Tag: Bhakti

Sat-cit-ananda

Eternity—knowledge—bliss: these are the qualities of the divine in both God and in every realised soul. How do we advance toward this realisation?   

Spiritual practice begins with observation, as both idea and as exercise. It starts with the idea that the foundation of life is spiritual, and that realising this foundation requires observation, self-observation, attention to our interior life, to the life of the mind and the of the soul. This means nurturing techniques and habits for recognising our interior life as it unfolds, then increasing awareness of it.

By asking the simple question ‘who am I? we stand already before the extraordinary realisation that someone is directing a question to someone else. 

The very idea of our self, and even the most simple questions we might want to ask about it, produces the strange realisation that we are two. There is one who asks, and there is another who answers. There is a mind-ego and there is a soul.

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What is śaktī?

śaktī [power, energy, potency] 

There is nothing without energy. 

There is no heat in the fire, no movement of the water, no light, no sound. Nothing.

Without energy, there is no life in nature, no flowers that grow or trees that reach to the sky, no insects that creep, no animals that roam, no human hearts that pump warm blood through the veins.   

Without energy there are no sensations, nothing to smell or taste or touch or see.   

Without energy there is no feeling, no tremors of emotion, no sensations of the heart, no sensations that surprise with their appearance, and astonish through their vanishing. 

And so without energy there is no soul, there is no life, there is no love.

Love is the name of energy in its highest form. It is energy that is equal to God. The desires we experience, the attractions that seize our senses are the expressions of this love, this divine love, this divinity. 

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Caitanya Mahāprabhu gave us mañjari-bhāv

Caitanya-caritāmṛta, Ādi 1 Chapter 4, Verse 16

The Lord wanted to taste the sweet essence of the mellows of love of God

Kṛṣṇadāsa Kavirāja Gosvāmi

Throughout the ages Lord Kṛṣṇa is beloved by all. The word ‘kṛṣṇa’ itself means ‘all attractive’.  Nowhere is this more clear than in the rāsa pastime, in which the countless milkmaids (gopīs) of Vrindāvan are irresistibly drawn to him, the local cow-herd boy . According to the legend their eagerness and jealousy is so great that Kṛṣṇa expands into countless embodiments of himself, one for each gopī, so that the dance can go on, each girl delighted that she alone has the privilege of entertaining Kṛṣṇa.

There seems to be no end to the love for Kṛṣṇa. And why not? He is after all everything: all existence (sat), all knowledge (cit) and all bliss (ananda). In other words, whatever exists stems from him, whatever can be the object of consciousness, stems from him, and whoever knows pleasure knows it from him. 

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I am yours

What does it mean to belong to God?

In one of the final verses (Verse 96) of his passionate and moving Vilāpa Kusumāñjali (Bouquet of Lamentations) Raghunātha Dāsa cries out in ecstasy:

I am Yours, I am Yours! I cannot live without You! O Goddess! 

The ardent cry is directed at Rādhā, the lover of Kṛṣna, and therefore the source of the highest love in the world, the love for God. In the Bhakti tradition of Vaishnavism, the goal of life is service to this divine love, embodied through loving service in everyday life. 

Of all the disciples of the diving loving pair Rādhā-Kṛṣna, Raghunātha Dāsa is known as the deepest and the most passionate. He wants so ardently to serve divine love that his very being merges with the loving energy of Rādhā, the Goddess of love. 

In Bhakti, the path to transcendence is through devotional service, serving others in a way that recognises and honours the divine love in every soul. To love means to love from the heart, from the soul, not from the mind and the ego.

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What is suffering?

Verses 9:26-27

If you offer me with love and devotion a leaf, a flower, fruit or water, I will accept it.

Whatever you do, eat, offer or give away, and whatever hardship you suffer—offer it to me.

In Chapter 9 of Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa shares with Arjuna ever deeper knowledge about himself and the nature of the universe. Then in verses 26-27 Kṛṣṇa describes how best to please and honour him. 

He says that not only should we offer to Kṛṣṇa the things we cherish in life. We should also offer him what we do in life. We should give not only our possessions but our actions. 

Among the many things we do in our lives is to suffer through difficult experiences. To suffer is not to feel something painful or difficult for one moment. It is to live in an experience of pain or difficulty. Suffering is an action—of perseverance, patience, resolve, courage, maybe obstinacy.

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Perfect love

Verses 10.22-10-30

The closing sequence of Bhagavad-gītā Chapter 10 can seem tedious. 

After Kṛṣṇa declares his affection for Arjuna in the first lines, his disciple again asks for more detailed knowledge about him. God answers him over the final 19 verses of the chapter in the form of no fewer than 58 comparisons of himself to the greatest phenomena of the universe: ‘Of the rich, I am richest’ (10.23), ‘of the mountains, I am tallest’ (10.25), ‘of the rivers, I am longest’ (10.31), and so on. 

But the model used by Kṛṣṇa in these lines never involves just a simple comparison. It is never a simple matter of ‘this’ or ‘that’. Kṛṣṇa’s presentation of himself always takes the form of a progression. It always builds on a quality that can be increased, intensified, or deepened.

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Love and relation

Bhakti-yoga means union with God (yog) sustained through devotional service (bhakti). 

This union is one of miraculous experiences of our practice. For what does it mean to have a relationship with God? The words are easily said, but difficult to measure. To have a relationship with the divine is not to admire it from a distance, to venerate the beauty, the power, the perfection of God. It’s not enough to simply follow the rules and rituals of recognised practice. It’s not enough to obey the commands of a celestial dictator. It’s not an intellectual relation created by reading books or studying verses. 

None of these paths will do because the union of bhakti-yoga is one of love. Bhakti is the practice of devotional service, service to God in and through love. It’s not blind devotion or one-sided adulation. Bhakti-yoga is a true relation with the divine: in its purest expression it takes the form of a divine love affair. Its model is the conjugal love affair of the Rādhā and Mohan. This loving relation is the model not only for the love of God but for the love between all loving, living beings. 

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Bhagavad-gītā: What is prema?

Prabhupād’s ‘Introduction’ to his translation and commentary of Bhagavad-gītā, first published in 1972, is a quiet introduction to Bhakti, to the theory and practice of loving devotion. 

Bhagavad-gītā is widely understood both as a masterpiece of Vedic culture and a handbook for Vaishnavism. This has been made clear by countless commentators. But Prabhupād’s ‘Introduction’ and commentary reveals it as much more. In Prabhupād’s reading, Bhagavad-gītā unfolds as an introduction to the eternal truths of Gaudia Vaishanvism, as a pre-history to the life of Caitanya Mahaprabhu who appeared in 1486, and as a key to the understanding of God as prema, as the embodiment of divine loving devotion, in the eternal form of Rādhāmohan.  

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