Devanagari
न तस्य तत्त्वग्रहणाय साक्षाद्वरीयसीरपि वाच: समासन्
स्वप्ने निरुक्त्या गृहमेधिसौख्यंन यस्य हेयानुमितं स्वयं स्यात् ॥ ३ ॥
Verse text
na tasya tattva-grahaṇāya sākṣād
varīyasīr api vācaḥ samāsan
svapne niruktyā gṛhamedhi-saukhyaṁ
na yasya heyānumitaṁ svayaṁ syāt
Synonyms
na
—
not
;
tasya
—
of him (a student studying the Vedas )
;
tattva
—
grahaṇāya — for accepting the real purpose of Vedic knowledge
;
sākṣāt
—
directly
;
varīyasīḥ
—
very exalted
;
api
—
although
;
vācaḥ
—
words of the Vedas
;
samāsan
—
sufficiently became
;
svapne
—
in a dream
;
niruktyā
—
by example
;
gṛha
—
medhi — saukhyam — happiness within this material world
;
na
—
not
;
yasya
—
of him who
;
heya
—
anumitam — concluded to be inferior
;
svayam
—
automatically
;
syāt
—
become .
Translation
A dream becomes automatically known to a person as false and immaterial, and similarly one eventually realizes that material happiness in this life or the next, on this planet or a higher planet, is insignificant. When one realizes this, the Vedas, although an excellent source, are insufficient to bring about direct knowledge of the truth.
Translation (Visvanatha Cakravarti Thakura)
The man who cannot infer the inferiority of household life, whose happiness is just like dream, cannot have access to Vedānta for understanding the highest truth.
“But is it not impudent to say that you have a method of giving the karmīs the truth, but then saying that you will not teach them?” The words of the Vedānta are not at all suitable (samāsan) for all men, though those words are best for directly understanding the highest truth. As in a dream which is momentary and false, these same men do not, on their own, infer the inferiority of the happiness of household life. The happiness of the karmīs is temporary, meager, and related to material objects. Thus the ātmā does not have a relationship with this material happiness. This happiness is false for the ātmā, like horns on a rabbit. The happiness of the jṣānī however is eternal, not temporary, since it is related to Brahman. There is great difference between the two. This is the usage of giving out the highest truth.
Purport
In
Bhagavad-gītā
(2.45)
, Kṛṣṇa advised Arjuna to become transcendental to the material activities impelled by the three material modes of nature (
traiguṇya-viṣayā vedā nistraiguṇyo bhavārjuna
). The purpose of Vedic study is to transcend the activities of the three modes of material nature. Of course in the material world the mode of goodness is accepted as the best, and one can be promoted to the higher planetary systems by being on the
sattva-guṇa
platform. However, that is not perfection. One must come to the conclusion that even the
sattva-guṇa
platform is also not good. One may dream that he has become a king with a good family, wife and children, but immediately at the end of that dream he comes to the conclusion that it is false. Similarly, all kinds of material happiness are undesirable for a person who wants spiritual salvation. If a person does not come to the conclusion that he has nothing to do with any kind of material happiness, he cannot come to the platform of understanding the Absolute Truth, or
tattva jṣāna.
Karmīs, jṣānīs
and
yogīs
are after some material elevation. The
karmīs
work hard day and night for some bodily comfort, and the
jṣānīs
simply speculate about how to get out of the entanglement of
karma
and merge into the Brahman effulgence. The
yogīs
are very much addicted to the acquisition of material perfection and magical powers. All of them are trying to be materially perfect, but a devotee very easily comes to the platform of
nirguṇa
in devotional service, and consequently for the devotee the results of
karma, jṣāna
and
yoga
become very insignificant. Therefore only the devotee is on the platform of
tattva jṣāna,
not the others. Of course the
jṣānī’s
position is better than that of the
karmī
but that position is also insufficient. The
jṣānī
must actually become liberated, and after liberation he may be situated in devotional service (
mad-bhaktiṁ labhate parām
).