Bhakti Yoga
A book by Swami Vivekananda
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UNIVERSAL LOVE AND HOW IT LEADS TO SELF-SURRENDER
How can we love the Vyashti, the particular, without first loving the Samashti, the universal? God is the Samashti, the generalised and the abstract universal whole; and the universe that we see is the Vyashti, the particularised thing. To love the whole universe is possible only by way of loving the Samashti—the universal—which is, as it were, the one unity in which are to be found millions and millions of smaller unities. The philosophers of India do. not stop I at the particulars; they cast a hurried glance at the particulars, and immediately start to find the generalised forms whieh will include all the particulars. The search after the universal is the one search of Indian philosophy and religion. The Jnâni aims at the wholeness of things, at that one absolute and generalised Being, knowing which he knows everything. The Bhakta wishes to realise that one generalised abstract Person in loving whom he loves the whole universe. The Yogi wishes to have possession of that one generalised form of power, by controlling which he controls this whole universe. The Indian mind, throughout its history, has been directed to this kind of singular search after the universal in everything—in science, in psychology, in love, in philosophy. So the conclusion to which the Bhakta comes is, that, if you go on merely loving one person after another, you may go on loving them so for an infinite length of time, without being in the least able to love the world as a whole.
When, at last, the central idea is, however, arrived at, that the sum total of all love is God, that the sum total of the aspirations of all the souls in the universe, whether they be free, or bound, or struggling towards liberation, is God, then alone it becomes possible for anyone to put forth universal love. God is the Samashti, and this visible universe is God differentiated and made manifest. If we love this sum total, we love everything. Loving the world and doing it good will all come easily then; we have to obtain this power only by loving God first; otherwise it is no joke to do good to the world. “Everything is His and He is my Lover; I love Him,” says the Bhakta. In this way everything becomes sacred to the Bhakta, because all things are His. All are His children, His body, His manifestation. How then may we hurt any one? How then may we not love anyone? With the love of God will come, as a sure effect, the love of everyone in the universe. The nearer we approach God, the more do we begin to see that all things are in Him. When the soul succeeds in appropriating the bliss of this supreme love, it also begins to see Him in everything. Our heart will thus become an eternal fountain of love. And when we reach even higher states of this love, all the little differences between the things of the world are entirely lost; man is seen no more as man, but only as God; the animal is seen no more as animal, but as God; even the tiger is no more a tiger but manifestation of God. Thus in this intense state of Bhakti, worship is offered to every one, to every life, and to every being.
,oa lo¢Z"kq r¢"kq HkfDrhjO;fHkpfj.kh A
drZO;k iafMrS KkZRok LkcZHkwre;a gfje~ AA
—“Knowing that Hari, the Lord, is in every being, the wise have thus to manifest unswerving love towards all beings.” As a result of this kind of intense, all-absorbing love, comes the feeling of perfect self-surrender, the conviction that nothing that happens is against us—(Aprâtikulya). Thcn the loving soul is able to say, if pain comes, “Welcome pain.” If misery comes, it will say, “Welcome misery, you are also from the Beloved.” If a serpent comes, it will say, “Welcome serpent.” If death comes, such a Bhakta will wekome it with a smile. “Blessed am I that they all come to me; they are all welcome.” The Bhakta in this state of perfect resignation, arising out of intense love to God and to all that are His, ceases to distinguish between pleasure and pain in so far as they affect him. He does not know what it is to complain of pain or misery; and this kind of uncomplaining resignation to the will of God, who is all love, is indeed a worthier acquisition than all the glory of grand and heroic performances.
To the vast majority of mankind, the body is everything; the body is all the universe to them; bodily enjoyment is their all in all. This demon of the worship of the body and of the things of the body has entered into us all. We may indulge in tall talk, and take very high flights, but we are like vultures all the same; our mind is directed to the piece of carrion down below. Why should our body be saved, say, from the tiger? Why may we not give it over to the tiger? The tiger will thereby be pleased, and that is not altogether so very far from self-sacrifice and worship. Can you reach the realisation of such an idea in which all sense of self is completely lost? It is a very dizzy height on the pinnacle of the religion of love, and few in this world have ever climbed up to it; but until a man reaches that highest point of ever- ready and ever-willing self-sacrifice, he cannot become a perfect Bhakta. We may all manage to maintain our bodies more or less satisfactorily and for longer or shorter intervals of time. Nevertheless, our bodies have to go; there is no permanence about them. Blessed are they whose bodies get destroyed in the service of others. “Wealth, and even life itself, the sage always holds ready for the service of others. In this world, there being one thing certain, viz. death, it is far better that this body dies in a good cause than in a bad one.” We may drag our life on for fifty years or a hundred years; but after that, what is it that happens? Everything that is the result of combination must get dissolved and die. There must and will come a time for it to be decomposed. Jesus and Buddha. and Mohammed are all dead; all the great Prophets and Teachers of the world are dead. “In this evanescent world, where everything is falling to pieces, we have to make the highest use of what time we have,” says the Bhakta; and really the highest use of life is to hold it at the service of all beings. It is the horrible body-idea that breeds all the selfishness in the world, just this one delusion that we are wholly the body we own, and that we must by all possible means try our very best to preserve and to please it. If you know that you are positively other than your body, you have then none to fight with or struggle against; you are dead to all ideas of selfishness. So the Bhakta declares that we have to hold ourselves as if we are altogether dead to all the things of the world; and that is indeed self-surrender. Let things come as they may. This is the meaning of “Thy will be done”; not going about fighting and struggling and thinking all the while that God wills all our own weaknesses and worldly ambitions. It may be that good comes even out of our selfish struggles; that is, however, God’s look-out. The perfected Bhakta’s idea must be never to will and work for himself. “Lord, they build high temples in Your name; they make large gifts in Your name; I am poor; I have nothing; so I take this body of mine and place it at Your feet. Do not give me up, O Lord.” Such is the prayer proceeding out of the depths of the Bhakta’s heart. To him who has experienced it, this eternal sacrifice of the self unto the Beloved Lord is higher by far than all wealth and power, than even all soaring thoughts of renown and enjoyment. The peace of the Bhakta’s calm resignation is a peace that passeth all understanding, and is of incomparable yalue. His Aprâtikulya is a state of the mind in which it has no interests, and naturally knows nothing that is opposed to it. In this state of sublime resignation everything in the shape of attachment goes away completely, except that one all-absorbing love to Him in whom all things live and move and have their being. This attachment of love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondages.
THE HIGHER KNOWLEDGE AND THE HIGHER LOVE ARE ONE TO THE TRUE LOVER
The Upanishads distinguish between a higher knowledge and a lower knowledge; and to the Bhakta there is really no dfference between this higher knowledge and his higher love (Parâ-Bhakti). The Mundaka Upanishad says:
b fo|¢ o¢fnro;¢ bfr g le ;gãko¢n® onfurA
ijk pSokijk p AA
r=kijk _Xo¢nh ;Tkqo¢Zn% lkeo¢nh∙FkoZo¢n%
f'k{kk dYi® O;kdj.ka fujDra NUn®T;®fr"kfefr A
vFkk ijk ;;k rn{kjefFkxE;r¢ AA
“The knowers of Brahman declare that there are two kinds of knowledge worthy to be known. namely, the Higher (Parâ) and the Lower (Aparâ). Of these the Lower (knowledge) consists of the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Sâmaveda, the Atharvaveda, the Shikshâ (or the science dealing with pronunciation and accent), the Kalpa (or the sacrificial liturgy), Grammar, the Nirukta (or the science dealing with etymology and the meaning of words), Prosody, and Astronomy; and the Higher (knowledge) is that by which that unchangeable is known.” The higher knowledge is thus clearly shown to be the knowledge of Brahman: and the Devi-Bhâgavata gives us the following definition of the higher love (Parâ-Bhakti):—“As oil poured from one vessel to another falls in an unbroken line, so, when the mind in an unbroken stream thinks of the Lord, we have what is called Para-Bhakti or supreme love.” This kind of undisturbed and ever steady direction of the mind and the heart to the Lord with an inseparable attactment is indeed the highest manifestation of man’s love to God. All other forms of Bhakti are only preparatory to the attainment of this highest form thereof, viz. the Parâ-Bhakti which is also known as the love that comes after attachment (Râgânugâ). When this supreme love once comes into the heart of man, his mind will continuously think of God and remember nothing else. He will give no room in himself to thoughts other than those of God, and his soul will be unconquerably pure, and will alone break all the bonds of mind and matter and become serenely free. He alone can worship the Lord in his own heart; to him, forms, symbols, books, and doctrines are all unnecessary and are incapable of proving serviceable in any way. It is not easy to love the Lord thus. Ordinarily human love is seen to flourish only in places where it is returned; where love is not returned for love, cold indifference is the natural result. There are, however, rare instances in which we may notice love exhibiting itself even where there is no return of love. We may compare this kind of love, for purposes of illustration, to the love of the moth for the fire; the insect loves the fire, falls into it and dies. It is indeed in the nature of this insect to love so. To love, because it is the nature of love to love, is undeniably the highest and the most unselfish manifestation of love that may be seen in the world. Such love working itself out on the plane of spirituality necessarily leads to the attainment of ParaBhakti.
