Before dwelling upon what Sri Ramakrishna prescribed for developing Bhakti, let us look at an important aspect of all spiritual practices.
Three Questions of Philosophy
According to Indian tradition, any philosophy worth its name must deal with three questions: tattva, hita and purushartha— the Truth it seeks, the Path it delineates and the Goal or the good it will bring. All the three are a kind of ‘knowledge.’ To understand this further:
Tattva: It refers to the fact that before one takes up any course of action, one must know what one wants to obtain. Without that the very desire to attain or struggle to attain that will not arise in our mind.
Hita: It refers to the means or the path by which one can reach the goal. In philosophical tradition of Vedanta, for instance, there are many statements understanding which one can reach the goal of spiritual pursuits.
Purushartha: It refers to knowing the benefits one derives from such a pursuit. The greater the gain the greater would be the motivation.
Bearing these three in mind, when we read Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, we find him brilliantly summing up the core of Vedanta through the following succinct statements1 :
- ‘Each soul is potentially divine’— that is the Tattva. Vedanta believes that all beings are in essence divine. The intrinsic nature of all living and even material objects is atman, the divinity. The differences are only in manifestation, not in essence. The nature of atman is sat (pure existence), chit (pure consciousness) and ananda (pure bliss). While we are all divine, we have temporarily forgotten our divinity due to the inscrutable power of avidya (ignorance).
- ‘The goal is to manifest this divinity, by controlling nature—external and internal’— is the Purushartha. If our true nature is divine we have to manifest it sooner or later; there is no alternative!
- ‘Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy, by one, or more, or all of these, and be free’—that is Hita. The Avidya that covers the Reality can be removed only by sincerely following any of the four yogas. All Yogas ultimately lead to the same goal of spiritual realisation. ‘This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms, are but secondary details.’
This was a reconfirmation of what Sri Ramakrishna had said repeatedly: ‘the goal of life is to realize God—to love God, and love for God, Bhakti, is the one essential thing.’
The path of Bhakti has been rightly eulogised as the easiest and most effective in the present times. Devotion to God as a path to experience our divine nature finds its places in the Upanishads itself. The Shvetasvatara Upanishad refers to this and speaks of the importance of self-surrender:
He who has supreme devotion (bhakti) towards God, and towards the teacher, to him verily, all these things declared (thus far) will reveal themselves.2
Defining Bhakti
Bhakti-rasamrita-sindhu of Madhusudan Sarasvati says: the emotion which thoroughly sooths the heart, in which one intensely feels a sense of ‘own-ness’ or oneness is called ‘love’—Bhakti—by the wise. Likewise in the Narada-pancharatra we find that Bhishma, Prahlada, Uddhava and Narada have termed Bhakti to be the feeling of ‘my own’ towards God. Bhakti is deep and strong attachment towards God, to the exclusion of everything else. Sage Narada defines Bhakti in his Sutras as of the nature of supreme love for God. Sage Shandilya calls Bhakti as utmost attachment to God.
Swami Vivekananda defines Bhakti in his own inimitable way by quoting Prahlada’s famous prayer (given in the Vishnu Purana). He calls it as ‘the best definition of Bhakti’. Prahlada’s prayer is as follows:
That deathless love which the ignorant have for the fleeting objects of the senses—as I keep meditating on You—may not that love slip from my heart.
Swamiji points that Bhakti does not kill out our tendencies; it does not go against the common human nature, but only gives it a higher and more powerful direction. Everyone is naturally drawn to the objects of senses. The path of Bhakti tells us to turn that love for sense-objects Godward. This re-direction of our innate love towards God is called Bhakti.
Sri Ramakrishna says in his Gospel again and again that the best path for this age is Bhakti—the path of Bhakti as laid down by Narada. This involves singing the Name and Glories of the Lord and praying to Him with a longing heart, ‘O God, give me knowledge, give me devotion, and reveal Yourself to me.’
In the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna a devotee asks Sri Ramakrishna, ‘How can I develop love for God?’ Sri Ramakrishna replied, ‘Repeat His name, and sins will disappear. Thus you will destroy lust, anger, the desire for creature-comforts, and so on.’ Emphasising the point further he says, ‘A poet has compared devotion (of God) to a tiger. As the tiger devours animals, devotion also swallows up all the arch enemies of man, such as lust, passion, and the rest. Once the devotion to God is fully awakened, all evil passions like lust and anger are completely destroyed.’
A devotee asks, ‘We have passions like anger and lust. What shall we do with these?’ Sri Ramakrishna answers,
Direct the six passions to God. The impulse of lust should be turned into the desire to have intercourse with Atman. Feel angry at those who stand in your way to God, be greedy for Him. If you must have the feeling of I and mine, then associate it with God. Say, for instance, ‘My Rama, my Krishna!’ If you must have pride, then feel like Vibhishana, who said, ‘I have touched the feet of Rama with my head; I will not bow this head before anyone else.’3
When one is intoxicated with prema, one sees God in all beings. The Gopis saw Krishna in everything; to them the whole world was filled with Krishna. They said that they themselves were Krishna. They were then in a God-intoxicated state.’
This is the highest state of Bhakti one can think of. Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings are replete with many similar sublime passages on Bhakti.
Is Bhakti Yoga Really Easy?
Of the four Yogas, it is generally stated, Bhakti Yoga is the easiest and the most natural. That is what Sri Ramakrishna said: in the present Iron Age (Kali Yuga), the path of Bhakti as preached by Narada is the best and the most suited. But then is Bhakti really so easy?
The fact is that no yoga is easy; all yogas are difficult. They are challenging and require much hard work and sacrifice. Nothing great can be achieved easily. The ‘easy-ness’ of the Bhakti Yoga only stems from the fact that it deals with emotions and most of us are more emotional than iron-willed or calm in mind or sharp enough in our thinking and that is why Bhakti is somewhat easier. Every path of Yoga involves a particular faculty like intellect, will, concentration and emotions. Someone with more intellectual bend of mind will find Jnana Yoga more appealing and so on. To the emotional person, surely Bhakti Yoga is more appealing and relatively easier. But one should not forget one has to exert oneself in spiritual practices, irrespective of the path of Yoga one follows.
Each one is a potential Bhakta. Emotions are inbuilt in us. Swami Vivekananda gives a brilliant argument in this regard. He says that love itself is God. God is omnipresent, and so is love. Like God’s omnipresence, love’s omnipresence is also a fact. Therefore, everyone is a potential Bhakta. Everyone is capable of loving God. Generally we love a thing or somebody. Love is naturally present in everyone. Bhakti means turning this power of love towards God.
To turn this inherent love towards God requires practising certain spiritual disciplines prescribed by Sri Ramakrishna and other great teachers; they help us acquire Bhakti.
When we love something, it is a kind of worship. Says Swami Vivekananda4 ,
The question was asked: How to worship [God]? Worship Him as dearer than all your possessions, dearer than all your relatives, [dearer than] your children. [Worship Him as] the one you love as Love itself. There is one whose name is infinite Love. That is the only definition of God. Do not care if this . . . universe is destroyed. What do we care as long as He is infinite love? [Do you] see what worship means? All other thoughts must go. Everything must vanish except God. The love the father or mother has for the child, [the love] the wife [has] for the husband, the husband for the wife, the friend for the friend—all these loves concentrated into one must be given to God. Now, if the woman loves the man, she cannot love another man. If the man loves the woman, he cannot love another [woman]. Such is the nature of love.
My old Master used to say, ‘Suppose there is a bag of gold in this room, and in the next room there is a robber. The robber is well aware that there is a bag of gold. Would the robber be able to sleep? Certainly not. All the time he would be crazy thinking how to reach the gold.’ . . . [Similarly], if a man loves God, how can he love anything else? How can anything else stand before the mighty love of God? Everything else vanishes [before it]. How can the mind stop without going crazy to find [that love], to realise, to feel, to live in that?’
Five Commandments of Sri Ramakrishna
One of the instructions given by Sri Ramakrishna for developing devotion, of love for God is that an aspiring devotee must assume a definite attitude towards God. Sri Ramakrishna says: ‘A devotee must assume toward God a particular attitude. One must think of God as one’s father, or mother, or child, and so forth.’ We all have experienced love for all these earthly relations, and now the same love is to be directed towards God. The scriptures also say: ‘You are my Father, my Mother, my Friend, and my Beloved. You are my wealth, my scholarship, my everything.’
Sri Ramakrishna spoke of Jnana-mishrita Bhakti—Bhakti mixed with Knowledge. For an easier understanding of Sri Ramakrishna’s teachings for living spiritual life and developing Bhakti, his teachings may be classified into five commandments:
- ‘Repeat God’s name and sing His glories.’ (tattva and purushartha)
- ‘Keep holy company; and now and then visit God’s devotees and holy men. The mind cannot dwell on God if it is immersed day and night in worldliness, in worldly duties and responsibilities.’ (that is Bhakti yoga)
- ‘It is most necessary to go into solitude now and then and think of God. To fix the mind on God is very difficult, in the beginning, unless one practises meditation in solitude. When a tree is young it should be fenced all around; otherwise it may be destroyed by cattle.’ (that is Raja yoga)
- ‘And you should always discriminate between the real and the unreal. God alone is real, the Eternal Substance; all else is unreal, that is, impermanent. By discriminating thus, one should shake off impermanent objects from the mind.’ (that is Jnana yoga)
- ‘Do all your duties, but keep your mind on God. Live with all—with wife and children, father and mother—and serve them. Treat them as if they were very dear to you, but know in your heart of hearts that they do not belong to you.’ (that is Karma Yoga)
On his second visit to Sri Ramakrishna, M., the chronicler of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, received these five commandments from Sri Ramakrishna. M. practised them to perfection all his life and taught them to devotees who used to visit him.
The first of these commandments indicates tattva and purushartha. ‘God exists and the realization of God is the only goal of life’—until a devotee is convinced of this fact he will not feel an intense yearning for God-realization. The rest of the four commandments point out the ways one can realize God (hita).
These five commandments are of supreme importance for those who wish to progress in spiritual life. All aspirants, especially the devotees of Sri Ramakrishna, must remember and assess their spiritual progress in the light of these commandments. If followed faithfully, they are sure to lead to the highest realisation. To the extent the devotees are able to put them into practice, to that extent they may be said to progress in spiritual life.
Prapatti—the Path of Self-surrender
What counts ultimately is God’s grace. Without His grace our efforts do not bear fruit. Realisation of God can be got only by His grace. No spiritual discipline can ever bring it. In the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna tells Arjuna that this Maya which keeps us in bondage is divine. Only through the worship of the Lord, by His grace alone can it be overcome. And the way to receive God’s grace is through complete self-surrender.
It is not that God’s grace is waiting somewhere. The breeze of His grace is blowing day and night over your head. Unfurl the sails of your boat (mind), if you want to make rapid progress through the ocean of life. Sri Ramakrishna was very emphatic about surrendering oneself to God. He says:
Can one know God through reasoning? Be His servant, surrender yourself to Him, and then pray to Him. Surrender to the Divine Mother.5
God incarnates Himself as man to teach the path of devotion. He exhorts people to cultivate self-surrender to God. The devotee surrenders himself completely to his Divine Beloved and in the end becomes one with Him. Two things necessary for the realization of God are faith and self-surrender.
In order to love God, one must pray to God and surrender oneself entirely to God. The essence of Bhakti consists in unceasing prayer for light and love, and surrender to the Divine Master or the Divine Mother. God saves one, only if one surrenders oneself completely to Him.
Prapatti or self-surrender has six aspects:
1. To take a vow that one will act according to what is pleasing to God.
2. Never to do what displeases God.
3. Tremendous faith that God alone can save one; God never forsakes one who has taken refuge in Him.
4. Choosing God alone as one’s protector.
5. Total surrender at the feet of the Lord.
6. Thereafter to remain as a humble devotee with the awareness that it was possible to surrender to God only through His grace (one may recall here Girish Ghosh’s offering the power of attorney to Sri Ramakrishna). Sri Krishna says in the Gita6 , ‘give up all cares and duties (dharma) and take refuge in Me.’ This is the way of selfsurrender.
Growing in Bhakti
How do we know we are progressing in spiritual life and becoming real devotees? Madhusudana Saraswati, the great saint-composer of 16th century India, in his commentary on this last verse of the Gita quoted above (called charma shaloka) describes three stages of the Bhakti-evolution. He says, in the first stage a devotee is firmly convinced, ‘I belong to God’. In the second stage he strongly feels, ‘God belongs to me’. In the last stage he knows ‘I am God’.
‘Bhakti is the one thing essential,’ said Sri Ramakrishna. When one sincerely strives to love God, one is sure to obtain God’s grace and ultimately realise the real purpose of human life which is God experience. That is the way to blessedness and peace. May all of us be blessed with Bhakti!
References
1. CW, 1:124
2. Shvetashvatara Upanishad, VI.23
3. Gospel, 220
4. CW, 6:73
5. Gospel. 106
6. Gita, 18.66
Source : Vedanta Kesari, December, 2015