Bhagavad Gita Chapter 9, Verse 3 (BG 9.3) — Meaning, Translation & Commentary

9.3 अश्रद्दधानाः without faith? पुरुषाः men? धर्मस्य of duty? अस्य of this? परन्तप O scorcher of foes? अप्राप्य without attaining? माम् Me? निवर्तन्ते return? मृत्युसंसारवर्त्मनि in the path of this world of death.Commentary Arjuna asks? O Lord? why do people not attempt to attain this knowledge of the Self when it can be easily attained? when it is the highest of all things? and when it gives the greatest benefits All should certainly attain this knowledge. The Lord replies? O My beloved disciple? people have no faith in this Dhrama or knowledge and so return to the path of this world of death. Even if they strive with the help of the means of their own imagination they cannot attain Me as they are not endowed with the right means prescribed by the scriptures.Dharma means law? religion? knowledge of the Self.This faith is not mere intellectual belief in certain dogmas or principles. It is not merely belief in the statement of another. It is unshakable firm inner conviction that the knowledge of the Self alone can give one supreme peace? immortality and eternal bliss. It was this strong and unflinching faith of Sri Sankara that goaded him to leave his mother and take shelter under the kind protection of his Guru Sri Govindapada for attaining this knowledge which is the supreme purifier? intuitional? accordig to righteousness? very easy to perform? and imperishable. It was the strong faith of Lord Buddha that induced him to have that iron determination which he expressed in these words? I will not budge an inch from my seat till I get illumination. Faith goes hand in hand with fiery determination.The Lord has eulogies the knowledge of the Self in the first two verses by the positive method (Vidhi Mukhastuti). He has extolled it in the third verse by the negative method (Nishedha Mukhastuti). The benefits of obtaining knowledge of the Self are described in the first and the second verses. This is Vidhi Mukhastuti. The disastrous effects that result from not obtaining the knowledge of the Self are described in the third verse. This is Nishedha Mukhastuti.The greedy? lustful and sinful persons who are the followers of the philosophy of the flesh? who lead the life of the demons? who worship the body taking it to be the Self? and who have no faith in the knowledge of the Self? do not reach Me. They do not even possess an iota of devotion which is also one of the paths that lead men to Me. They remain in the path of the world of death which leads to hell and the lower births of animals? worms? etc.

Those who disregard the eternally perfected nature of the atman and live in ignorance certainly do not attain Me, the eternal Self, but return to the cycle of worldly existence. People of outward-turned tendencies perpetually dwell upon sensory objects, squandering their intellectual capacity, mental strength, and physical vitality. Engaged in endlessly seeking new means of sensory gratification, they wander continually in the realm of death. When a person contemplates sensory objects and strives to obtain them, pleasures may indeed come to pass. Yet because all such pleasures are impermanent, their ultimate consequence is suffering alone. And the tragedy is that he becomes ever more attached to them, becoming a worshipper of the lower nature of the Supreme Self. However vast an ocean may be, every drop drawn from any part of it tastes of salt. Similarly, whatever our purpose may be in pursuing sensory pleasures, once we become enslaved to them, we are surely bound to drink the bitter tears of sorrow. For impermanence and transience are the very nature of what we love. This world of name and form is limited and in constant flux. Here, at every moment, all things undergo transformation, and each transformation is the death of the thing's previous state. Thus, the word "death" as used by the Lord should be understood in its broadest sense. In summary, those enslaved to sensory desires inevitably attain the sorrowful realm of death. Although in Vedantic philosophy the word shraddha also conveys the meaning that the revered Guru Rabindranath Tagore intended, this shraddha is not built upon the mist of sentimentality, but rather stands firm in the light of understanding the rational validity of principle. Sri Shankaracharya defines shraddha thus: To receive the teachings of scripture and the Guru with the conviction of truth is shraddha, through which the supreme reality is attained. Shraddha is that unwavering faith which lifts us from mind and intellect to the heights of transcendent truth, and aids in transforming the finite, mortal individual into the infinite, immortal Self. The dharma of a thing is that without which the thing cannot exist in that form—as heat is the dharma of fire, coldness the dharma of ice, and light the dharma of the sun. Those who lack shraddha in the existence of their divine Self are easily robbed of their blissful nature by the cooing of their emotions, the roaring of their intellect, and the hissing of their body. They fall from the ladder of evolution and live like two-legged beasts. Just as a deranged king, forgetting himself, casts his royal dignity into dust and wanders naked through the streets behaving like a destitute vagrant, so too does this individual, through ignorance forgetting the dignity of the Self, searches for happiness in the open sewers of sensory indulgence, wandering as though lower than the worm that crawls in a ditch. Though appearing simple, this verse is in truth profoundly rich in meaning. In the clearest of terms, the Lord Sri Krishna distinguishes the path of knowledge from the path of ignorance, thereby establishing in Arjuna's understanding the value of the path of knowledge. The path of knowledge is the path of direct realization of the imperishable Self. Now the Lord Sri Krishna begins to impart the teaching of knowledge—