Bhakti and its place in jnAna mArga- Part 2 of 3

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Whereas jnAna and bhakti are known to be two distinct paths to mokSha, it is he who wrote the Viveka-chUDAmaNi for us and chalked out the SAdhanA regimen, which is supposed to take us along the jnAna path. But in that very path, he gives so much importance to bhakti! He says the prime instrument of help for mokSha is bhakti!

In the jnAna mArga, that he presents and publicly preaches for the world, it is not as if there is no place for bhakti. But that place is at the very beginning, at the baseline. In other words it comes even before one starts the four-component-SAdhanA. Even before one gets admitted to his college of JnAna, karma and bhakti are subjects that should have been finished!

The eligibility for proceeding on the jnAna path is a mind which is pure and potentially capable of one-pointedness. Only then can entry be made in this path. In order to get that very eligibility, he prescribed desireless action for purifying the mind and also worship with devotion for disciplining oneself to become one-pointed. In sum, Bhakti is something that is an external component of (advaita) SAdhanA, far removed from the core regimen.

Among components there are what are called external (*bahiranga*) and internal (*antaranga*) components. The internal ones help directly in achieving the objective. External ones stay far away and help indirectly. For example, take a large dinner arrangement. The direct causes are the host and the occasion for which it is held.

The farmer who produced the groceries used in the dinner, the officer who procured them, the shopkeepers who sold them, the cook who prepared the food, the one who supplied the vessels and crockery -- are they not all of them a cause? Among these, perhaps the cook and the servers may be included in the list of ‘internal’ components; but all the others are only ‘external’.

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Bhakti and its place in jnAna mArga- Part 1 of 3

Viveka-ChudaMAnI (#31 / 32)

mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM bhaktireva gharIyasI /

svasvarUpA-nusandhAnaM bhaktir-ity-abhidhIyate //

mumukShu is one who longs for mokSha. To help in the obtaining of that mokSha there are many procedures, many instruments of help. The processes of ‘shravaNa, manana and nididhyAsana’ (hearing, thinking and contemplation) are of such kind.

All the components of SAdhanA-chatushTayaM (the set of four disciplines of the SAdhanA) that we have been talking about all along are only such instruments of help. Collectively they are all called ‘sAmagrI’.

It is not ‘sAma-kriyA’ as is wrongly spoken of in the Tamil world; it has no connection with ‘kriyA’. When several things form necessary accessories to a certain object to be attained, they are together called ‘sAmagrI’. We use the same word in the sense of ‘instrument for help’ (upakaraNa).

Here the word used is *mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM*. This therefore means ‘among the instruments of help for the obtaining of mokSha’. *gharIyasI* means ‘that which has weight’. Among the eight siddhis the process of becoming heavy like a rock is called ‘gharimA’.

‘gharIyasI’ means ‘heavy’ and ‘heavy’ implies importance and connotes ‘the best’. This is the meaning carried into the word ‘ghanavAn’ (a prominent figure). So here the Acharya says: ‘the best among such instruments of help that lead to mokSha’. And what does he indicate as ‘the best’?

This is where he brings in ‘Bhakti’!

It is the Acharya who delineated for us the SAdhanA-chatushTayaM, followed by shravaNa, manana and nididhyAsana. That completes the path – is the general understanding. But here he suddenly brings in something which is not there and says that is the most important instrument of help!

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Samaadhaana - Part 15 of 15

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And this has to be done always. This is the ‘samAdhAna’ of the intellect. Now the Sadhaka has not yet matured to sit in dhyana and have his intellect dissolved in the Atman.

At this stage the intellect keeps on doing its functions. Use that intellect only in those functions which help you rise in spirituality. And what could be those functions except to know well the ShAstras about the Atman?

Except for the formal initiation (upadesha) into the mahAvakyas (which has to be done only at the time of taking Sannyasa), everything else has to be learnt now by proper study.

They have to be learnt at the feet of a guru. This is the VidyA-guru.

The one who later gives him the sannyAsa and initiation into the mahAvAkyas is the Ashrama-guru. It goes without saying that the latter has to be a SannyAsi himself.

Probably he might have been the Vidya Guru earlier. Or probably he might be a scholarly practitioner of the Vaidic Karmas.

Samaadhaana - Part 14 of 15

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To allow buddhi or intellect to be drowned in the ocean of Brahman comes at the end of the third stage: samAdhi. Here it is ‘samAdhAnaM’. ‘BrahmaNi’ does not mean ‘in Brahman’ here but ‘in matters pertaining to Brahman’ – what the ShAstras and the Guru say about it. This is the right way to understand it.

The purport is that we should direct the intellect to dwell always on the philosophical implications of Brahma VidyA. In the exercise of shraddhA, we made the intellect to confirm (avadhAraNa) the faith in what the ShAstras and the Guru say.

In continuation of the same , as a logical conclusion, the Shastra of the Atman has now to be learnt, by the intellect itself, without any doubts raised by the intellect.

The Guru might add something of his own, which may not be in the ShAstras. That also has to be absorbed in the same way. Realisation or Experience of Brahman (*brahmAnubhava*) comes much later. That is the true Enlightenment.

Right now whatever has to be learnt through the intellect has to be absorbed as ‘buddhi-jnAnaM’. The total force of the intellect has to focus on this now. This is the *samyak AsthApanaM* (Right fixation).

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Samaadhaana - Part 13 of 15

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A continued prayer like this will one day flash the truth. It will nullify the intellect, manas and speech and produce a Self-realisation as the Atman itself. This is ‘Atma-varaNaM’.

The reciprocal process by the Atman, is beautifully described in the Upanishads and called *vi-varaNaM*. The word means ‘revelation of what is inside or hidden’.

In sum, the sAdhaka has to do only this. He should understand that intellectual smartness will not work with Brahman. What will work is only a constant prayer, after having discarded everything else, to Atman itself, to be the chosen goal.

The word ‘varaNaM’ which is the process here, includes in it the concept of ‘prayer’ also; that is how the Acharya has constructed his Bhashya for those mantras of the Kathopanishad.

The same Acharya here says: “Establish the buddhi (intellect) in shuddha Brahman”. What is meant by this? I think it is only this: The intellect should dwell, not on shuddha brahman, but in a one-pointed way on what has been said by the Guru and the Shastras about Brahman.

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Samaadhaana - Part 12 of 15

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So neither by intelligence nor by Vedic scholarship can the Atman be obtained. If that is the conclusion of those two Upanishads then by what shall one obtain the Atman? You have to ‘choose’ it. This process is called ‘varaNaM’.

What does one mean by ‘varaNaM’? What is ‘varaNaM’?. ‘vara’ means ‘best’. When a bridegroom is chosen for an eligible daughter; the bridegroom is called ‘varaH’ in Sanskrit and ‘varan’ in Tamil. Also another meaning is one who has been chosen from among several.

This choice is inbuilt into the word ‘svayamvara’ where a bride (usually a princess) chooses her match from an assembly of several princes who consider themselves eligible bachelors for the princess. She chooses whomsoever she likes best.

The act of choosing is ‘varaNaM’.

We look for a proper guru, finally choose one and seek him as our guru – this is ‘guru-varaNaM’. Accordingly there is ‘sishhya-varaNaM’ also. In a similar manner we have to choose ‘Atman’, by discarding everything else.

We have to keep praying “Please reveal yourself, O Atman. You are nothing but my self; but I am not able to recognize it. All this mind, speech, and intelligence (medhA) which think of myself as ‘I’, cannot recognize you. Therefore please reveal yourself by yourself”.

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Samaadhaana - Part 11 of 15

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After having become an ‘Atma-sAdhaka’ (seeker of spirituality) he does not need any more outside knowledge. The only knowledge that he needs is Self- Knowledge. His intellect should not any more digress into other matters.

The only subject to which it should now be anchored is the pure Brahman.

The Gita (V -28) says *yatendriya-mano-buddhiH* that is, not only the senses and the manas, but the intellect also should be controlled.

Intellect has to be stationed in brahman, without tossing itself into several objects. This fixing of intellect in brahman has been called *brahmaNi buddheH sthApanaM* by the Acharya.

But the Upanishads on the other hand say that we cannot reach brahman by our intellectual power. In two Upanishads, namely, Kathopanishad (II – 23) and Mundakopanishad (III-2.3) it says emphatically * na medhayA* (not by intelligence).

Neither by mind, nor by speech, nor by intellect can the Atman be obtained – is well-known. Then why did the Acharya say so?

It means he is not talking about the final Realisation stage of ‘samAdhi’; he is only talking of the lower stage, *samAdhAnaM* and thus let us remember he has distinguished both.

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