नाहमर्थपरो देवि लोकमावस्तुमुत्सहे।
विद्धि मामृषिभिस्तुल्यं केवलं धर्ममास्थितम्॥
nāham artha-paro devi lokam āvastum utsahe
viddhi mām ṛṣibhis tulyaṁ kevalaṁ dharmam āsthitam
na = not; aham = I; artha-paraḥ = with a desire for wealth; devi = O queen; lokam = in this place; āvastum = in residing; utsahe = am interested; viddhi = know; mām = Me; ṛṣibhiḥ = the sages; tulyam = like; kevalam = exclusively; dharmam = dharma; āsthitam = to have taken shelter of.
O queen, I am not interested in residing in this place with a desire for wealth. Know Me to have exclusively taken shelter of dharma like the sages.
1 He demonstrated that anyone interested in attaining mokṣa can accept dharma that leads to mokṣa, but he or she must reject dharma that leads to artha and kāma, in addition to rejecting adharma (which is only resorted to for artha and kāma in this life).
2 Note these remarks of Śrī Śrīdhara Svāmī in his comment to this verse: hi yasmād brahmaṇo ’haṁ pratiṣṭhā pratimā, ghanī-bhūtām brahmaivāham. yathā ghanībhūtaḥ prakāśa eva sūrya-maṇḍalaṁ tadvad ity arthaḥ.
This statement dispelled Kaikeyī’s fear that Rāma was waiting for Bharata’s arrival to usurp the kingdom from Him.
NOTE. Some have foolishly misunderstood statements like this to mean that Rāma was interested in carrying out dharma in the mode of goodness in order to attain spiritual realization like the sages. While it is certainly true that He demonstrated how to carry out one’s general and specific dharma in the mode of goodness in order to attain spiritual realization, He is not a conditioned soul (baddha-jīva) or even a liberated soul (mukta-jīva).1
Nor is the Supreme Personality of Godhead Viṣṇu the Saguṇa Brahman or Brahman with material attributes as imagined by Śaṅkarācārya in his writings, for Lord Viṣṇu is eternally beyond the touch of Māyā as is emphatically asserted in the Bhagavad-gītā and other scriptures that clarify the teachings of Vedānta.
He clearly and authoritatively asserts that He is absolutely beyond material nature thus:
tribhir guṇa-mayair bhāvair ebhiḥ sarvam idaṁ jagat
mohitaṁ nābhijānāti mām ebhyaḥ param avyayam
“Deluded by the three modes [goodness, passion and ignorance], the whole world does not know Me, who am above the modes and inexhaustible.” (Bhagavad-gītā 7.13)
He is the very foundation of Brahman that can be realized only after one transcends the influence of matter.
māṁ ca yo ’vyabhicāreṇa bhakti-yogena sevate
sa guṇān samatītyaitān brahma-bhūyāya kalpate
“One who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman.” (Bhagavad-gītā 14.26)
brahmaṇo hi pratiṣṭhāham amṛtasyāvyayasya ca
śāśvatasya ca dharmasya sukhasyaikāntikasya ca
“And I am the basis of the impersonal Brahman, which is immortal, imperishable and eternal and is the constitutional position of ultimate happiness.” (Bhagavad-gītā 14.27)2
This Brahman is described in Brahma-saṁhitā (5.40) thus:
yasya prabhā prabhavato jagad-aṇḍa-koṭi-
koṭiṣv aśeṣa-vasudhādi-vibhūti-bhinnam
tad brahma niṣkalam anantam aśeṣa-bhūtaṁ
govindam ādi-puruṣaṁ tam ahaṁ bhajāmi
“I worship Govinda, the primeval Lord, who is endowed with great power. The glowing effulgence of His transcendental form is the impersonal Brahman, which is absolute, complete and unlimited and which displays the varieties of countless planets, with their different opulences, in millions and millions of universes.”
When a primary school teacher goes to the black board and writes A-B-C on it with a chalk, he is not learning the alphabet; he is doing it to teach the school children how to write A-B-C. Lord Śrī Rāmacandra appears to this world to demonstrate how to execute dharma to attain mokṣa and how to abandon the pursuit of artha and kāma. And the mokṣa promoted in the Rāmāyaṇa is not of the impersonal variety—it is nothing but everlasting service to the Supreme Personality of Godhead in His liberated abode. The nature of this status is well clarified in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam and we request the readers to peruse this final word of all Vedic teachings—Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam—with the enlightened exposition of the same by His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda.