SrI: SrImathE SatakOpAya nama: SrImathE rAmAnujAya nama: SrImath varavaramunayE nama:
SlOkam – Original
bahUnAm janmanAm anthE gyAnavAn mAm prapadhyathE |
vAsudhEva: sarvam ithi sa mahAthmA sudhurlabha: ||
word-by-word meaning
bahUnAm janmanAm anthE – after many virtuous births
gyAnavAn – a gyAni whose knowledge is matured
vAsudhEva: sarvam ithi – thinking “vAsudhEva is my parama prApyam (ultimate goal), prApaka (means), dhAraka (who sustains me), pOshaka (who nourishes me), bhOgya (who gives pleasure to me) and so on”
mAm prapadhyathE – surrenders unto me.
sa: – He
mahAthmA – is large hearted;
sudhurlabha: – difficult to attain for me (in this world).
Simple Translation
After many virtuous births, a gyAni whose knowledge is matured thinking “vAsudhEva is my parama prApyam (ultimate goal), prApaka (means), dhAraka (who sustains me), pOshaka (who nourishes me), bhOgya (who gives pleasure to me) and so on” surrenders unto me. He is large hearted and is difficult to attain for me (in this world).
Rendering based on ALkoNdavilli gOvindhAchArya swAmy’s English translation of gIthA bhAshyam
‘Become wise at the end of many births, one worships Me. That high-souled saint (mahātma) is very rare, to whom Vāsudeva[2. This is the 334th, 700th and 714th name of God. See Mahā-bhā. Moksha Dharma-166; Ud:par:68-3; Vish:pur: i-2-12. Vāsudeva has four hypostases, Para-Vāsudeva, Vyūha-Vāsudeva, Vasudeva’s Son, He who permeates all and sports. Vide note 2, p: 261.] is all.[3. Cp. with VII-3].’
It takes not a few births of meritorious works, for one to ripen into that consummate wisdom that the soul is by nature the servant of the Lord. It takes many births of a meritorious kind, at the end of which one will know: ‘I am essentially liege (Śesha) to Vāsudeva; my doings, my (nature) and my very being, dependent on Him. As for Him, He is most Superior by His countless Glorious Attributes.’ Then is he jñānavān, the sage or the wise or illuminated person. This is how he reflects: ‘Vāsudeva is My Highest Goal, Vāsudeva is My Way; whatsoever my heart longeth, all that is Vāsudeva to me,’[4. He who looks on God as his father, friend, mother, lover etc., and and all. Cp. Sub: Up: 6, and Bh: Gi: XI-17.]. Such is the high-souled one who is very rare to be found in the world.
‘Vāsudeva is All’ to me,’ means that which was declared to be the nature of the jñāni in:
(Priyo hi etc.,) ‘Very dear indeed am I to the jñāni,’ (vii-17) and,
(Āsthitas etc.,) ‘Is not he My sole-devoted, dependent on Me as the only Unsurpassable Goal?’ (vii-18).
And the jñānavān, or the wisdom-ripe is he who is of the kind described in these verses. (a real God lover=the Bhaktā).
The knowledge or wisdom of this jñāni is such as is declared in:—
(Bhūmir āpo etc.) ‘Earth, water etc’,…and egotism is the eight-fold division of My Nature’ (vii-4)
(Apareyam etc.,) ‘But this is inferior. Know My other Nature superior than that, the living Nature’ (vii-5); where the essentially dependent (or allegiant) nature of the two Categories of Matter and Soul, on the Supreme Spirit, is pointed out. Again is his wisdom such as is declared in:—
(Aham kṛitsnasya etc.,) I am the Origin and the End of all the Kosmos. (vii-6).
(Mattaḥ parataram etc.) ‘Naught whatever higher than I exists, Dhanañjaya!’ (vii-7).
(Ye-ch-aiva etc.,) ‘Those things that are sātvika, and those rājasā and tāmasa know, they all deduce from Me alone. But I am not in them, in Me are they.’ (vii-12);
It is evident from these (verses) that both the two Natures (Matter and Soul), in both their conditions of cause and effect, are dependent on the Supreme Spirit for their very existence, character and impulses, and that the Supreme Spirit is in every way Superior to all.[1. Cp: We live and move and have our being in Him, (Acts, xvii-28)]
Hence, he who possesses this wisdom, is the jñāni.
That such a jñāni is most rare is further dwelt on:—
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