Devotion and Knowledge – Mutually Fulfilling
Hariḥ Om Tat Sat. Jai Guru. The subject is “Jñāna-Bhakti-Samanvaya”. I think, whatever has been spoken in these four verses, should be sufficient. People often ask, “Are you following the path of bhakti or the path of jñāna?” But truly speaking, when a person really becomes a seeker, a saadhaka, there will be no difference between the two. A real Jñānī will have the supreme devotion – the parābhakti, and a real Bhakta will have the jñāna. That is what we find in Shankaracharya, Ramakrishna Deva and others.
The first verse I chanted, is composed by Shankaracharya:
भक्तैर्वैदिकलक्षणेन विधिना संतुष्ट ईशः स्वयम् ।
साक्षाच्छ्रिगुरुरूपमेत्य कृपया द्रुग्गोचरः सन् प्रभुः
तत्वं साधु विबोध्य तारयति तान् संसारदुःखार्णवात् ॥
It says: When a devotee worships the Lord properly for hundreds of lives – not for one or two lives, but for hundreds – following the Vedic instructions with great attention and devotion, the Lord becomes pleased. Then, what happens?
So far, the devotee was worshipping God, but God was not visible before him or available to him for any interaction or guidance. Now, being pleased with the devotional qualities of the devotee, God Himself appears before the devotee in the form of his Guru – dṛg-gocaraḥ san prabhuḥ. And what does the Lord do appearing before him as his Guru?
Tattvaṃ sādhu vibodhya – He makes the seeker realize the essence of all scriptures. The ultimate purpose of all scriptural studies, all religious and spiritual practices is to realize the tattva, the Supreme Truth. The Guru makes the seeker realize the Supreme Truth. Not only bodhya, but vi-bodhya: viśeṣa rūpeṇa bodhya – making him actualize the Truth very well. The seeker understands the very essence of life and existence. And what happens as a result? Tārayati tān saṃsāra-duḥkhārṇavāt – he takes the disciple across the ocean of suffering.
When bhakti is practised with proper attention to the scriptural prescriptions, this is what happens. God appears before the devotee in the form of the Guru and makes him a jñānī. Here, we should not miss the import. Does it mean that the bhakti goes away when the saadhaka takes to jñāna or becomes a Jñānī? For a person who practised bhakti over several lives, or at least in this life for 40 or 50 years, can the bhakti suddenly get lost when the Guru explains to him the Truth? Or, will his bhakti evolve further and get maturated through knowledge? Will not his bhakti get purified, refined and reach its pinnacle in the association of jñāna bestowed by the Sadguru?
The second śloka, which is composed by Poojya Swami Bhoomananda Tirthaji, our Gurudev, says:
सर्वव्यापकमद्वितीयमजरं वेदान्तविज्ञापितं
द्वन्द्वाभासविवर्जितं भवहरं शान्तिप्रदं देहिनाम् ।
कर्माकर्मविकर्महीनममलं त्रैगुण्यविच्छेदकं
ध्यायेत् ब्रम्ह सदा प्रशान्तमनसा भक्त्या च सश्रद्धया ।।
It is supposed to be a jñāna śloka. It defines brahma-jñāna and its effects on us and then concludes saying: “dhyāyet brahma sadā – this Brahman is to be contemplated upon always, every moment”. And how should one contemplate on Brahman? Praśānta-manasā – with a peaceful, humble and desire-free mind. And then? Bhaktyā ca sa-śraddhayā – with bhakti as well as śraddhā – with devotion as well as giving Brahman the supreme value and position in life.
All pursue jñāna only to realize Brahman, the Supreme Truth. So, while contemplating on Brahman every moment, is bhakti to be kept away? Or, with the association of bhakti and śraddhā, the contemplation on Brahman will become more intense and wholesome – knowledge will attain its final mature form and fulfillment?
I have heard of a Vedantic Pandit. Once there was a mishap in his family. The family members were religious and devoted to their Iṣṭa-devatā. Naturally, their only consolation and refuge was their devotion to God. Seeing the other family members overcome their sorrow through devotion, the Vedantic Pandit said: “All of you are blessed that you have your God to take refuge to. Being a Vedantin, I don’t have anybody to take refuge to. So, I am not able to bear my suffering.”
I have not heard a more devaluing remark about Vedanta. This is what happens to people who think that Jñāna is academic and to attain Jñāna one does not need devotion. In fact they are not real saadhakas. A Vedantin will not have any refuge! What does it mean? Vedanta fixes our own identity to the Ultimate Truth, which is the Source of the entire Universe! A true Vedantin will have the highest and the only unfailing refuge. His devotion to Truth will give him the greatest confidence and poise in any situation of life.
Who is the Lord?
The third śloka I chanted is from Sreemad Bhaagavatam. It has been chanted here in the Satram a number of times.
योऽन्त:प्रविष्य मम वाचमिमां प्रसुप्तां
सञ्जीवयत्यखिलशक्ति-धर: स्वधाम्ना ।
अन्यांश्च हस्त-चरण-श्रवण-त्वगादीन्
प्राणान्-नमो भगवते पुरुषाय तुभ्यम् ।। (4.9.06)
Here again we have a great devotee, Dhruva, singing the praise of God. But what is he saying? Is he saying that the Lord is residing in the remote Vaikuntha or somewhere in the heavens beyond our reach? No! He is saying that the Lord, “having entered my body – mama antaḥ praviśya – is inspiring all my activities.
He is activating all my senses and the life-forces (indriyas and prāṇas).” What does it mean? Who is that Lord and where is He? Is He not available within us? Although God is all-pervading, to know Him, to realize Him, to experience His presence, we have to look into our own within, our own Self, which we are always referring to as ‘I’. So, a devotee merges with his beloved Lord forever when he knows his real Self. Does it not mean that the fulfillment of devotion lies in jñāna?
The fourth śloka says:
This is a composition by a devotee. To become a real devotee, we have to understand who is the Lord he is addressing, and what is meant by tavapriyārtham – for Your pleasure, for the pleasure of the Lord. We are doing so many things during the day. Of those, which ones are for the pleasure of the Lord? We have to look into our mind.
Have we all come to the Bhaagavata Satram for the pleasure of the Lord or because we like to listen to Bhaagavatam? Do we go to the temple for Lord’s pleasure or for our pleasure? We go because we are not satisfied with what we have. We want something more. We may want to remove the suffering in the family. Or, there may be some difficulty or desire related to the profession. We do everything for our pleasure only. Then, what is meant by “doing for the pleasure of the Lord”?
Who is the Lord we are talking about? Where is He? How to approach Him? If the Lord is all-pervading is He not residing in our heart also? If He knows everything, does he need anything to be told? Then, why are we praying? We have to understand that we are chanting all these ślokas for our own sādhanā ! The Lord is not going to be benefited by our prayers. By chanting repeatedly we are trying to actualize the implications of all these words in our life. That means we have to go into the process quite deeply.
We are calling the Lord ‘Lokeśa’ – the Creator and Controller of the world! Now, who can be the Creator and Controller of the world? Can He be somewhat looking like us, but with four hands and a very huge body, sitting somewhere in the heaven? Then the Lord we are imagining is visible before our eyes. He is an object before us. We will naturally ask about such a Lord, “Who has created Him?” We cannot logically disallow that question. If we say that God is the creator of the world, then the question will be: “Who created that God?” Such causal enquiry into the Ultimate Cause will never end. We say it suffers from anavasthā-doṣa – the defect of infinite regression.
So, if we look for the Source of the world, the Ultimate Reality, then that Reality has to be beyond the ken of objects. It must transcend material causality or objectivity. ‘Object’ means whatever is perceivable by our senses or conceivable by our mind, as different from the Subject ‘I’. The western scientists limited their search to the objective hemisphere, looking for the laws governing the material world, ignoring the Subject – the draṣṭā. But, the Maharshis of our land discovered the Ultimate Reality by looking into the real identity of the draṣṭā, the Subject, the ‘I’.
We have a general confusion. Sometimes we say, “I am sick today”, and the next moment we say, “my body is not well today”. In saying “I am sick”, we are associating the body with the Subject ‘I’. But, in the second statement, the body is declared as a possession for the ‘I’, an object before the ‘I’. So, definitely there is a subject-object confusion that arises from lack of clarity about our own identity, the Self.
The same confusion persists when we refer to our mind or intelligence, because we are not able to identify the real Subject, the Ātmā. Only when we are able to identify the Ātmā, we come to know that the Consciousness, which is the Subject in us, alone can be the substratum on which the world appears to be. When we write on air – we can write ‘table’, we can write ‘Bhaagavata Satram’ – whatever is written is made of air. Like that, the whole world, which includes our bodymind- intelligence personality also, is written on the Consciousness.
So, Lokeśa, the Lord, cannot be any of the Gods and Goddesses we imagine. He is the Consciousness we are referring to as ‘I’. He is our own Self. The entire world, the very objectivity, is born of this Consciousness. It is not ‘born’ in the usual causal sense because the Consciousness remains Consciousness even when the world appears to be. So, when a devotee is calling the Lord as Lokeśa, if he is attentive to what he says, will not his mind immediately contemplate on Brahman?
The next epithet the devotee uses for the Lord is “caitanya-maya”– who is made of consciousness, who is consciousness alone. This consciousness also we have to understand well. In spirituality, consciousness refers to knowing. Consciousness alone knows. It reveals the world. It reveals itself too. Consciousness can never be known as an objective truth different from ‘I’. It reveals itself as the Subject. Anything else it reveals, is ‘object’ – jaḍa. Therefore, while calling the Lord as caitanya-maya, the devotee’s mind must again contemplate on the Subject Consciousness, the Self, the Brahman.
Next comes “ādideva”. The word ‘Deva’ comes from the root ‘div’. It means ‘selfluminous’. Sun is a ‘Deva’ because it is self-luminous. But sun is perceived, it becomes known, only because of our consciousness. So, the primary ‘light’, the ādi-deva, is our consciousness, which reveals to us the whole world, including the multitude of great luminaries shining in the sky. Thus the name ādideva again reminds us of the Knowing Consciousness, which we are always referring to as ‘I’.
During ārati, when the camphor light is taken in front of the idol, all the devotees eagerly rush to see the face of the Lord. But the mantra chanted during ārati reminds us of the truth :
न तत्र सूर्यो भाति न चन्द्रतारकं
नेमा विद्युतो भान्ति कुतोऽयमग्नि: ।
तमेव भान्तमनुभाति सर्वं
तस्य भासा सर्वमिदं विभाति ।।
– “Even the sun, moon, the stars or the lightning cannot show the Lord. Where is then the question of this fire showing Him? It is only by His ‘light’– the consciousness – that everything becomes visible, known.” See, how beautifully our forefathers have combined the rituals with jñāna!
The fourth epithet the devotee uses is Śrīkānta – the beloved of Śrī, goddess Lakshmi. We generally associate Lakshmi with prosperity. But Śrī or Lakshmi actually represents the auspicious harmony and beauty underlying nature. Because this harmony rests on Truth, accompanies Truth-consciousness, the Lord is called Śrīkānta, the beloved of Śrī. Brahman is to be attained through auspiciousness and harmony.
The last name used is Vishnu. We may immediately think of the four-armed Lord. But again, we have to be grateful to our forefathers. For the preserver of the world, they have used the word Vishnu, which means “all-pervading” – vyāpnoti iti viṣṇuḥ. The whole world appears on Him. That is why He is allpervading. Can He then be restricted by any form whatsoever?
While addressing the Lord with these five names – will not the devotee’s mind contemplate on the One Consciousness, which is the Source of the Universe, the Brahman? How will bhakti attain its pinnacle without this knowledge about the Lord? This Lord is our real identity, which we are always referring to as ‘I’, not knowing its real dimension.
…continued
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