Between them the difference is very little, as both of them seek wealth, (iii) He ‘who seeks after knowledge’ is one who wishes to realise the real nature of the self (in Its pure state) as an entity different from the Prakrti. He is called ‘one who seeks to secure knowledge,’ because knowledge alone is the essential nature of the self . (iv) And the ‘man of knowledge’ is he who knows that, it is the essential nature of the self to find happiness only as the Shesha (subsidiary or liege) of the Lord, as taught in the text beginning with, ‘But know that which is other than this (lower nature) to be the higher Prakrti’ (7.5). Without stopping with the knowledge of the self as different from the Prakrti, he desires to attain the Lord. He thinks that the Lord alone is the highest aim to reach.