01 Nov 2025
[Prof. JSR Prasad asked:- Sāṣṭāṅga Namaskaram Swami, the scholars of Bhagavad Gita say that the first step is Karma Yoga (service and sacrifice), the next step is Bhakti Yoga (devotion) and the final step is Jnaana Yoga (spiritual knowledge). But, You told the reverse of this sequence. Since God Datta is very famous in correlation, can You please correlate both these reverse concepts? – At Your Divine holy lotus feet]
Swami replied:- You are very intelligent because you are specialized in logic (Tarka Shastra). God Datta has to answer and cannot say ‘no’ to your question. Since you are a devotee of God Datta, God Datta will fulfill your request.
There are two types of preachers:- i) Guru, who is the human scholar studying the spiritual knowledge established by Sadguru or divine preacher without deviating anywhere like a train passing on the fixed iron line. ii) Sadguru, who is not only the human guide through His human being-component, but also the divine goal through His God-component. When you learn the spiritual knowledge, you may learn it from a human Guru or from a Divine Sadguru. Let us take the option of learning spiritual knowledge from Guru. Such Guru is not God. While learning the spiritual knowledge from a good Guru, you have to do service and sacrifice through practice (karma) and devotion (bhakti) as your fees (Guru Dakshina). After these two steps of Karma and bhakti, you will get the spiritual knowledge from the Guru. Hence, the order of the three steps is Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnaana Yoga. Since the aim of the total effort is God only, the service and sacrifice (Karma) along with mental devotion (bhakti) towards a human Guru can also be called as Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga respectively. Hence, the order of Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga is also correct.
After receiving Jnana Yoga (spiritual knowledge) from human Guru, you will develop Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga towards God. Hence, the order of Jnaana Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Karma Yoga is correct with reference to God.
Even if you get a Sadguru (contemporary human incarnation of God) to learn the spiritual knowledge, you have to do Karma Yoga and Bhakti Yoga to the Sadguru in the form of Guru Dakshina (offering to the preacher of spiritual knowledge). Now, this order of Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga and Jnana Yoga becomes correct with reference to incarnation when the incarnation is treated as ‘Guru’ (human being-component). After learning the spiritual knowledge, you will develop devotion and practical service and sacrifice towards the same incarnation realising the incarnation as ‘Sadguru’ (God-component). ‘Sat’ is God-component and ‘Guru’ is the human being-component in the case of contemporary human incarnation called as ‘Sadguru’. Hence, both the orders are correlated. The first phase of payment of fees to Guru is like the money to be paid for purchasing the application form for the admission into a school. The second phase of payment of fees to God is like the money to be paid as school fees for the admission into the school. The application form can be purchased from a book shop outside (human Guru) but the school fees must be paid in the office of the school (incarnation of God) only. Alternatively, both the fees for the application and the fees for school admission can be paid in the school itself if the application forms are also sold in the school itself. This is the benefit of catching a Sadguru directly.
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