Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 15 of 15

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It is not a total surrender.

It is the jnAna-path-finder, who does not use such words, but who has offered his JivAtmA as a camphor in the Fire of the Absolute.
This is the true and complete Atma-nivedanaM, SharaNAgati, Bhakti , Prapatti etc.

Bhakti is thus the most internal accessory for the achievement of advaita. And the Acharya has chosen the words pregnant with this meaning, when he says: *mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAm bhaktireva garIyasI*.

Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 14 of 15

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However, deep within himself, there is the ego which is the taproot for the existence of the JIva; he has not willed to extinguish that.

For doing bhakti, for enjoying that experience of the blessed qualities of the Divine, for the bliss of tasting that relationship, he thinks he has to have that individuality of his JIva-ego.

Earlier we distinguished between ahamkAra and aham-bhAva. Of these only the latter has been sacrificed by him, but not the former.

Therefore, though it is in the bhakti literature that surrender has been emphasized, the bhakti pathfinder, instead of making a total self-effacing surrender, he surrenders only part of his self and has kept the remaining ego of the JivAtmA for the purpose of  experiencing the paramAtmA.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 13 of 15

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Thus the bhakti-bhAva shines explicitly even when one is only having a dualistic relationship with the saguNa brahman and this is the reason for this being called a bhakti path and the one doing this being called a bhakta.

Accordingly the two are distinguished from a JnAni and the jnAna path.

However when it comes to a self-effacing offering to the Absolute it is the jnAna-pathfinder that soars higher than the bhakta of the bhakti path.!

The bhakti path-finder certainly has extinguished for himself the ego as far as the worldly matters are concerned.

Even within himself his own mental inclinations have mellowed his ego.

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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 12 of 15

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Sometimes He makes them cry in despair, He scolds them to the extreme and among all this crying and faulting, He showers His nectar of Love through His divine play!

Just to hear stories and songs of such LeelAs of His towards these devotees – that itself gives a great bliss, to all others, of companionship with Him.

Even to all of them He keeps pouring His Grace, rather subtly, but certainly in a way that imprints itself in their minds and reminds them of His proximity to them.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 11 of 15

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On the other hand with a saguNa-mUrti it is possible to direct our bhakti through a relationship with Him in several ways as the Lord, as a Son, as a Mother, as a Friend, as a Husband.

And that attitude shows up in multifarious actions like dancing, singing, bhajans, sankirtana, pilgrimage, festivities, discourses etc.

The lifeline of this path is to do bhakti and so all this is done very consciously.

As the crowning glory of it all, the recipient of this bhakti, namely, the Lord Himself, does react to it.

Maybe He does not do it to all devotees.

But to those who have reached some peaks of excellence, He gives darshan, He performs varied miracles and reciprocates with a Relationship of divine love towards them that is million times richer than their own bhakti towards Him.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 10 of 15

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It is a bhakti which imparts to him an extreme renunciation, and is itself a renunciate!

On the other hand what about saguNa-bhakti?

There is a tremendous scope in it for branching off into new and newer types of tastes and methods of exhibitions according to the attitudes that spring up towards the saguNa-mUrti who keeps performing ever-new miracles and leelAs.

Over and above all, it is here that the relationship of love shows its exhuberance.

A relationship of Love of the JIva with the nirguNa brahman is like setting up a rapport with one who is in the samAdhi-nishhTA, who is unaware of even the strike of lightning on him!

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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 9 of 15

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The saguNa Ishvara who administers the activities of the entire universe is the one who admires his bhakti and causes him to mature to higher and higher levels of perfection.

The Lord’s intention however is not to direct him to a saguNa (worship) and so He does whatever He does, only implicitly.

Thus the bhakti is taking place in a one-sided way, even without that ‘one side’ knowing it!.

This is the true bhakti that dissolves the ego.

Even then it does not show up!

In addition to its function of dissolving the JIva, this bhakti dissolves itself without itself being visible to external perception!

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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 8 of 15

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Whatever new is done is the action of the mind.

But this individual is set towards the goal of the extinction of the mind. He has already disciplined it by shama and dama.

As far as he is concerned, to know about it (activity of the mind) is an undesirable matter that comes under ‘ego consciousness’.
Therefore he himself would not recognise the bhakti aspect in all its brightness.

Why talk of outsiders? They will have no idea of his bhakti!

The thing towards which bhakti is being directed -- does it at least do anything to cause an explicit showing up of the bhakti?

No! Not at all! How can the nirguNa-brahman react?
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 7 of 15

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The swaras ‘sa’ and ‘ri’ alone however much they are emphasized, will not be palatable to the ears, until all the seven svaras show up.

Barring the silent samAdhi that takes place after the mind fully rests, the various dispositions of even little little activities of the mind will not show up unless they take new and newer forms.

‘Not showing up’ does not mean they are not visible to outsiders; even to the individual himself they will not be felt in his consciousness.

Bhakti in the NirguNa implies an anguish of the individual soul to dissolve in the Universal Soul. That one-pointed anguish is like extending a single svara.

There is no scope for new and newer colours in it.

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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 6 of 15

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It is with these thoughts, perhaps, the Acharya decided to explicitly proclaim loudly : *mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM bhaktireva garIyasI*

(Among the instruments of moksha, bhakti is the most important).

I said bhakti is the union with the universal Source by the dissolution of the ego through Love.

Generally it is understood that to do exactly that with the saguNa form of that Universal Source is bhakti and that such bhakti is different from the bhakti path of the jnAna-finder.

Whence came this understanding?

An attitude or a disposition does not show up in all its brightness so long as it remains the same way only as an attitude, like a nail pinned to the wall.

Only when that disposition shoots forth new and newer branches and manifests in action through the JIva, does it brighten up.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 5 of 15

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Instead of any of these, his is a positive thinking, whereby the longing is to unite with the living fullness of sat-cid-AnandaM.

This is how any sAdhaka who has cared to learn the advaita-vidyA would do his SAdhanA. ‘This life has to be dissolved in That which lives’ – this very concept is Love; even if he does not recognise it as such, Love sprouts by itself.

“Such a good thing as Love – why should it be done without recognising it to be so?

Just because of the ignorance of this fact, one thinks of Brahman purely by a philosophical intellect and allows himself to be drawn away by the intellect.

It may open up the heart to show Love and by that very act close up the only route to cut asunder the root of ego that has anchored itself there”.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 4 of 15

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So what we have learnt now is that bhakti is that which dissolves by Love the ego at the base and unifies it with the Source.

But the destination being nirguNa, there is no scope for our melting in the varied rasas (quintessences, dispositions) of quality of  Bhagavan, it turns out that the melting is in the unfragmented infinite Consciousness that transcends all qualities.

Infinite Consciousness means a living entity that is not circumscribed by definitions.

The taproot for the JIva-bhAva is the concept of I-hood. This feeling has to be dissolved in the Infinite Consciousness.

This goal of dissolution is the only thing in the mind of the seeker on the jnAna path. In fact he thinks so without recognising that that very thought is the true bhakti.

In his thinking, it is not a union with something of which we do not know a thing, nor is it a union with the void, nor is it a path towards annihilation because there is nothing to be united with.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 3 of 15

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The devotee might say “Let me keep on continuously doing this bhakti”.

But Bhagavan (saguNa brahman) says: “It cannot be so. I am done with this charade. How can I carry on this charade for ever? At some point or other I have to be what I am.

And that point of time has come. I am tired of this play. For whatever time I have carried on this drama, that much time it is going to be only rest hereafter” and terminates the show by throwing off His MAyA and remains nirguNa.

Without MAyA and Ishvara where is the question of a JIva? So he also has to go for advaita mokSha along with Him!

That is the only permanent mokSha. For a whole period of time equal to BrahmA’s lifetime the paramAtman rests, that is, stays alone in its nirguNa status, and then again Creation begins; but now the one who had reached advaita mukti earlier would not now be born again in this new creation.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 2 of 15

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Here the word ‘unification’ itself is a misnomer. There is no unification here.

It is only a kind of unison that experiences the union by being separate.

For crores of years in a kalpa one may enjoy it, still it does not become a permanent (*shAshvata*) mokSha – though the originators of that path may claim it to be so.

One day when the saguNa brahman itself is taken into the nirguNa (attributeless) brahman, this whole thing ends and thus this bhakti  is useful only to obtain an impermanent mokSha”.
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Bhakti in Jnana Marga - Part 1 of 15

We started with the question: “Is there something like bhakti even in the path of jnAna?”. We pursued the inquiry and finally we have arrived at the understanding:

“It is this (jnAna-mArga) bhakti that helps to obtain even the most permanent advaita-mokSha (non-dual Release) right in this very birth.

It helps the JIva to identify and become one with the Brahman, the basic Truth.

On the other hand, the bhakti talked about by the path of Bhakti, comes to an end with the unification of the JIva with what turns out  to be just a charade adopted by the substratum of Truth together with MAyA.

However much the qualities of saguNa-brahman (brahman with attributes) are extolled superlatively, it is only a charade or disguise.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 15 of 15

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The fact that the Acharya who uses the name mUrdha-nADi in the BrihadAranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads and in the Brahma-sUtra – in all three of which the topic is elaborated – left the name of sushhumnA uncorrected in the first three places where he used that name, probably has the following explanation.

He might have left it like that in order to bring home to everybody the fact that it is the heart-nADi of Vedanta that had the original name SushhumnA.

But really what has happened is the reverse. Scholars of later times have concluded that just because in those three places it has been called sushhumnA, in the other places also it is the sushhumnA of the mUlAdhAra that has been mentioned!

[This completes the discourse about sushumnaa naadi]

Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 14 of 15

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Of these nADis, the nADi through which the Sun’s sushhumnA ray runs is the one which goes from the heart to the head.

Therefore it is that one which was originally called the sushhumnA nADi.

The Yoga-shAstra people used that name for the central nADi which is most important for their yoga.

Though the source of sushhumnA goes to the Sun, they gave that name to the agni-nADi because of its centrality, in their shAstra, instead of giving that name to the sUrya-nADi.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 13 of 15

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Where he says why Bhishma was waiting for a death in Uttarayana, in the Bhashya of Brahmasutra IV-2-20, we see the noble mind of our Acharya. *AcAra-paripAlanArthaM*, says he – that is, for the purpose of conforming to worldly practice.

Another interesting point to note. The name ‘sushhumnA’ itself was there originlly only for the mUrdha-nADi, spoken of in Vedanta!

The sushhumnA is the first ray among the most import seven of the Sun. Appayya Dikshidar has mentioned it in his stotra of the Sun. (‘Aditya stotra ratnam’: Shloka 4).

It is the Sun’s rays that run through the nADis (that Vedanta speaks) that run from the heart and spread through all the parts of the body and produce the semi-physical juices which are the source for blood, bile and flegm.

Chandogya Upanishad (VIII – 6) has this matter.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 12 of 15

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Obviously he does not give importance to insignificant controversies! Only I am making a big issue of this!

But then why did he take up the matter of UttarAyana-dakshhiNAyana and emphasize the right thing, that was contrary to general opinion?

Of course even the knowledge of that matter does not also profit you spiritually in any way.

However, by knowing it wrongly one wrongly concludes that some non-entity who dies in the uttarAyaNa period as a great soul; but even this thinking is excusable.

It is the other opinion, namely, thinking of a mahAtmA who had his final exit from the body in dakShiNAyana, as an ordinary person destined to be born again – this is certainly unwholesome and that is what made the Acharya emphasize the right thing.
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Sushumnaa Naadi - Part 11 of 15

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VedAanta-nADis are like an elevator.

It lifts you up by itself. You don’t have to do anything.

You don’t have to know how the lift works.

Even if you have a wrong understanding of it, it does not fail to do its job.

That is why when the Acharya wrote the Bhashyas, in the beginning days, whatever general opinion was there about the nADis he also wrote the same way and used the ‘sushhumnA’ accordingly.

He did not elaborate on it, but he did write briefly about it. Later when the matter came up more deeply in BrihadAranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads and also in the Brahma-sUtra, instead of using the word ‘sushhumnA’ he just said ‘the nADi that goes to the head’ and stopped there.

Even then he did not say explicitly that ‘it is not the sushhumnA’.

Also he did not do any correction to his own usage of ‘sushhumnA’ in the previous Upanishads.
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