What is Bhakti?

[Hari]

Vivekananda said: "Bhakti without Vedanta is superstition and Vedanta without Bhakti is madness".
What is real Bhakti and what is the goal? To whom/what is Bhakti directed to or does it matter at all? Where does that converge with philosophy such that without it madness prevails?

[myBelovedLordNme]

Namaste

While you wait for the real answer, I would like to share something.....

As the shortest answer, Bhakti is Love, and as Acharyaji has also said here many times, one cannot move forward with Jnana unless the nishtha and bhakti are already there, they are presumed.

**** Now the following is from LOVE, not from this user. This is LOVE speaking
_______________________________________________________________

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Advaita is LOVE
LOVE is a-dvaitic, no room for dvait.
ParmArtha is LOVE
LOVE is pArmArthic

The Lover and Beloved are ONE
My Beloved said so repeatedly, whether you believe it or not
Shruti says so explicitly , whether you can see and comprehend or not

Advaita is Love, Truth, Knowledge
whether you accept or reject it
whether you attack or propound it
Krshna loves you anyway

Love is when Chandra is reluctant to move away from Rohini Nakshatra

***Love is where Creator and Created cannot be seperated out***
Love is where Lover cannot be told apart from Beloved
Love is where Beloved sees Lover in mirror of Truth

Love is infinite
Love is Radhe-Shyam

Love cannot be caught in a box (Kena  Upanishad - Agni cannot catch Brahman)
Love cannot be compartmentalized

Love is not ONLY being a servant, although service is love

Love embraces ALL
Love encompasses all

Love is where Bindu cannot be seperated out of  [ Bhakti Rasamrt ] Sindhu


I am LOVE [speaking]
I am in LOVE
I am Brahman'
I am Radha
I am Krshna
I am Shiva
I am Gauri
I am Narayana
I am Lakshmi
I am each creature
I am each piece of geological existence
I am Universal Matter

I am Aakash
I am Shabda
I am Sparsha
I am Rupa , Rasa , Gandha

I am Chit
I am Sat
I am Ananda alone

Sri Krshna Govinda Hare MurAre
He NAth NArAyana VAsudeva ~

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[Dr. Sadananda]

Shree Hari - First my apologies for delay in answering your question.

Some time back I wrote an article on Bhakti yoga for Advaita lists. I just found it and I am pasting it. The answer to your specific question may be burried in the article. If you still have question after reading the article I will be happy to clarify my understanding. There is also an article in the forum on what is intellectual bhakti. that oen can read.
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On Bhakti Yoga

After reading my notes on Karma yoga vs. Jnaana yoga, some one requested me to compare Bhakti yoga or yoga of devotion also.

Actually, Krishna lists only two yogas in sloka Ch. III-3. There are two paths –one is karma yoga for those whose mind-set is in yoga of action and the other is jnaana yoga for those whose mind set in yoga of knowledge. Bhakti yoga is not separately mentioned. The reason is very simple – both have common theme and that is yoga. Yoga means whose mind is yoked to the higher nature of reality. That demands commitment towards the higher which is nothing but Bhakti or devotion towards the goal. Hence karma yoga means Bhaktithrough action and jnaana yoga means Bhakti through knowledge. Thus, although Lord Krishna does not consider Bhakti as separate yoga since it is the bottom line for both karma and jnaana, Bhakti is emphasized through out Gita. For example, Krishna says in Ch.9-29:

samoham sarva bhUtEShu na mE dvEShyOsti na priyaH|
yE bhajantitu mAm bhaktyA mayi tE tEShu cApyahaM||

I maintain equanimity to all – I do not favor anybody or disfavor anybody.  However, those who worship me with devotion, they are in me and I am in them.

Karma yoga involves IswrArpita buddhi that is offering the action as the prayer to the Lord. When action itself becomes a prayer, then we have to make sure what we offer is the best that we can offer; therefore dexterity in action is essential for a karma yogi –yogaH karmasu koushalam-says Krishna.

The whole of 12th chapter is called Bhatiyoga but in that the emphasis is
Etu sarvaaNi karmAni mayi sanyasya matparAH|
ananyE naiva yogEna mAm dhyAyhanta upAsatE||
tEShAmaham samudharthA mRityusamsAra sAgarAt|
bhavAmi na cirAtpArthA mayyAvEshita cEtasAm|
Those who surrender all their actions in me, and meditate on me without any other thoughts, and those who have surrendered everything and whose minds are fully abiding in me, I shall err long uplift them from the thralldom of cycle of birth and deaths.

Shankara defines Bhakti in VivEkachUDAmaNi as
moksha kAraNa samArgryAM bhaktiH Eva garIyasI|
swaswarUpanusandhAnaM bhaktirtyabhidIyatE|
swAtmatatvAnusandhAnaM bhaktirityaparE jaguH||

Of all the paths for liberation Bhakti is the supreme. That bhakti is continuous contemplation on one’s own essential nature. Others say that continuous contemplation of the truth of one’s own Atma is bhakti. Atma jnAna vichAra is therefore supreme bhakti as per Shankara.

Krishna says while classifying all the devotees into four groups, ArthaH (One who thinks of me when they are in despair), arthArthii (One who prays for things, artha) , jignAsu (one who has desire to know Me) and jnAni(one who knows Me), JnAni is the highest bhaktasince he loves me the most and I love him the most. Hence Bhakti is not a choice here but is the essence in all sAdhanas. To understand
Bhakti how a karma yogi perceives bhakti in relation to jnaana yogi, and why Krishna says jnAni is the highest Bhakta, we should examine what is involved in Bhakti or devotion.

Let us look first at devotion. The difference between devotion and love (word used in common parlance) is love towards higher is devotion and love towards lower is actually lust but mistakenly called love. Hence one rises in devotion while one falls in love. Now what is higher and what is lower? Higher is that wherein the mind becomes calm, quiet and surrenders itself. The surrendering implies all mental agitations are sublimated at that alter of love. This is also called prapatti – a term which has a special significance in VishiShTAdvaita. In Gita we find that until Arjuna surrendered, Krishna did notstart teaching – shiShyatvOham sAdhimAm tvam prapannam – I am your disciple (prapanna) that I am ready to subject myself to your discipline. That should be the attitude of a student as Krishna himself enumerates that one should approach a teacher with that attitude of
surrender – tat viddhi praNipAtEna praripraShNEna sEvayA – That is devotion towards the teacher and the teaching is essential for knowledge– Only in that attitude of devotion the mind becomes free from agitations and ready to learn. In contrast, lower is that wherein the mind gets more and more agitated – one cannot sleep or eat or do anything constructively since mind is always pre-occupied – that is what happens when one
is falling in love.

Love or devotion can be classified into three types: 1) Means Love 2) End-Love and 3) Self-Love – (the terms are based on Swami Paramarthanandaji’s talks on Bhakti). Means love means love of the means to achieve some goal in mind – that is the path to achievethe goal in mind. Some are so obsessed with the means that they forget the goal and fanatically fight for the means. We can remind ourselves the story in Gulliver’s travels where the two Lilliputian countries fight among them selves – the cause is how to break
the egg – One country says Egg should be broken from the fat end while the other insists on breaking from the thin end. The Means became more important than the end. Religions try to survive in fighting that theirs is the only means to reach the goal while
the other means will take you to eternal hell. Some are ready to kill others in support of their cause to save life of the unborn babies. Since I love the end or the goal so much that I tend to love the means too. That is one kind of love. But some love only the means so that they can get the goal they want. Once the goal is reached there is
no more love for the means since the mission is accomplished. I love my uncle so much since I like to have the wealth that he has; but once I got that wealth, uncle is of no importance; in fact he is considered more a nuisance to me.

How is this related to Bhakti? For the most of the people, God’s love is only a means-love. That is God is considered as a means to achieve some goal in mind.  What I love is actually the goal that I want, and means is only a means for what I want. Everybody has lots of desires – I want this, this and this and without this I cannot live, etc – 'I' includes all mine too -that is my child, my wife, my children, grand children, etc. and ‘this’ includes health, wealth, position, power, etc all that is included as the goals of my life. I want to be on the good side of God, since I have learned that he is the one who is the giver. Hence I go from a temple to a temple, one holy place to the other, of course with a big list of what I want from Him. I will make sure I do not forget to prostrate all the gods in the temple (nowadays there are many in each temple) to make sure that I am not in the black list of any one of the Gods there. Whenever we go to a temple, the pujari asks during sankalpa that involves informing the God who are we and why are we praying the Lord, etc. - our gotram and our star, etc, so that when God sends goodies he has the right address. Pujari has a standard list for all that he repeats for every body without even asking what we really want. Thank God, Krishna lists us also as one of his Bhaktas under the category of artha arthiis – that is all those who are always with begging bowls, however much he has already given. That is called Means-Love.

The second one is called End-Love not end of love. God itself is the end not the goodies that he gives. I do not care for the goodies, what I love is God. This kind of love is rather rare and is what is really emphasized in most of the devotional paths. The nine modes of Love are the modes of expressing this love towards God. He is the master and I am the servant is the one that is mostly emphasized in VishiShTAdviata. The service according to them involves serving the forms of God – that includes the daily puja and vigra ArAdhana. This bhakti is exemplified by the twelve alwars in the vishiShTAdviata
tradition. The bhakti includes not only in bhagavat sava but also bhaagavata save, that is serving the Bhaktas of the Lord. Serving the Lord is easier like Lakshmana serving Rama, but serving the servent of the Lord is more difficult and ShatRighna personifies that - He serves Bharata, who serves Rama. Love towards Lord does not involve any expectation in return but doing what Lord wants. This was exemplified in Ramayana when Bharata went to bring Rama back by his devotion. This was depicted beautifully in Ramayana series by Ramanand Sagar. There was a contest between Rama' devotion to his dharma and Bharata's love for Rama. Janaka was asked to make a decision – Janaka says Bhakti superseeds duty, hence Bharata won, but there is fine print in this says Janaka - Bhakta cannot demand the Lord to give but He has to surrender completely and do
what Lords wants him to do - that is true bhakti. Bharata learns hard way what is true bhakti - He bows down to Rama and requests what Rama wants him to do.

The third type of love is the self-love that Shankara emphasized in the above quoted sloka from VivekacUDAmaNi. This is considered as the supreme love. How can the self love is the supreme love? Yajnavalkya says to his wife Maitreyi in Br. Up. – aatmanstu
kaamaaya sarvam priyam bhavati – essentially we love everything or anything else because we love over selves. I love this – this can be anything (means love) or even God end love) – not for the sake of this but for my sake. I love any this so that I feel that it gives me happiness. What I love is actually happiness that I want to be than the thing for thing sake. Hence even God lovers do not love God for God’s sake but for their sake. What they really love is the self that is contended or full. They want to be complete without any inadequacies since full and contended mind is the happy mind. A
jnaani is the one who loves himself – since he revels in himself and he has no desire for anything else including God since he has discovered that the God he loves is nothing but his own essence. Krishna says I am in everyone’s heart and heart in Vedanta means the very core of one’s individuality. Hence Krishna says he is jnaani – the one who realizes that sarva bhUtastam AtmAnam sarva bhUtAnicha Atmani – one who realizes he is the self in all and all are in himself – he is jnaani and that jnaani is the one Krishna says is
supreme bhakta. The self realization is also God realization as Krishna himself in the very next sloka says – yo mam pasyati sarvatra sarvan ca mayi pasyati – those who sees Me everywhere and everything in Me. Hence pure Bhakti should culminate in jnaanam hence Self-love is God-love – not as a God separate from him – it is the culmination of Bhakti where lover and loved have become one- that is advaita. In advaita, bhakti reaches its pinnacle – and that is
moksha and that is liberation.

Hari Om!
Sadananda

[Hari]

PraNAm,

Thank you Acharyaji and myBelovedLordNme for taking time to answer my queries and providing your insights. Reading through these answers and the article on intellectual bhakti was very useful.

I have also thought about it a bit more and will try and summarize what I understood and please pardon me and correct me if I have missed it in whole or in parts. One of the main areas where I usually get lost is when God and Lord are freely used and my mind tends to blur the boundary of the conceptual versus the personification aspects.

From what I understand then, true Bhakti is just surrendering with all your heart.

It’s probably easier to comprehend this in the context of thoughts and actions aimed within Maya. For such goals, we all know it is difficult to succeed unless your mind as well as heart is set on the goal. Of course, pursuing the goals of the lower nature that are trapped within Maya makes your mind more agitated and excited rather than calm and serene. But nevertheless once your heart is in it you have a higher probability of success.

The exact same principle applies to the higher goals as well. However, for higher goals where the goal itself is difficult to envision using our senses, where contemplation is the tool and selfless actions is the path, the question then becomes surrender to what? Which is probably where worship of the Ishwara - Gods that your mind can imagine or the imaginary-Gods - help as they, being manifestations within Maya, are more comprehendible yet being a common or shared entity (not an individual property like my-wife, my-child, my-self, my-...) reduce the "I-ness" in the pursuit of the ultimate jnana. However, this has the risk of the focus shifting to the means instead of the end goal turning this Bhakti more into a means-Love rather than the end-Love or the self-Love, the latter two being the same as per advaita.

Surrendering with all your heart to that which you cannot comprehend, where your intellect alone cannot reach, where science ends and philosophy starts is true Bhakti. And unless you truly surrender, intellectual contemplation (jnana yoga) or selfless actions (karma yoga) will not be effective.

Whatever is easy for you to surrender to - an Iswara or a person who in your mind is of a higher nature or the incredible play of nature or the higher goal in its very abstract form - is a personal choice as long as the goal is the true understanding or self-realization. This Bhakti will help you reach your higher goal using contemplation (thought experiments, extrapolation and self-inquiry) and selfless actions.

Hari Om

[Dr. Sadananda]

Sri Hari - PraNAms

You have zeroed in on the concept. Someone asked me of my perspective of love and devotion - what surrender or sharaNaagati means or what it involves. I will be writing on the sometime soon and post it in the forum too.

Hari Om!
Sadananda

[murugan]

Hari Om Sadaji

I have read the following paragraph in the Sadhana Panchakam text introduction commentary by Pujya Gurudev Swami Chinmayanandaji.


~ SADHANA PANCHAKAM TEXT INTRODUCTION ~
- Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda

In these five verses Shankara enumerates some 40 items that constitute the "Vedantic Sadhana". Ritualism can be a discipline only in the field of many "Dvaita". In Advaita there cannot be sadhana in the form of worship, invocation, surrender or sacrifice. Yet, the student who is entangled in his mind-intellect equipment is still in the level of ego (jiva-bhav). He is to be shown the path by which he can steadily raise his vision into the Yonder, beyond the frontiers of the many (BMI and OET) into the One Self, the State of "Peace that passeth all understanding".

Request you to kindly explain me the role of ritualistic worship in Advaita and also what is explained in the above paragraph which i am unable to comprehend. Does it say that one has to start with ritualistic worship, invovation, surrender etc in order anhilate the ego and then move on to understanding one's true nature.
Pranams