Shloka 2
Varṇāśrama-dharma as a Path to Bhakti
Yuga-dharma Origins, Universal Virtues, Brahmacarya and Gṛhastha Duties
श्रीउद्धव उवाच यस्त्वयाभिहित: पूर्वं धर्मस्त्वद्भक्तिलक्षण: । वर्णाश्रमाचारवतां सर्वेषां द्विपदामपि ॥ १ ॥ यथानुष्ठीयमानेन त्वयि भक्तिर्नृणां भवेत् । स्वधर्मेणारविन्दाक्ष तन् ममाख्यातुमर्हसि ॥ २ ॥
śrī-uddhava uvāca yas tvayābhihitaḥ pūrvaṁ dharmas tvad-bhakti-lakṣaṇaḥ varṇāśramācāravatāṁ sarveṣāṁ dvi-padām api
သီရိ ဥဒ္ဓဝ က ပြောသည်—အရှင်ဘုရား၊ ယခင်က သင်သည် ဝဏ္ဏာရှရမ စနစ်ကို လိုက်နာသူများနှင့် သာမန်လူသားများအတွက်ပါ သင့်ထံသို့ ဘက္တိဖြစ်စေသော ဓမ္မကို ရှင်းပြခဲ့သည်။ ပဒ္မမျက်စိတော်ရှင်၊ ယခု မိမိ၏ သဝဓမ္မကို ဆောင်ရွက်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် လူသားအားလုံး သင့်ထံသို့ ချစ်မြတ်နိုးသော စေဝါ-ဘက္တိကို မည်သို့ ရရှိနိုင်သည်ကို ကျေးဇူးပြု၍ ဖော်ပြပါ။
Lord Kṛṣṇa has already elaborately explained the process of jñāna-yoga, bhakti-yoga and aṣṭāṅga-yoga. Now Uddhava inquires how those inclined toward karma-yoga can achieve the perfection of life, Kṛṣṇa consciousness. In Bhagavad-gītā (4.13) Lord Kṛṣṇa describes that He is personally the creator of the varṇāśrama system. Cātur-varṇyaṁ mayā sṛṣṭaṁ guṇa-karma-vibhāgaśaḥ. Therefore the ultimate goal of the varṇāśrama system is to please the Supreme Personality of Godhead. In other words, one should become a devotee of the Lord and learn the process of pure devotional service. The easiest method of achieving pure devotional service is by the association of pure devotees of the Lord. If one submissively and faithfully associates with pure devotees, one can immediately achieve the perfection of life. A Kṛṣṇa conscious person is not required to execute all the formalities of the varṇāśrama system, because a Kṛṣṇa conscious person, absorbed in love of Godhead, automatically gives up all sense gratification and mental speculation. Those human beings who do not follow the varṇāśrama system are here referred to as dvi-padām, or two-legged. In other words, one who does not follow the religious path of life is known to be human only by the possession of two legs. Even ordinary animals and insects are eagerly engaged in eating, sleeping, mating and defending; the human being, however, is distinguished from such lower forms of life by his capacity to become religious and, ultimately, to love God in pure Kṛṣṇa consciousness.
FAQs
Uddhava asks Krishna to explain how properly executing one’s prescribed duties (svadharma), especially within varṇāśrama conduct, can naturally awaken devotion (bhakti) toward Him.
In the Uddhava-gītā context, Uddhava seeks practical guidance: how people living within social and spiritual duties can practice dharma in a way that culminates in devotion to Krishna.
Do your responsibilities conscientiously and ethically, while orienting the results and intention toward God—so duty becomes a support for devotion rather than a distraction from it.