Bhakti

Lesson 18 BHAKTI

Bhakti means love. There need to be the lover, devotee and the loved God for love to exist. Normally people think in bhakti, both are permanent. True purpose of bhakti is to merge the impermanent devotee into the permanent God. Vivekachudamani states that bhakti is the best implement for liberation.

To merge into one own self is bhakti. But due to ignorance the external facing jiva worships Ishwara externally with names and forms. This external bhakti became the nine fold devotional paths. ‘sravanam, keertanam, vishno: smaranam, pada sevanam, archanam, vandanam, dasyam, sakhya mathma nivedanam’ Shravanam — Listening to the names of and stories of God Keertanam — Chanting or singing about praise of God Smaranam — Remembering God at all times Paada sevanam — Serving God’s feet. Archanam — Worshiping God Vandanam — Praying God with total submission Daasyam — Serving God like a servant. Sakhyam — Developing a loving friendship with God Aatma Nivedanam — Surrendering oneself to God; Self realization or samadhi.

Even though they all seem to be different, the end result is for a devotee to see the outside God within oneself and merge with him. This is called ananya bhakti. Some devotees spend their entire life in worshipping God with rituals without realizing this truth. The only way to get out of this ‘mudha bhakti’, unintelligent devotion is to seek a Sadguru and to be with spiritual people and in search of truth.

We said earlier that bhakti is love. People love their spouse, children etc, but if you notice one does not jump into the fire or well, even if they see their loved one falling. That shows every loves something more than they love all others. That is their own prana. But they are loosing some of their prana with every respiration.

Every one is afraid of loosing their life, but they are not doing anything about it. The one that makes conscious effort to protect their own prana is the real lover, a true devotees also. A yogi is one who is aware of this loss of prana and is putting in efforts to contain it. Bahya bhakti becomes ananya bhakti for these yogis. ‘tasyante sushiragm sukshmam tasmin sarvam pratishtitam’ mantra pushpam the spinal cord in the backbone, is called sushumna nadi or brahma nadi. At its tip in between eyebrows there is brahma randra in subtle form. If one enters it through brahma randra one can see the entire universe. This is called ananya bhakti. So if yogam is added to bahya bhakti it becomes ananya bhakti.

This yogam or pranayama is taught by Srikrishna to Uddhava. Even if the devotee is performing idol worship he is in antarmukha if he is practicing yogam. Famous devotees like Prahlada, Vidura, Uddhava, Akrura, Arjuna etc., attained liberation after Srikrishna imparted the knowledge of yogam. All of them started off with bahya bhakti attained the state of ananya bhakti with the help of yogam thereby attained moksha.

So yogi is the devotee, yogi is karma yogi, yogi becomes the wise man. All these are not different from each other. Just like to light a lamp one needs the lamp, oil, wick, fire and the one who lights the lamp, all are part of the same goal. These yoga practitioners look different with different ways, like Meerabai, Tyagaraja, Chaitanya prabhu, Namdev, Tukaram. They rejoiced their yoga sadhana danced and sang in ecstatic bliss.