Part-1

"Api cet sa durācāraḥ bhajate mām ananyabhāk |
Sādhureva sa mantavyaḥ samyag vyavasitosi saḥ ||"

God Krishna, the human incarnation, said as above in the Gita. It means – “Any individual soul who worships Me alone without desire for anything else or anybody else, is considered a true pious soul, no matter how wicked he is.” Even such a person taking resort in the God, is meritorious only! So, no matter how sinful one is, a devotee of the Lord is considered a pious soul and will not attract the fruit of sin, provided such a person's devotion is an exclusive and undivided devotion. Some people think that it is not correct for Swami (God) to declare that the one who serves Swami with exclusive and undivided devotion, is a pious soul despite committing many sins. But when you investigate the truth, then you will realize that whatever Swami spoke is true, letter by letter. The one who created this whole universe, the one who created you, the one who gave you longevity and health, the one who gave you all the pleasures and made you happy is Swami. Swami is the one who makes all your organs like the heart, lungs, digestive tract, kidneys, etc., work properly inside your body. You are completely indebted to Swami for showing such a grace on you. It is Swami who makes you wake up in the morning from sleep. Whatever you offer to Swami, whatever service you do, your debt will never end to Him.

Before getting this human birth, when you were standing in the trial in the upper world, it was Swami who put aside your trial and granted you this human birth again. If you do not thank the Lord for doing so many favors, you will incur the great sin of ‘ungratefulness.’ If you show gratitude, it becomes a great virtue. There is no virtue greater than the gratitude. So, if you show gratitude, no matter how many sins you have committed, they become insignificant before such a merit and you will become meritorious. If you thank the God every day, your merit will be ‘+100.’ No matter how many sins you have committed, altogether their fruit is limited at ‘-99’ only. Then ‘+1’ remains as the fruit of showing gratitude to the God. Therefore, a devotee of Swami is said to be meritorious though he is a sinner. If you do not express gratitude and do not accept the existence of the God, your committing sin of being ungrateful is ‘-100.’ No matter how many times you perform meritorious deeds, all of them cannot exceed the ‘+99.’ So, for the atheist, the final gain is ‘-1’ remaining as the fruit of atheism. On the other hand, the sinful devotee becomes a meritorious soul as his final gain is ‘+1’. Similarly, no matter how many meritorious deeds an atheist does, he is still a sinner because of that acquired ‘-1’. Thus, there is no virtue greater than gratitude to the God. There is no greater sin than being ungrateful to the God.

According to the given interpretation of the above mentioned Gita verse, it does not mean that a devotee of God can commit any number of sins. If one is a devotee and commits sins, the fruit of that merit is ‘+1’ only. But what if one becomes a devotee and also does good deeds only? For devotion to God he gets ‘+100’ and in addition, for committing meritorious deeds he gets ‘+99’ totaling to ‘+199.’ So, when we described about the merit of getting ‘+1,’ it means suggesting you to get at least ‘+1’ and avoid ‘-1.’ Similarly, a person who is an atheist committing sinful deeds will get ‘-100’ for his atheism and in addition ‘-99’ for his sinful deeds, totaling to ‘-199.’ Here, getting ‘-199’ is too worse than getting ‘-1.’So, the gist of this verse is that one who believes in God and practices justice is a supremely meritorious soul.

Part-2

He who is a theist and commits sins is a mildly meritorious soul. Similarly, an atheist who committs justified deeds is a mildly sinful soul. He who commits sins and is also an atheist becomes a greatest sinner. But what is justice and what is injustice? These two words, i.e., justice and injustice, are related to your behaviour with your fellow individual souls but are not related to Swami. It is called justice, when you help good people and devotees without harming them. It is called an injustice which action involves in hurting and harming them. This justice is in the form of a path (that leads to a fruit) and a fruit (the result of a deed). Irrespective of the path or the fruit, their form is the most important concept in the world. It is called the ‘form of fruit’ which you have achieved finally after completing a deed. The same is also called an ‘aim’ or a ‘goal.’ If the goal is righteous, then the path (that leads to a fruit) also becomes righteous.

For example, a bad person stole 10 rupees from a good person’s pocket. The bad person uses the stolen ten rupees for his selfish needs. Here, the goal is unjustified and so the fruit. Since the goal is unjustified, the deed of stealing is also unjustified. But if we stole those ten rupees from the bad person and returned them to the good person, this second theft is not becoming an injustice. The reason being, there is no selfishness in the goal (returing money back to the good man). There exists a sacrifice in the goal and the goal is to establish justice. But if you can fight with the bad person by kicking him off and collect the ten rupees to return it to that good person, then both the path and the goal become virtuous here. But, when you cannot fight with the bad person, the path of righteousness cannot be useful. In such case, stealing that money and giving it to the good person is the best deed that one has to do. This kind of theft is not a sin at all. In spite of being skillful to steal from the bad person, if you consider such deed as sin, then that incorrect thinking really brings you the sin.

It is said that ‘Rama is the embodiment of justice’ (Rāmo vigrahavān dharmaḥ). Vālī criticised Rama, such an embodiment of Dharma, that killing him from behind the tree was not justified in the war. But what Rama did was a justified action. The reason is that Vāli had got a boon from the God. As per that boon, whenever Vālī fights with an opponent, Vālī gets half of the opponent's strength. Because of this, no one can conquer Vālī. Vālī has committed injustice by forcibly marrying Sugriva's wife, Rumā, and kicking her husband Sugriva out of the kingdom. At that time, there was ‘Devara Nyāya’ prevalent among the Vānaras.

The Devara Nyāya says that when one of the brothers die, the wife of the expired brother can become the wife of the surviving brother, provided she is agreeing to it. But, that law cannot be applied here as Sugriva did not die and Rumā did not agree to be the wife of Vālī. So, it is an injustice done to Sugriva in two ways. But why did Vālī do like this? Once, Vālī went into a mountain cave to fight with a demon called ‘Dundubhi’ and asked Sugriva to guard the entrance of the cave. He said to Sugriva, “If I do not return within a month, you can assume that I died and you can return to the kingdom.” After a month also, Vālī did not come out from the cave. Therefore, Sugriva, as per his brother’s orders, thought that his brother had died and he blocked the entrance of the cave with a big stone so that Dundubhi cannot come out. Later, he came back to the kingdom and became the king as per the social law.

Tārā, Vālī's wife, agreed to become the wife of Sugriva and so, as per ‘Devara Nyāya,’ she became his wife. But, actually what happened was after Sugriva went back to the kingdom, Vālī valiantly fought with the demon Dundubhi and killed him. He found the big stone obstructing the free exit kept by Sugriva. He got terrible anger on Sugriva, thinking that he placed that big stone to obstruct him from coming out. He forgot his own orders given to Sugriva and came to the kingdom and saw Sugriva seated with Rumā and Tārā on the throne, which doubled his anger. He did not listen to what Sugriva had to explain; he kicked off Sugriva and though Rumā did not agree to become his wife, he forcibly married her. Even after the death of the husband, the consent of the woman is the quite necessary as per the law of those times. However, the deed done by Sugriva and the deed done by Vālī may appear as one and the same. But, there is a great difference between the two deeds of the brothers. So, Vālī deserves death punishment in the hands of the authority.

At that time, the entire country of India has been the empire of the Kings of the ‘Ikṣvāku’ dynasty. That means the king of Ayodhya is the central government. The king of Ayodhya is Bharata. Rama entrusted His kingdom only for 14 years. So, Rama has the authority to punish any injustice anywhere in the kingdom. Rama explained all this subtlety of Dharma to Vālī and said: “Vālī! No sleeping being should be killed, as per the Dharma. But when a deadly tiger has entered a village and it is killing the people, no one can dare to kill it while it is awake. But now it is sleeping. In this case, one has to follow the subtle form of justice (Dharma sūkṣma) to violate the justice (Dharma) and kill it.” Thus, the Dharma sūkṣma is greater than the Dharma.