Gita 04.07 – Universality of opportunity defines and distinguishes dharma

Thank you whenever and wherever there is a decline of descendant of Bharata then there is a decline of religion and there is growth of predominance of religion at that time I manifest myself so essentially what Krishna is saying here is that he manifests himself for those who are ready for those who actually leave the path of dharma and it is actually we will see Krishna describes himself the reasons for his manifestation in the next verse and also in the verse after that 8 and 9 in this verse he is describing more the circumstances so yada yada can either be seen as a poetical ornament to emphasize through repetition or it can also be seen as referring to wherever and whenever yada yada hi dharmasya so wherever and whenever dharma declines I manifest and this verse is central to one of the defining and distinguishing characteristics of sanatana dharma its universality defining and distinguishing defining means that which is a central prominent intrinsic characteristic of something that which makes a thing the thing that is its defining characteristic and distinguishing characteristic means that which differentiates a thing from other things so many of the religions of this world are history centered that means that a particular historical event happened and that was a remarkable event and it was the remarkable event that set off the chain of history that means it was this remarkable event that made it possible for a particular particular form of religion to start and a particular way of approaching god to begin so for example among the history centered religions you can consider three abrahamic religions Judaism, Christianity, Islam and all three of them have particular historical events whether it is the leaving from Egypt of the chosen people to come to Jerusalem or it is the appearance of Jesus or it is the appearance of Mohammed whatever now if Jesus had not descended if Mohammed had not come these religions would have they would have nothing left to them these religions cannot be conceived without them and the whole idea of the historical revelation of god being limited to a particular time and to that time although the idea is that after that time again people can be delivered by the mercy available from that time but still it raises several questions if Jesus is the deliverer of the world how are people who came before Jesus how were they delivered and how will the people who never come to know about Jesus be delivered they are born in such remote far from parts of the world where there is no name of the gospel available so the history centered religions they limit the eternal to the historical they reduce the eternal to the historical but the Bhagavad Gita does not do such limitation and says that the eternal or the transcendental lord manifests again and again wherever and whenever dharma declines the eternal lord manifests that means his manifestation is not limited to a particular time place circumstance or it is not limited essentially that's why we will see that there are many many incarnations and in fact the Bhagavatam says that there are as many incarnations as there are rivers in the ocean as there are waves in the ocean the waves in the ocean are unlimited and why are there unlimited incarnations of God because his love for us is unlimited and out of his unlimited love he manifests again and again so now this universality Krishna is Krishna is the Bhagavan Krishna is God himself Krishna's incarnation is special but at the same time Krishna is not the only form of the divine to manifest in this world there are many other forms also manifest and they all enable people to come closer to God and to ultimately attain God so they all come to establish the mission of dharma and understanding this universality of Sanatana Dharma is central is foundational for understanding its as a defining and distinguishing characteristic so rather than claiming only one particular historical event to be of universal importance to the exclusion of all other historical events which makes God appear partial or biased favorably towards some and unfavorably towards others it describes that God appears again and again this Bhagavad Gita was described that God appears again and again and this Bhaktirodha Thakur in our Sampradaya for the first time who explained this verse in the context of the Abrahamic religions he says sometimes God comes as sometimes God comes as servant sometimes he sends his son and sometimes he sends his servant and whatever way he comes the important thing is that he carries on the same mission of establishing dharma so the relevance of this verse beyond the immediate context of Sanatana Dharma beyond the socio-geographical context of Sanatana Dharma that means Aryavarta or Bharata Varsha as it is understood conventionally how this verse applies to other religions beyond them that is revealed to us for the first time by Bhaktirodha Thakur the principles are implicit but the previous Acharyas did not have to deal with Acharyas before Bhaktirodha Thakur did not have to deal with traditions outside the Sanatana Dharma and that's why they did not have to address this concern but Bhaktirodha Thakur addressed this concern and told it to Shri Prabhupada and Shri Prabhupada went to the extent of saying that Jesus is also our Guru because he had so much love for God that he was ready to lay down his life for the service of God now the principle here is to recognize that we are all loved by God and wherever we may be, whenever we may be God is always planning in various ways to deliver us and rather than claiming exclusivity of any particular religious tradition rather than claiming monopoly over God what this verse reveals is the plurality of God's manifestations and the unlimitedness of his mercy in that he keeps coming again and again and again and thus he delivers his mercy to us and by that we can keep marching ahead.