The saint does this all because he follows in the footsteps of the Lord Krsna, who hurls down the wicked and the vilest among men, as also the lustful and the jealous into the wombs of the Asuras, but who showers his grace even on the worst of the sinners and lifts them up into his domain provided they get themselves attached to Him (9.30-31; 16.19). As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the universe which is not connected with God. He is the thread round which everything else is woven’. But so far as his transcendental nature is concerned, it cannot be said that He is connected with anything else (7.7, 12). The relation however which God has with his devotees is unique. “He is in them and they in Him” (9.29). Even so, the saint has no relative. But he and the other saints who love God become the relatives of each other. This is exactly what is meant by ‘samatva’ (equality). There are no friends or foes fixed or given in advance for the saint or for God (9.29). For, a foe may become a friend, if, by chance, he begins to take interest in spiritual matters; and a friend may become a foe if, by misfortune, he not only recedes from the spiritual path but also becomes an enemy of God and his devotees, by himself being a victim of greed, power, lust and other gross pleasures of life.
Unfortunately, however, there are people who have got a wrong notion of samatva. They understand thereby that the saint behaves exactly in the same manner whether he meets good or bad people. But this, as we think, betrays only poverty of intellect. It is neither the sign of intelligence nor an example of praiseworthy conduct to worship the undeserving and to disrespect the deserving. Who but an idiot will put grass before a dog or meat before a cow, though the Gita tells us that ‘one who has realized God will see His immaculate form as being the same on the body of a dog or of an elephant or a cow or a learned person?’ (5.18). People do not understand that Samadarśana is compatible with Visama-vartana. No doubt, spiritually all creatures are potentially of equal worth, though here, too, there is a difference of degree. But, from the view-point of every-day life, behaviour with them ought to differ from man to man, since there does exist amongst them the difference of kind. To treat the saint, the rascal and the fool equally might perhaps be a prudential necessity, but it is utterly unjustifiable from the view-point of moral and spiritual discipline, even though they all are ultimately and essentially divine in nature. One who does not understand this and therefore behaves indiscriminately can hardly be called a saint at all.