Gita 07.23 – Accommodation is not recommendation
Thank you antavat tu phalam desham antavat that which has an ending phalam desham the fruit from that is having an ending tad bhavaty alpamedhasam and those who seek this are alpamedhasam they are having inadequate intelligence devan devayajo yanti those who worship the devatas devayajo devan yanti they go to the devatas and mad bhakta yanti mam api those who worship me attain me so here krishna is stressing the difference between his worship and the worship of the devatas in the 21st and 22nd verses this is 7.23 in 21 and 22 he had stated how it is he who facilitates the system of god worship it is he who enables souls to move towards krishna towards him gradually through the intermediates of worship of the devatas so he gives the worshippers the faith in him and he gives he gives the worshippers faith in the devatas and he gives the devatas power to fulfill the desires of the worshippers if he has himself set up the system why does he disapprove it accommodation is not the same as appreciation and it is definitely not the same as recommendation and far be it from instruction so accommodation means you want to do it i will allow you to do it appreciation means yes this is good you are doing it recommendation means this is really good this is what i recommend that you do, instruction means this is what you should do so the system of devan god worship is an accommodation for those whose desires have been destroyed by whose knowledge has been destroyed by desires as krishna told earlier in 7.20 so krishna is reiterating the point here that it is same as alpavedasa so knowledge is stolen away and intelligence is depleted the same point and krishna uses the word here antavat means that which is bound to end krishna has used a very similar word earlier in 5.22 antavat so krishna says over there that material pleasure, sensual pleasure has a beginning and an end and therefore wise people do not delight in it and now here 2 chapters later in 7.23 krishna is using a similar word antavat there he has said those who don't delight in these pleasures are mudha and here he says those who delight in those pleasures are alpavedasa so the vital difference which we could say between the two of them is that self gratification is sought even by adharmic means and that causes severe karmic consequences, bondage here of course when they are seeking to fulfill their karma at that time they are giving up the dharma, they are within the presence of dharma because they are worshipping the devatas and in that sense they are not duskrtina whom krishna reproached in 7.50 so they are definitely higher than duskrtina but still they are selling themselves short by seeking the temporary instead of the eternal so to the extent that we can appreciate the eternal we can appreciate how we are meant to attain the eternal to that extent we can avoid being caught by temptations, being deluded by temptations which attach us to the temporary and trap us in the temporary devatas themselves are temporary their abodes are temporary their benedictions are temporary and their worshippers are temporary now of course the devatas and their worshippers are eternal souls so in that sense they are not temporary but if you consider devata to be a post then a particular souls occupation of a particular post is temporary and the souls moving from that post and next may not be a post so you go down to a lower specie even to the hellish places that is inevitable so here Krishna says inadequate intelligence so there is some intelligence by which they understand that we need to follow some level of dharma that's why they worship the devatas they are following some rules but they do not have sufficient intelligence so can also be contrasted with means means enriched with knowledge bereft of knowledge those whose knowledge become inadequate would use the phrase poor fund of knowledge so knowledge is like wealth to the extent the knowledge we have contaminated by the obsession with material things to that extent see the eternal perceive or pursue the eternal pursue means you can't see pursue means go after try to attain the next chapter Krishna will tell us about how even the abode of Brahma is temporary in 8.16 he will say that even if one goes to the abode of Brahma from there no one has to come back will worship me will not come back to this world so that point that worshipping Krishna will give an eternal result whereas worshipping others will not give an eternal result that is implicit in this verse when it says so Krishna says they will go to the abode of the devatas and those who worship me will come to my abode my abode people may think oh this is fine we can go wherever we want but then all places are not the same all destinations are not the same yes someone can go to a 5 star hotel somebody can go to a 3 star hotel somebody can go to a roadside food vendor somebody can go to a garbage can to scavenge for some food we are free to go wherever we want but we are not free to choose the nature of where we go the destinations have the nature and if we go there we will have to accept that nature Krishna states here that if we worship him we will attain him that will be an eternal attainment thus Krishna concludes his section on demigod worship by cautioning that demigod worship will lead to temporary results and therefore a wise person should do better than pursuing demigod worship they should instead worship him so those who worship him are not alpha medhasa they are jnanavan and the message of the Bhagavad Gita enables all of us to understand Krishna's glory to surrender to him in pure devotion or at least with the aspiration of pure devotion and thus become enlightened, become jnanavan and when you become jnanavan and thus by surrendering to Bhagavan you become bhagyavan you become supremely bhagyavan.