Of course, it is the nature of fire to warm you up when you shiver from cold. But how can it help you to keep warm if you do not approach it but keep away at a distance! Similarly, those who are earnest to remove the chillness of worldly ills have to seek the fire of Jnana, which is won by the grace of God, and be in the immediacy of God.
The Sadhakas in the midst of their efforts sometimes imagine God to be less glorious than He really is! They feel that the Lord differentiates between sinners and saints, good and bad, Jnanis and A-jnanis. These are unsound inferences. The Lord does not separate men thus. If He really did so, no sinner can survive His anger on earth for even a minute. All are living on the earth, since the Lord has no such distinction. This truth is known only to the Jnani. Others are unaware of this. They suffer under the false belief that the Lord is somewhere far far away from them.
The Jnani is free from Maya, he is unaffected by the Gunas: Rajas, Thamas or even Sathwa. The Jijnaasu, the seeker of knowledge, however, is different. He uses his time for unbroken contemplation of the divine, in pious deeds and holy thoughts. And the other two, the Arthaarthi and the Aartha, they gather elevating experience and ruminate over the real and the unreal and transform themselves into Jijnasus, seekers of knowledge. And later, they become Jnanis and are saved. The goal is reached thus, stage by stage. You cannot attain the goal in one leap.
This can be better understood by an example; Jnana is like the "through train." That is to say, the passenger need not detrain and enter another train to reach the destination. The Jijnasu has entered the "through carriage;" he too need not detrain and board another train, but the carriage will be detained and attached to other trains en-route; and he reaches at last the place he wants to reach. The Aartha boards the ordinary train and since the carriage he is in is not "through" nor is he in a through train, he has to alight at a number of places en-route and wait until another train comes by, so that he can reach the goal by stages. It is a long and arduous journey. But, in spite of these difficulties, it can be accomplished by the Aartha, if he persists; The goal is attained by all; only the process and the pace are different. No wonder the Lord has declared more than once that all these four types of Bhakthas are "My Own." Why has He so declared? Because they all seek the same high goal.
"Therefore, yearn always for the vast, the immeasurable. Do not limit your desires to the little. They are misers who crave for little things. Those who yearn for the Lord are generous, large-hearted," said Krishna.
