The Dynamics of Bhakti

Man’s natural tendency is to look up to the skies either in awe or in distress. Though Vedanta presents the Supreme as formless, nameless and function-less, we are more comfortable with a god or goddess in high skies, omniscient and omnipotent, with a name and form and one who helps us. Bhakti, devotion, comes naturally for such deity. To examine the dynamics of bhakti we should not take examples of contractors or political persons seeking personal benefits in exchange for what they would put in the hundi. That is a trade-off. We reduce God to the level of a trader. The dynamics of bhakti will be understood when we examine an honest, simple devotee who has love for the deity and who surrenders to it.

Bhakti is identified as the most effective way for liberation. Studying scriptures is an intellectual activity, but it may enhance the ego of a person. This alone is not the surest way to attain the Supreme. Karma yoga merely purifies our actions, leads to some purity of mind, but stops at that level. Meditation and exercises in self-control make a person pure but there is no disappearance of the ego. They stop at the level of mind.

Bhakti touches the heart. The real devotee is instantly immersed in the deity; he is thrilled, absorbed in the glories of the deity, loses his ego and gets emotionally attached to the deity as his own property. He forgets all his worldly desires; personal needs become insignificant. He need not make an effort to overcome negative qualities like hatred. They vanish automatically as he has no time for his enemies. He forgets them all. This may not be possible in a scholar of scriptures, who may entertain jealousy or hatred towards a fellow scholar. Such disappearance of ego does not happen in karma yoga or in meditation.

Bhakti melts the heart, as in the case of rasa in a work of art. Nine rasas, sentiments such as sringara, karuna, grandeur (adbhuta), etc., have been identified by the rhetoricians. Rasa is that which is savored heartily. When a person falls in love, or overcome by compassion, it is not a matter of the brain, but it is a matter of the heart. The same is the case with bhakti, which is called bhakti rasa. It is surprising that it is not counted by the rhetoricians.

Stories of devotees are numerous in our texts. We find celebration of devotees in the Srimad Bhagavatam. The devotees need not be scholars or monks or rich people who get expensive presents to the temple. The lowliest person in society can be the highest devotee. The Gita (Ch 12) says that those who study scriptures, practice self-discipline and attain the Supreme follow a tough path. The devotee follows a smooth path, in which God himself takes care to uplift him. In the bhakti literature, the devotee is compared with a bride (like the gopis), and the deity as her lover. The passionate girl wishes to cross the river to reach her lover, and the lover too comes halfway to pick her up. There is passion on both sides. Krishna says, I uplift them who come on the path of bhakti (The Gita, 12-7).

No pomp or ostentation is needed in bhakti. The poorest of people are the greatest of devotees in all our scriptures. Dharma Raja gave away countless gifts to people when he performed a great yagna, but all that charity was qualitatively inferior to the danam by a poor devotee, who having had no food for several days, gave away all his food as a duty towards the guest. Some traces of ego flashed in the mind of Dharma Raja when he lavishly propitiated his guests.

Bhakti achieves what the study of scriptures cannot achieve; what karma yoga or meditation or self-discipline or mere renunciation cannot achieve. In all these there can be a stray defect, but in bhakti, there is total surrender, unconditional love not only to God but to all beings.

Though Vedanta assures that bhakti is the greatest means to achieve liberation, the bhakti schools say that they do not want liberation but wish to continue in the bliss of bhakti. This bliss, according to them, is superior to the bliss of Brahman.

(The writer is a former

DGP, Andhra Pradesh)