In Bhagavad-Gita Shree Krishna Sermons about four types of devotees, BG-7th Chapter verse No-16
Chaturvidhaa bhajante mam janap sukrtinah There are four kind of virtuous men who worship Lord . Here Chatur means four and vidhaa means variety so from this we imbibe there are four sort of devotees.There is gradation and are qualified to be a devotee of Ishwaara,but their acknowledgment ,their attitude ,approach ,prayer etc dissent from each other ,thus they are four types of Bhaktas Artah ,Artharthi, Jijnasu and Jnani .
Artah:
Arti means sadness,discomfort ,trouble ,sorrow or grief . Artah means a person who is seized by a swindler ,tiger or disease.
In the primal days Tigers were common because India was abundant with forests ,so Shri Shankara regularly avails the tiger as an example . When a person is in total distress he does not have any aid , his last resort will be God, but he will call upon God only if he has some good action i.e Punya Karma he will call upon Ishwara .Here the devotee foresees Lord only when he is in total distress and when he feels foresaken by all other means such a person is called Artah .
Artharthi:
Atha means one who suffices desire. In this context it means wealth ,power progeny and all other material comforts. Artharthi is a person who invokes God to fulfill his materialistic needs, his only purpose in life is to get the object that he desires ,for such a person contentment is only in materialistic things, though he has amass of wealth he envisages that there is a greater force over which he has no manipulation.
As a devotee, he is mature enough to recognize the chance element i.e Daivam and there is no way of having any control over it without some grace. So whenever he wants to accomplish something, he invokes the grace of Ishwara to control certain factors that he cannot control. He will perform rituals in order to invoke Ishwara’s grace to help him gain whatever he wants. This is kamya-karma, a karma done with a desire to accomplish a given end within samsara.The one who does kamyakarma is an artharthi. But he is also an Arta devotee. When he is in trouble he will, of course, invoke the Lord. An Artah , however, is not an Artharthi.
Jijnasu :
The third type of Bhaktha is jijnasu . Jijnasu is a person who has ardent desire for Spiritual Knowledge,his nature is to question everything about the existence of God ,He invokes Ishwara’s grace only to Know the Eternal truth ,he has no other interest ,He has no interest in Materialistic things .He perfoms his daily prayers to the Lord and does all other duties i.e Nithya and Naimittika karma,he does this only with the intention of Purification Of Mind i.e Antha-Karna Shuddhi and the Knowledge Of Ishwara .
Knowledge of oneself or Knowledge of Atma is nothing but knowledge of Ishwara .The only conscious being is atma,and Ishwara is not seperate from it .Jijnasu is a great devotee because he needs only God’s grace to know he is a conscious being ,he has no other interest and because of his good actions i.e Punya karma he has discriminative power and he is a perfect karma yogi.
Jnani:
This is a fourth type of Bhaktha , Jnani considers him as the Lord there is no difference between Lord and himself ,he sees him and the Lord as one ,he is a jnani hence he is a real bhaktha.
Let us be a karma –yogi and strive to know the Eternal truth and be one with God .