Those who worship other gods with faith and devotion,
They too, O Kaunteya, worship only Me, though not by the proper path.
(Bhagavad Gita, 9/23)
Translation: Those who are devoted to other gods and worship them with faith—they too, O son of Kunti, are indeed worshipping Me, though not according to the proper method.
Verse rendering:
The devotee who worships other gods with faith,
Though not by the prescribed way, truly worships Me alone.
(From the Mahapayaramrit Gita, translated by Vishvadeb Mukhopadhyay)
Exposition:
Those who have become your sole and exclusive worshippers need no concern—you yourself bear all their burdens. But what becomes of those who worship other gods—other forms of divinity—and do so with genuine devotion?
The word "other" here means precisely this: all that exists apart from the Self—that is, apart from the soul or the supreme God; any other entity or substrate. Those who call themselves Vaishnavas cannot truly be said to worship Vishnu until they know him as their innermost Self. Until that realization comes, even their worship of Vishnu remains the worship of another god. Bound by ignorance, failing to recognize the Transcendent Brahman or supreme Lord as the true object of worship—even when one follows every prescribed rite meticulously, such worship is not according to proper method but rather its negation. Those who claim the identity of Shaktas cannot authentically worship the divine Power until they perceive and experience it as their own Self. Until then, theirs too remains the worship of other gods. Thus everywhere, the worship of one's chosen deity—no matter how sincere the faith and devotion—remains the worship of another god so long as that deity has not manifested as the Self, as consciousness itself. (To practice religion blindly is equivalent to practicing irreligion.) The word "worship" encompasses not merely ritual puja but all forms of spiritual practice: recitation, praise, hymn-singing, meditation, yoga, and every method of sadhana.
The sectarian sentiment and religious prejudice that pervades the world—the conviction that one's own faith is superior and others inferior—has taken root in the human heart for a single reason: the worship of other gods (the lack of understanding regarding the ultimate goal of worship). It is precisely because people have become devotees of other gods that this poison has spread everywhere. Those rare souls who have truly grasped the meaning of these words of God have transcended all conflict; but their number is pitifully small. The masses, gripped by religious frenzy, make no effort to realize this truth. Thus they persist in harboring divisions, gradually advancing toward spiritual death. They proclaim: my God is greater, yours is lesser—while the Supreme Lord watches their irreverence and atheism with amusement.
The Katha Upanishad (2.1.10) proclaims:
What is here is also there; what is there is also here.
He who sees as though there were separation goes from death to death.
Direct Rendering: What is here (yat eva iha); that is there (tat amutra); what is there (yat amutra [that is, what dwells in that Self]); that also is here (tat anu iha); he who sees here as if divided (yah iha nana iva pashyati [that is, he who perceives difference between the two]); he obtains death from death (sah mrityoh mrityum apnoti [that is, he becomes bound in the cycle of birth and death]).
Simple Meaning: What exists here exists there also; what exists there exists here also. Whoever perceives difference between these two (that is, between the world and Brahman) passes from death into death.
Exegesis: This verse proclaims that the world is not separate from Brahman. The world is the manifestation of God (Brahman)—God has become the world—and therefore the world remains God. Brahman is both the material and efficient cause of the world, as well as its manifestation.
To perceive the world as distinct from Brahman—to regard the world as real (that is, eternal)—is a grave delusion. Under this illusion, humanity becomes entangled in the manifold temptations of the world. This entanglement is bondage itself. As a result, the human mind perceives nothing beyond the pleasures of the gross senses. The current of life grows stagnant. Attachment, truly, is a kind of death—a spiritual death, more degrading than physical death itself. The joy of spirituality, on one hand, is eternal and enduring; on the other, it awakens enthusiasm and inspiration in the human heart. But one who becomes enslaved to sensual pleasure is deprived of this joy. Not only that—humanity becomes ensnared in the cycle of birth and death, and thus meets with destruction.
Significance: What is here (iha yat eva) is there (amutra tat). What is there (amutra yat) continues here (tat anu iha—continues, echoes, persists unbroken). The same thread runs through the mundane and the transcendent. He who sees here as divided (yah iha nana iva pashyati)—as if all things were separate—he obtains death from death; or, from Death itself (Yama), he receives only natural death, not the luminous, radiant death of those who have transcended (not the golden, effulgent gateway).
The wise never harbor the sense of division. Such is the natural state of the wise. We draw distinctions between the here and the hereafter. When we dwell in our natural, unenlightened state, our goal remains distant. I am here, it is there—such is the feeling that arises. Sri Ramakrishna would say: for the ignorant, God is there, there; but for the wise, God is here, here. We must shed this conditioning of distance. Then we must understand that there exists an all-pervading truth surrounding us, and we ourselves dwell within it. When Ramakrishna went to meet Debendranath Tagore, the latter asked him, "What is your experience?" Ramakrishna replied, "Brahman is like a vast ocean of being-consciousness-bliss—and within it I move about like a fish." If we can see that the same He has become this, and the same He who is that has become this, then what I see here is what is there, and what is there is what is here. We must remember: our perception here is partial. When we try to see the whole through the partial, the limitation of the partial clings to us. But if we perceive the partial from the consciousness of the whole, then the way of seeing becomes clear. Once you have reached Brahman, the world becomes easy to see.
That infinite one draws me towards him again and again; my mind dissolves into him. When the conditionings of this place shatter, the entire world will appear to me like a dream born of illusion. When that consciousness becomes transparent, a taste of deepest joy awakens in the heart; it is perceived as bliss. This is the realization of Sachcidananda—existence-consciousness-bliss. He is here—in this very understanding lies all peace. When that deepens, even being and consciousness seem like shadows. In the Gita it is said (7/12): "I am not in them, they are in me"—I am not exhausted in the creation of living and non-living things; rather, they abide within me. I have not been used up by them—which means: I am existence itself; or, more plainly: existence is I.
There dwells within us a seed of doubt. But when we awaken, we see that all is He. The distinction between here and hereafter—that "multiplicity"—ceases to be. "Multiplicity" means drawing difference between one thing and another. One has the goal of what is good, another has the goal of what is merely pleasant. In that sense too the words "multiplicity" or "diversity" may apply. (What can be obtained in little time but is fleeting and ultimately brings suffering is called the pleasant. What requires effort to attain but endures and brings joy is called the good.) Whoever sees distinction between here and there attains only death from death; his worship is performed without the proper understanding.
The Samhitas spoke not of rebirth, but of redeath—of dying once, then dying again. If we accept redeath, we must die again; if we reject it, then redeath does not exist at all—this is the perpetual stance of keeping oneself in the realm of existence, in the very thought of being. The fear of rebirth awakens only when we deny the existence here—from nihilism or despair. When we say, I shall not die again, I shall not die repeatedly, then we affirm existence—the person satisfied with his own being wishes to be born again and again, but not to die again and again. Now the prevention of rebirth has grown large, but in the Upanishads and Vedanta, to keep mankind happy and content, it is the prevention of redeath that is spoken of. Yet rebirth is no terror. The gods are born, just as we are born; but we die, while they do not. The gods are immortal, yet they are born. (Here, comparing the great souls with the gods makes it easier to understand.) Similarly, the Supreme Consciousness is born, yet it does not perish. This awakening, this being born—this is the essential matter.
Shankaracharya has spoken of this differently. "In the destruction of ignorance, knowledge is born, but once knowledge is born, it does not perish again." Existence lies in him (in Brahmic knowledge); there exists the thought 'I am' through him. He remains eternal—one must discover him as the foundation; one must dissolve oneself within him; consciousness must be extended into the awareness of all existence. This can come with great ease, if only we contemplate thus—he exists like the sky—pervading all things. In his very being like the sky lies the perfection of my existence-realization, the attainment of God.
From death itself one must receive death—that death is on one hand the light of immortality, and on the other the fall of the body. He alone receives natural death from death, who cannot see his immortal form, who distinguishes between 'here' and 'there beyond.' What is there is also here, what is here is also there—he who can stand firm in this receives the immortal aspect of death. Nagarjuna, a master of the destructivist Buddhists, has said: if you distinguish between nirvana and existence, then wisdom will not arise. He to whom nirvana and existence are one, he who tastes the attainment of nirvana even while dwelling in existence—he alone has obtained the complete truth. Nirvana is transcendent, placed beyond the formless realm. The ascent from the formed to the formless realm—this is the Vedic analysis of 'neti neti,' not this, not this. There all sense of 'I' dissolves.
When an infinite consciousness overflows and inundates all things, then all distinctions within consciousness dissolve. Like the dawn sky—where only a single star gleams—we might compare it to a spark of awareness. That star perceives the promise of the sun, and so when the sun rises at dawn, its light floods and obliterates the star's radiance—this is what we call deliverance, the attainment of supreme light. All forms of being become flooded in the greater being. First comes the deliberative mind, then the non-deliberative. The Divine exists first as object, as the thing known; but when He possesses the seeker or worshipper, knowledge of Him requires no external force or striving, for the seeker's entire existence becomes filled with Him alone. Here all sense of "I" reaches complete dissolution. When the seeker awakens from this state, it seems to him that He is here and He is there. If one insists on looking through the lens of the "I," a subtle difference remains, and so one must plunge inward. He exists, I do not—the ocean exists, the drop does not. Let the far shore and the near shore merge, let the near shore be flooded in the light of the far shore, let all distinction vanish. Then, should my light as a star also die, all becomes nectar. Let every drop dissolve in the ocean and gain the ocean's vastness. This is not difficult. That He alone exists—holding this feeling, flooding all things with His presence—this is the work, this is the aim of spiritual practice.
The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (4.4.19) proclaims in the same voice:
By mind alone must it be apprehended—there is no diversity here whatsoever.
He who perceives here as if there were many passes from death to death again.
[Here we speak of the spiritual practice of brahmic vision.] By mind alone (by the mind, as the teacher instructs) is Brahman to be perceived—in this Brahman there is no diversity of any kind (whether of the same class, related class, or different class). He who perceives here as if objects were manifold enters death after death, remaining bound to the cycle of birth and death.
Meaning: Brahman is to be apprehended through mind alone—the very existence or absence of mind determines whether knowledge of Brahman arises. True, the scriptures say Brahman is beyond word and mind; yet when the mind, shaped and influenced by the senses, takes on the form of Brahman—when in a purified mind there arises an undivided, Brahman-shaped modulation of consciousness—then Brahman is said to be knowable through a mental modification, that is, Brahman can be known and perceived through a relative means. But He is not knowable through the result of knowledge—not manifest as the shadow of consciousness, as some derivative expression—not comprehensible as the object of knowledge; for He is nothing other than the very nature of the knower himself—Brahman and the knower of Brahman are one and identical. All "I"-consciousness merges into undivided consciousness, just as all bubbles dissolve as foam into the ocean and become one with it.
In this Brahman there is no division. He who perceives division or anything resembling it here passes repeatedly from death to death. So long as ignorance remains, the perception of difference cannot be dispelled; for that perception is superimposed by ignorance. The distinctions of knowledge, knower, and known are themselves born of ignorance.
This fragmented knowledge of difference arises because we perpetually fix our gaze upon the path and the means, while forgetting the very purpose of religion and life. The same soul, the same truth, the same Brahman—manifested in countless forms and names through various attributes and conditions. Tell it a thousand times, hear it a thousand times over: still this knowledge of difference does not wholly vanish; the sense of other deities lingers on. So long as one's chosen deity remains worshipped in the forms of other gods, it is only natural that when beholding other images, this knowledge of separation should arise. Yet if one worships another deity with unwavering faith, the effect of that devotion will one day dissolve all sense of otherness, and absorption in that other form will manifest; and when wisdom blooms, then it becomes clear: the one who is the soul's own deity, the one who is truth's own deity—he alone radiates through all these myriad forms. Mine, yours, his—for all of us, the root object of worship is one, though here the worship itself may differ in its manifest or formless nature, in its methods and rites. Even when all ceremonial rules are observed, that worship is called "without proper knowledge" if the true recipient of worship—the person, the supreme Brahman, consciousness itself, the field-knower, the ultimate seer, the Lord—remains unknown to the worshipper. Let it be "without proper knowledge," still it is offered to that one eternal, attribute-less supreme Brahman, singular and indivisible.
The Lord speaks: Those who hold faith in other deities, those who perform worship and adoration of other gods—they too, in effect, worship me alone. For there is no object of worship anywhere but me. Whoever worships whatever, in whatever name, form, or quality they choose, it is ultimately my worship that occurs. I alone abide everywhere as existence itself; I alone manifest in countless forms as knowledge itself. There is no way to escape from me!
"They worship without knowledge"—the word "without knowledge" means devoid of true understanding, that is, in ignorance. Although worship conducted without knowledge is, from the ultimate perspective, worship of me alone, yet because it remains unknown to the worshipper, that worship, despite all proper forms being observed, remains "without knowledge." The one who worships does not know that I dwell in all vessels and all forms, always, in every way and shape. He recognizes ice but not water; recognizes cloth but not cotton; recognizes the sweet ball but not sugar; recognizes the doll but not the clay. He knows the recitation of names but does not know me; therefore his worship is "without knowledge." All worship by the ignorant is always conducted in ignorance.
If a Vaishnava, or a Shakta, or a Shaiva, or an Advaitin were to say, "My path alone is true; all others are false. Come, all of you, to my path," who would accept such a claim? If a follower of one faith asks everyone else to abandon their ways and walk his path, why would anyone leave their own path for his? And on what grounds? (Forced conversion or inducement is another matter altogether.) If we concede truth to the paths of others, our own path does not thereby become false. All paths are true and beautiful. If we cannot accept this in our hearts, how shall mankind ever live in peace upon this earth? Whatever the path, whatever the method of worship—the destination is one and the same for all: the attainment of self-knowledge, the realization of Brahman, the awakening of consciousness, or the discovery of God the Creator. Those who insist, "My path alone is right; the others are wrong," do not themselves realize that even their own misguided worship, winding through its ways, points toward that very destination toward which all other worship also tends.
Thus Lord Sri Krishna assures us: however we may worship, pray, or adore—by whatever method or faith—all our striving reaches unto Him. For the attainment of self-knowledge, of Brahman-knowledge, is life's supreme aim. Perhaps we ourselves do not know that all our prayers, whether formed by thought or formless, whether meditate or unmeditated, are offered to one and the same supreme Brahman, to consciousness itself, to the Purusha—that which pervades and fulfills all things. (Here "Purusha" means the Fulfiller, the Sustainer; that by which all things are complete.)