पत्रं पुष्पं फलं तोयं यो मे भक्त्या प्रयच्छति ।
तदहं भक्त्युपहृतमश्नामि प्रयतात्मनः ।। ९.२६ ।।

patraṁ puṣpaṁ phalaṁ toyaṁ yo me bhaktyā prayacchati |
tad-ahaṁ bhakty-upahṛtam aśnāmi prayatātmanaḥ || 9.26 ||

Steps in Devotion

The Supreme recognizes devotional fondness

The mind grows or declines through its own thoughts and imaginations. No outside factor ever intercepts the mind. The outside acts merely as a support. Using worship as a means, does the mind intend to remain narrow and declined? Or does it want to be broad, deep and lofty? The question is simple and the answer too.

Narrow thoughts bring a narrow outcome. Broad thoughts ensure breadth of outlook and vision.

The effort remaining the same, indiscreet people do not seek the path of supreme Expanse, laments Krishna. Instead, they get bogged down by constricted thoughts and attitude. To that extent they deny themselves the benevolent benefits of true and benign worship!

Having said this much to point out where lies the distressing plight of devotees and devotion, Krishna makes some profound philosophical pronouncements. All these declarations are couched in the language of devotion and though quite familiar among devotees, the real message is not fully reflected upon and pursued by many.

The popularity of these statements certainly indicates how there reigns an innate note in every one, which yearns for the supreme goal and ideal. Somehow this innate aspiration does not become pronounced. Why so? The mind remains enmeshed in externalities. Krishna’s statements hold the key to exclusive devotion:

Be it a leaf, flower, fruit or even water – whatever is offered to the Supreme, the Supreme accepts it heartily, provided the material offered is associated with enough devotional fondness, and the offerer has a pure and disciplined mind.

What a moving proposition! The greatest truths are, indeed, the simplest too! Should not everyone understand and get to their depth and profundity?

Krishna keeps to the same trend of emphasizing how the mind and intelligence alone are the seat and fulcrum of devotion and devotional practices. In any elaborate worship, a lot of detail is involved. What and how the materials are collected or brought; how they are arranged; what is offered first, second, third and so on; what mantras are chanted; which is the direction that each article is laid – every such minute detail is to be attended to.

All these are necessary, in a way, so that one becomes attentive. Carelessness is ingrained in each one. To eradicate it and fill oneself with attention and alertness is not easy. This attentiveness is but a general need. In every act one has to become attentive. Unless these details are enjoined in devotional practices too, the challenge and application will not be there. Devotional texts know this basic fact and need. And hence, they have come up with numerous prescriptions.

But alas, out of ignorance, the whole emphasis shifts to these externalities losing sight of the purpose and objectives for which these details were prescribed. And as it happened to Nachiketas’s father, Vajasravas, the inner sublimity is lost, sometimes grievously and piteously.

In Srimad Bhagavatam too a similar episode is narrated: Prachinabarhis, who was zealously given to the performance of rituals, took to yagas and yajnas so much so that the kusa grass he had used virtually covered the earth. Imagine his flair and its result! In order to perform all these yagas, he also had to slaughter a number of cows, every time by wringing their necks! The piety and zeal of the external prescriptions of the Vedas alone overwhelmed his mind and intelligence. Little did he ever think about the cruelty being inflicted on those innocent animals! He had conducted not one or two, but scores of such yagas.

To get what? The attainment in all cases can at best be gross, external. Even the best ritualist has to die and drop his body. The rewards or results of the rituals are in the form of pious promises only. They become operative only after one dies! This means no religious attainment is tangible and visible in nature.

As against this, what in reality is the purport of spiritual sadhana? Does it not aim only at the inner realm, bearing upon the mind and intelligence? But alas, the ritualists do not by and large have this true vision, and they remain glued to Vedic and other rituals.

Think of what takes place even in the most elaborate worship. All the materials that are offered and placed before the deity remain where they are. After the worship is over, the worshipper himself has to remove them. If the things offered thus remain where they are, only to be removed afterwards, the question arises: What does the Deity or God partake then, in the whole worship?

Krishna says: the Supreme will take only the bhaktiupahrtam. Upahara means offering. Bhakti-upahara means devotional offering. A material is only a medium to evoke devotion from the mind of the worshipper. To that extent the material usage becomes helpful. That is all.

When one besmears the offered materials with devotion, that besmearing alone is taken note of by God. All the rest is left out. That is why the pudding one offers remains there, to be eaten by the offerer himself as prasada or blessing.

Be sure. The devotional besmearing in any offered material alone is accepted by God, and not the material as such. If this be so, asks Krishna, what difference does it make whether one gives a costly material, or a simple thing like a flower, a leaf, a fruit, or even water?

That is why in all our worship, simple common items like tulasi, bilva and other common flowers are used in plenty. In collecting the flowers with care, cleaning them up with attention, sprinkling water on them to freshen them, ensuring that every petal is good and comely, imagine how much of attention is employed! It is this attention cultivating process that becomes the true devotional linkage.