Gita 07.15 – Scriptural categorization of non-devotees is living, not frozen

Thank you in 7.14 Krishna stated that those who surrender to him will cross over material existence this will naturally lead to the question why do people surrender if they can cross over material energy simply by surrender why do people not surrender and Krishna answers in this verse saying that some people are misdirected namam dushkrutino mudha dushkrutino there are dushkruti who do not surrender to me and Krishna categorizes these dushkruti into four groups mudha foolish people prapadyante naradhama naradhama is those people who are the lowest among human beings those whose knowledge is stolen by illusion and then those who have taken shelter of the demoniac nature asurambhava so here essentially Krishna is talking about the life of the people who are not ready to surrender to him and so these are different acharyas have explained these four categories in different ways and the idea is that essentially scripture knowledge is not just historical body of knowledge it is a living body of knowledge that means that yes Durganta was spoken at a particular point in history but it is not a book meant only for that time in history it is a book meant for all people at all time and in such a situation where it is a book meant for all people at all time the only way out for people for people to see the book as living as relevant and not just historical is when those who have understood the essence of the book those who live the book show its explain its knowledge in living terms in terms of the reference and experience of the people of those times of their contemporary times so therefore the acharyas who live the Gita they show how the Gita is a living book through their commentaries wherein the Gita as applied to their contemporary situation is explained so throughout history there will be people who will be unwilling to surrender to God and depending on time,place circumstance the specific kind of objections that people have for surrendering to God may vary so for example natural science and especially not just science but scientism's claims to knowledge of the origins through science are responsible for many people doubting scripture and God in today's times say 500 or 1000 years ago there would still be people who would not surrender to God but the doubts troubling them at those times would have been different and say 2000 years ago the doubts would have been further different so although essentially it's the same that same principle that some souls want to surrender to God some souls don't want to surrender to God but the obstacles that stand between those souls and God the forms of those obstacles will vary according to age and that's why the Acharyas give explanations of these categories in their contemporary terms so say at Vishwanath times depending on the mentality of the people during those times he will explain that okay these people these people these people these are the four categories of people who do not want to who don't surrender to Krishna that means Maya Parital Jnana what it will mean at his time will be different from what it may have meant say at Ramacharya's time so in this way the different Acharyas give the meaning according to time and place circumstance so with respect to these four categories in contemporary times let's see how Prabhupada explains this mood so those who work so hard in what in today's category will be called as workaholics those who are just addicted to work practically speaking now just as a donkey doesn't think of what is the purpose of my carrying huge load and at the end of the day I just get some grass which I can get anywhere so people don't think I'm working so hard at the end I need some food to eat, I need some place to sleep, I need some house to stay, so what are the big, why am I working so hard, what am I getting out of it so those who don't think like this they are mooha naradhama the lord and his devotees are often called narottama or trishottama so the opposite of uttama is adhama so here namaam vishkutuna mooha prapadyante naradhama naradhama those who are lowest among human beings now the humanity of the human beings rests on their spiritual interest athaato brahmaji pyasa now to the extent that human beings don't have spiritual interest to the extent that they are simply satisfied living a prosaic life like the animals of eating, sleeping, mating, depending that is the life of naradhama so those who are too who just have no interest in spiritual life or they get repeated miseries at the material level they think oh this is the nature of life what can you do just have to live it this way and they live it this way and it doesn't live that way it stays stuck and it binds us so that's how the naradhama get bound because by not cultivating or striving for an interest in spiritual things they cheat themselves they let themselves get deluded by the temptations of the world naradhama so they have endless interest in the tidings of the world now what happened in this movie what happened who has had what affair with whom what scandal has happened where that sort of things they have unending interest but no interest in anything spiritual, anything about god anything about transcendental subject matters these are naradhama then there are these are the people who are whose knowledge has been stolen by illusion so gyana they have but what has been stolen what has been stolen is the purpose of their knowledge is has been stolen from them and then there is so those people who are demoniac in nature those people who are actually outright against god so maya partha gyana is are those people who have gyana but these don't understand the purpose of gyana as krishna would tell later in the same chapter in 7.8 19 gyanavan mam prapadyate the purpose and perfection of knowledge is surrender to the absolute krishna vasudeva but not understanding this these people use their gyana for various other things but they don't use it for knowing about the absolute truth, for going closer to the absolute truth for surrendering to the absolute truth they don't use it for this purpose so while the first three categories are explicitly non-devotional the third in this series the fourth verse in this series is actually it reflects an anti-devotional mentality the fourth item in this series rather that is asuram bhavam arshidaha those who are demoniac people they have taken so the asuram bhavam arshidaha are explicitly anti-devotional, anti-god the others may be also but they are more apathetic towards god than antipathetic so asuram bhavam the demoniac we shouldn't think of the demons as just some stereotypes with horns coming out of their head and fangs coming out of their mouth actually demoniac is a mentality and asuram bhavam, Krishna is not saying asuram rupam here so there can be demons who may be well in human forms but they are demons in the sense that their mentality is demoniac so these people never surrender, in fact they think that they will rip god asunder that they think that they will kill god and usurp his position that's what Hiranyakashipu wanted to do and he wanted to take revenge against Vishnu for having killed his brother Hiranyaksha and that's why he performed austerity to Brahma to gain immortality after which he could kill Vishnu so this asuram bhavam arshidaha are also people who don't surrender to Krishna and today also there are demoniac people who are explicit campaigners of atheism and they are militantly atheistic they are preachers of atheism and they go about vigorously blaspheming god and desecrating not necessarily with physical violence although there are people who do that also but desecrating the icons of faith through intellectual violence and these people are actually asuram bhavam arshidaha they are sheltered in the demoniac nature and they will never surrender to the lord and that because they don't surrender so all these categories of people they stay on in illusion no matter how militant their posture no matter how proud and satisfied they appear to be actually all of them are in their hearts unfulfilled, miserable and their misery is going to continue because they are going to continue in the clutches of illusion and they will be going to stay there in the clutches of illusion and tribulation, illusion will bring tribulation and they will stay under illusion and tribulation till they develop submission and surrender.