TEXT 71
śraddhāvān anasūyaś ca
śṛṇuyād api yo naraḥ
so ’pi muktaḥ śubhāḻ lokān
prāpnuyāt puṇya-karmaṇām
śraddhā-vān – faithful; anasūyaḥ – not envious; ca – and; śṛṇuyāt – does hear; api – certainly; yaḥ – who; naraḥ – a man; saḥ – he; api – also; muktaḥ – being liberated; śubhān – the auspicious; lokān – planets; prāpnuyāt – he attains; puṇya-karmaṇām – of the pious.
And one who listens with faith and without envy becomes free from sinful reactions and attains to the auspicious planets where the pious dwell.
In the sixty-seventh verse of this chapter, the Lord explicitly forbade the Gītā’s being spoken to those who are envious of the Lord. In other words, Bhagavad-gītā is for the devotees only. But it so happens that sometimes a devotee of the Lord will hold open class, and in that class not all the students are expected to be devotees. Why do such persons hold open class? It is explained here that although not everyone is a devotee, still there are many men who are not envious of Kṛṣṇa. They have faith in Him as the Supreme Personality of Godhead. If such persons hear from a bona fide devotee about the Lord, the result is that they become at once free from all sinful reactions and after that attain to the planetary system where all righteous persons are situated. Therefore simply by hearing Bhagavad-gītā, even a person who does not try to be a pure devotee attains the result of righteous activities. Thus a pure devotee of the Lord gives everyone a chance to become free from all sinful reactions and to become a devotee of the Lord.
Generally those who are free from sinful reactions, those who are righteous, very easily take to Kṛṣṇa consciousness. The word puṇya-karmaṇām is very significant here. This refers to the performance of great sacrifices, like the aśvamedha-yajña, mentioned in the Vedic literature. Those who are righteous in performing devotional service but who are not pure can attain the planetary system of the polestar, or Dhruvaloka, where Dhruva Mahārāja is presiding. He is a great devotee of the Lord, and he has a special planet, which is called the polestar.