In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that a person should love Him in order to attain moksha. Arjuna wants to know how much one should love Him! What should be the quantum of love, Arjuna wonders. Krishna says that if a person’s love for himself is the size of an atom, then his love for the Lord should be as large as the Himalayas. As a person begins to do his prescribed duties in a detached manner, he understands the nature of the atma, and moves towards the Lord.
In chapter three of the Bhagavad Gita, we are introduced to karma yoga. Then Krishna tells Arjuna about jnana yoga. We cannot jump to jnana yoga, without first resorting to karma yoga, said V.S. Karunakarachariar in a discourse. It may seem as if it would be far easier to leap up to jnana yoga, skipping karma yoga. But that is not possible. Suppose you want to build a two-storeyed house. You ask for an estimate from the builder, and he tells you that laying the foundation for the house and then building the ground floor will cost a lot. But once the ground floor is in place, building the other storeys will cost less. Can we then decide to build the top storeys, without fist building the ground floor? No matter what the expense, the foundation of a building must be strong. That is the starting point for the building to rise. In the same way, we cannot directly go to jnana yoga, without performing karma yoga. You have to qualify for jnana yoga by doing karma yoga.
After jnana yoga comes bhakti yoga. In chapter four of the Gita, Krishna lists the types of karma yoga, in chapter five on how easy the karma yoga is, in chapter six about jnana yoga. He starts talking about bhakti yoga in chapter seven, lists its types in chapter eight, and about raja vidya in chapter nine.
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