Gita 02.42 – Flowery words of Vedas distract from their ultimate wisdom

Bhagavad Gita 2.42 So, here Krishna is continuing the enunciation of the path of karma yoga. By comparing it with the previous path, that is the path of karma kanda. So, in the previous verse, he said that those who are on the path of yoga, they are ekhe, they are one-pointed.

But those who are not on that path, those who are not one-pointed, their intelligence becomes multi-branched, indeed, infinitely branched. So, those people whose intelligence is infinitely branched, Krishna talks about in this verse. Those people who in the Vedic literature find, they find the words in those literature to be like flowers.

Now, the word flowers is often used in a positive sense. Flower is something which is a sign of beauty, flower is something which is offered. But here, Pushpam is used in a negative sense, in the sense to underscore the temporariness of the appeal.

So, it said over here, the words of the Vedas are like flowers. Flower is attractive today and just sometimes it's for 24 hours later or just a few days later, the flower becomes withered and loses all its beauty. So, like that, the implication is that the promises of the Vedas do not last for long.

We will discuss that when we come to it. But Pravdanti avipashchitaha, they speak like this, who are they? Avipashchitaha. The word avipashchitaha will come later in 2.60, it talks about discriminating those who are, who can see subtle things, those who have sharp vision in that sense and by seeing subtle things, they can make wise decisions.

But here Krishna is saying that they are avipashchitaha, they cannot discriminate properly. So, they cannot differentiate between the celestial and the spiritual and the transcendental or the spiritual. So, vedavadrataha partham, this category of people are called as vedavadrataha.

Rataha means to be observed, vedavada means the words of the Vedas. So, vada is often used for referring to words, especially spoken words. And sometimes it is used to refer to a school of thought or argument.

Like we have mayavad, so the school of thought which proposes that maya is the most prominent reality, that everything that we consider real is actually maya. So, these people are, they are caught by the flowery words of the Vedavad, in the words of the Vedas, rataha, they are observed. And they say that there is nothing more to be considered.

See, again, nothing more is there. They say like this. That means, what do we mean by the flowery words of the Vedas? Because the Vedic wisdom tradition talks about various levels at which spirituality is presented.

There is at the level of karma, there is at the level of jnana, there is ultimately at the level of bhakti. So, the kshatriyas are dharmic warriors and they fight determinately, fight heroically and depending on their conception, they rise upwards into the heroic fighting. So, here Krishna is saying that they think that rising upwards to heavens or those people who are vedavada rataha, they think that going to heavens is the ultimate goal and there's nothing else to be taught in the scripture, nothing else to be learnt.

So, certainly, it's important to be on the path of punya or be on the right path, path of dharma, by which one doesn't get degraded. But even within the path of dharma, there are multiple levels. There is the slow process and there is the fast process.

Slow process focuses on rising to heavens, coming back from the heavens, enjoying some time here, again going back to the heavens, again coming back and eventually in this process, one gets so frustrated because always newer model comes up and then one has to check the prices and then decide. So, just as in this world, there are attractive things which are glamorized, material things are glamorized to be more attractive than what they are and that way people get captivated. So, advertisements could be today's Pushpita Ambachan.

So, they glamorize certain paths and they use flowery language and with this flowery language, people get attracted and they think, oh, this is it. There is nothing more to be had. I saw in that advertisement that if I just apply that cream, then my skin will become so shining that everybody will be captivated by it, my face or whatever.

So, these are Pushpita Ambachan. Of course, they are at a much lower level from the Vedas because the Vedas are still within the purview of Dharma and by putting faith in the Vedas, one grows, although the growth is very slow and gradual, but one does grow somewhat in the spiritual path. At least one is developing faith in Dharma and developing faith in Shastra and developing faith in Sadhu.

They said that if I do this, my problem will be dealt with and see. At least it will become manageable. There is, of course, only one preliminary level at which you understand God's existence and reciprocation and you understand the validity of Shastra, but for one who has no faith, anything like this is better than nothing.

So, there are people who get so caught up in the material gifts that scripture provides and they think that that is all that there is and there is nothing more that is involved. Thus, they deprive themselves of the higher gifts of scripture. So, they catch the material section of scripture and they make it the all-in-all of scripture and in that way, they forget, overlook, neglect and even reject the higher spiritual section and that is why they are called as avipashchit.

They do not have a discerning intelligence and the way they can develop a discerning intelligence will be mentioned in the future verses. But here, Krishna is pointing out one characteristic of the Karmakandi that they are non-discriminating and that is evident in their unidimensional arguments and in their almost absolute or blind faith in the material promises given in the scripture. So, even if they do the rituals properly and correspondingly, they do rise to heaven, it is all temporary.

So, Krishna will talk about Arjuna and he will tell that you should go beyond these flowery words because these flowery words like flowers are temporary, even the promises of heavenly enjoyment are also temporary and therefore, do not get caught in them, rise beyond them, be discriminating. Arjuna, I am guiding you in a way that you can actually become discriminating. So, follow my guidance.

That is the subtext of this.