Shloka : 114

गुणिनां गुणवत्ताया ज्ञेयं ह्येतत् परं फलम् ।

कृष्णे भक्तिश्च सत्सड्.गोऽन्यथा यान्ति विदोऽप्यध:श्॥श्114 ॥

અને વિદ્યાદિક ગુણવાળા જે પુરુષ, તેમના ગુણવાનપણાનું એ જ પરમ ફળ જાણવું, કયું ? તો જે શ્રીકૃષ્ણભગવાનને વિષે ભક્તિ કરવી, ને સત્સંગ કરવો. અને એમ ભક્તિ ને સત્સંગ - એ બે વિના તો, વિદ્વાન હોય તે પણ અધોગતિને પામે છે. ॥ 114 ॥

And the ultimate reward for a person having virtues like knowledge etc. is to worship Shri Krishna Bhagwan and attend the Satsang. And without devotion and Satsang, even the scholars attain the descent. || 114 ||

Commentary

Virtuous means one who is full of virtues such as practice of Sankhya, Ashtang Yoga, Yagya, Japa, Tapas, Vrat, Vedas, scriptures, religious rites, renunciation, ascetism etc. The ultimate reward of these virtues is to worship Shriji Maharaj and follow His 'Satsang'.

Now, 'Bhakti' means great affection towards Shri Hari alongwith the knowledge of His glory and the remembrance of the divine form of Shri Hari every moment -this is called devotion with great affection. 'Sat' means the Ultimate Supreme God, the cause of all the incarnations Shri Swaminarayan Mahaprabhu, His God-realized saints, Bhagwat Dharma which is based exclusively on the principles of Shri Hari and the scriptures explaining all three of them. These four objects are considered as 'Sat' i.e. truth. The divine form of Supreme God is divine and full of grace. Similarly, Supreme God manifested as a human as well in the form of an idol are equally divine and full of grace. Therefore, Shri Hari should be worshipped through all the nine types of devotion and one should always meditate upon Him. This is called the contact of God. To serve the saints and to learn the code of conduct and meditation from them is called the contact of saint. To follow the religion and observance of religion even during an emergency is called the contact of religion. To study, listen to, contemplate, in depth understanding of the scriptures like Vachanamrit etc. is called the contact of scriptures. One should remain in contact of these four -this is called 'Satsang'.

And the ultimate reward of all these efforts is the realizaton of the futility of the enjoyments of illusory objects of senses which cause pain, which are offending and shortlived. And as a result great affection arises towards Shri Swaminarayan Bhagwan and one comes in contact with the God-realized saints of Shri Hari who help one on the path of salvation.

And thus through devotion, which can be expressed by great affection pouring out of every pore of body and prayers through voice full of emotions and 'Satsang', a living being attains the ultimate liberation. And without 'Satsang' and devotion even if one is scholar i.e one who knows the scriptures and also knows the characteristics of religion, self-realization, ascetism etc. he attains descent i.e. he could attain the abode inferior to that of Shriji Maharaj or he could attain Devlok. But one cannot attain the Akshardham.