By Removing Earthly Desires

8/13/2019 By Removing Earthly Desires

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By removing earthly desires, the devotee makes room for the unlimitedloveofGodto rush in as

an exquisitely subtle experience that expands forever. After achieving the boundlessloveof God,

the devotee sees love, hears love, speaks ofloveand is consumed by theloveof God.

The world of the bhakti yogi is molten with feeling. It is drenched in devotion, ablaze withrapture, abrim with bliss, luminous withloveand sick with longing. No Romeo or Majnu can

ever match the magnitude ofloveor anguish at separation that the bhakta feels towards his

Divine Beloved.

The bhakta, quite simply, cant live without God. He pants for Him like a desert wanderer for

water or an asthmatic for air.Godfor the bhakta is a dire necessity without whom he will perish.

Little wonder then that bhaktiyogais considered to be the shortest and surest cut

toenlightenmentin these dubious days of Kalyug. Says Dada Vaswani, preceptor of the Sadhu

Vaswani Mission, a Pune-based spiritual organisation: The path ofloveis the path for today.

Sage Narada went to his father, Brahma, and told him: The world has changed completely.

People are entangled in materialism, how will they ever attain enlightenment? Brahma said:

There is the way of love. The way ofloveis easy.

Indeed it is. For it does not require us to practise hard austerity, renounce the ways of the world,

decondition our faulty selves or whip our recalcitrant souls into shape. All it asks is for us to be

afire with inspiration and aspiration and soar to Godhead on the strength of these. The route uses

the available and ample resources of the essential human conditionmans insatiable desire. By

hitching that desire to the highest aim of God-realisation, the bhakta effortlessly propels himselfto the top. En route, desire for what is not Goddrops naturally through his single-minded desire

for God.

Swami Vivekanandasaid that the best definition of bhaktiyogawas embodied in the following

verse: May thatloveundying which the non-discriminating have for the fleeting objects of the

senses never leave thisheartof mineof me who seeks after thee!

Swami Nikhilananda of the Mylapur branch of the Ramakrishna Mission, reiterates the same

point: Bhaktiyogadoes not say, Give up. It only says: Love;lovethe highest, and anything

that is lower will naturally drop away.

It is this palpable sense ofloveand devotion that endears the bhakta to the rest of us. The jnani,

karma yogi and kundalini yogi will earn respect, awe and reverence, but it is at the feet of these

God-intoxicated ones, with their humility, selflessness and innocence that we lay our hearts.

Whether it isSri RamakrishnaParamahansa, Tulsidas, Tukaram, Swami Ramdas, Rumi or St

Teresa of Avila, we experience in their ecstatic transports and exquisite poetry and prose the
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wonder and glory of loving.

All the world loves a lover, for all or most of us know what it is toloveand we thirst to

experience it in its ultimate state as these liberated ones have. We long for their self-forgetfulness

and surrender, their total absorption in the other, fervent outpouring of seva, and sense of

humility, for we know that these are the marks of true love. And that it is the lack of these

qualities that makes ourlovefor our children, family, friends and lovers so faulty and conflict-

ridden.

Humanlifeis a web of relationships and it is through the path of bhakti that we learn to

transform these relationships into oases ofloveand harmony by learning the secrets of perfect

love.

When we set out toloveGodfully and unconditionally, we learn toloveall creation with that

same love. Becauseloveis such an innate part of our human life, the bhakti path cuts across allsects and spiritual traditions. It is the most common route to enlightenment, as much a part of

Christianity,SufismorSikhismas it is of Hinduism. In his book, The Varieties of Religious

Experience, William James quotes a Persian philosopher and theologian, Al-Ghazzali, on

Sufism: The first condition for a Sufi is to purge hisheartentirely of all that is not God. The

next key of the contemplativelifeconsists in the humble prayers that escape from the fervent

soul, and in the meditations onGodin which theheartis swallowed up entirely. But in reality this

is only the beginning of Sufi life, the end ofSufismbeing total absorption in God.

The ecstatic poetry of Rumi, which has captured the world imagination currently, is proof of the

greatlovethat the Sufi experiences in his progressive path towards God.

I will tell you whatloveis;

it is to fall into a goldmine.

What may that gold be?

The lover is the king of kings;

it means becoming secure fromdeathand not caring for the golden crown.

Christianityis virtually synonymous with the path of love. For Christ, the sum and substance of

the faith rests in two commandments: Love the Lord your God, with all yourheartand with all

your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second
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is: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two

commandments. (Mathew 22: 36-40)

Writes Ethan Walker in his book, The Mystic Christ: According to Jesus, the practice ofloveis

the most important aspect of our spiritual path:loveforGodandlovefor others. This is the road

to true and lasting happiness. Inlovethere is peace, and inpeacethere is love.Loveis the light

of the world. Where there is no love, darkness prevails and there can be no peace.

Because of the great awareness of the goal of self-realisation in the Hindu philosophy, the bhakti

path not only flourishes all over India, but it is regulated through various progressive practices to

form a freeway all the way to God.

Being a populist path, it is a bit of a catchall, accommodating the most elementary acts of

worship such as the practice of rites and rituals, the performance of aarti and puja, chanting thename of God, participation in bhajans and kirtans and going all the way to the lofty stage of

perfect surrender where the devotee dissolves his will into that of the Beloved One. There is

room on this path for everyone from the novice to the dedicated seeker.

But first we might want to know why we shouldloveGod. Why go to the trouble? Answers

Swami Vivekananda: God is the goal of life; there is nothing beyond God, and the sense-

enjoyments are simply something through which we are passing now.

Having dispensed with that, the first step, he says, for those who wish to walk this path is to want

God. He says: Let us ask ourselves this question every day: do we want God? We have slowly

toworkthrough the world and the senses to reach God.

According to Ramanujacharya, the great advocate of Vishishtadvaita or qualified non-dualism,

the following are the requirements of bhakti yoga.

Viveka: Discrimination. Here, Viveka is interpreted to mean discrimination in the use of food,

though the advaitists interpret it to mean discrimination between the real and the unreal. Thus

one must safeguard against the intake of exciting foods (onions, garlic, non-vegetarian food,

etc.), ensure that the wrong person does not touch it, and that it is hygienically prepared.

Vimoka: The freedom from desires through the exclusive desire for God. Observes Swami

Vivekananda: We alwaysforget that this world is a means to an end and not an end itself. If this

were the end we should be immortal here in our physical body; we should never die.

Abhyasa: Practice. The mind should continuously think of God. Says Swami Vivekananda:
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What we are now is the result of our past. Again practice makes us what we shall beso

practice the other way. Adds Dada Vaswani: Engage yourself in loving and intimate

conversation with God. When in love, we look for opportunities to come into contact with the

beloved. We are now inlovewithGodand we should fearlessly and freely declare ourloveas

often as we can. Musical practices such as bhajans, kirtans, chanting and playing instruments

are part of this aspect.

Kriya: This refers to working for the welfare of all. There are five sorts of work.

Study of something goodand holy.

Worship of God,angelsand saints.

Duty to our forefathers.

Duty to other human beings, such as feeding the poor and needy every day.

Duty to lower animalssuch as feeding them every day.

Kalyana: Purity. This includes qualities such as satya (truthfulness), arjeva (straightforwardness),

daya (compassion), ahimsa (non-violence) and dana (charity).

Anavarada: Cheerfulness. Says Swami Vivekananda: Despondency is not religion, whatever

else it may be. By being pleasant always and smiling, it takes you nearer to God, nearer than any

prayer.

There are other aspects of the bhakti path. One is the use of image worship: pratima. Observes

Swami Nikhilananda of the Ramakrishna Math, Mylapore: Images are accepted by Hinduism,

Mahayana Buddhism, and Roman Catholicism. If the devotee worships them as God, he obtains

a limited result. But if he worshipsGodthrough them, he developsloveofGodand ultimately

attains liberation.

Another practice closely connected to the path is the namashakti, power of the word. This refers

to the constant repetition of the mantra or name of God. Says Swami Vivekananda: Simply by

repetition of these words, we can get anything we desire, we can come to perfection.

Adds Dada Vaswani: You must repeat the name of the beloved again and again, while walking,

sitting in the bus, caught in a traffic jam or waiting in a doctors clinic. The repetition should not

be mechanical. It should be filled with the spirit of love. Everyone can remember with what

feeling you expressed the name of the person you were inlovewith. It is with this spirit that you
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should repeat the name of God. Then your inner instrument gets purified.

Even more central is the concept of the ishta, ones chosen deity, or asSwami Vivekanandaputs

it: The choosing of ones own road.

Adds Swami Nikhilananda: Though a devoteemust respect all of the ideals, he remains

completely loyal to his own. The young sapling must be protected by hedges until it grows into a

tree.

He explains how the ishta works its magic. As the devotee meditates on his ideal, he first

visualises indistinctly only parts of His body; the outside world is still very real to him. As

themeditationdeepens, the figure of the ideal becomes more real, and the physical world

completely disappears and the Chosen Ideal appears as a living person, speaking and giving

guidance to the devotee. Henceforth, in whatever manner he lives and works, his mind is always

inclined to God.

Psychotherapist Meena Kapur says she has been drawn into the bhakti path at the age of eight

when she exchanged some postcards she had bought of filmstars for the pictures of deities.

Today, her ishta is Durga, and she says with the bhaktas characteristic fervor: I feel love, love,

love. Its the fundamentalrelationshipin my life. TheloveI feel for Durga is reflected in all my

relationships.

Doctor and counsellor Rajan Bhonsle is a follower ofOshoand says: I cannot remember him in

a matter-of-fact way. I am filled with emotion at the thought of him. Today, many members of

theOshoMeditationRetreat say thatOshois not important, his message is. But I cannot agree.He too is important. I get moved just looking at his photograph. Even Shirdi Sai Babas face

resonates very strongly with me. Iloveit.

Adds Nandini Mahesh whose present chosen ideal is Sathya Sai Baba: I know that ultimately

one has to go beyond form, but the present form is such a source ofloveand comfort. It makes

me feel so secure.

Another extremely powerful way of experiencing perfectloveforGodis to move through the

various loves that we encounter in our livesthelovefor mother, father, siblings, friends,

lovers, spouses and childrentowards God.

Says Swami Vivekananda: There cannot be any reallovebut in God: Why then all these loves?

There is a power behind impelling us forward, we do not know where to seek for the real object,

but thisloveis sending us forward in search of it Thus on and on we go, till at last comes light;

we come to God, the only One who loves. Hisloveknows no change and is ever ready to take us
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in.

Through the mirror of relationships we do our most profound learning. We learn about our

tendency for dependency, control, possessiveness, jealousy, inhibitedness, insecurity, lack of

self-worth, etc. And when the relationships throw up conflict and misery as they inevitably do,

they give us pause and make us inquire into where we go wrong. Thus we learn through painful

mistakes to move gradually towards the zone of unconditional lovewhereGodresides.

Says Swami Nikhilananda: worldlyloveis not futile, because it is also theloveof the spirit;

though clogged and distorted with mortal matter, it provides the love-hungry soul with various

steps by whichloveofGodcan be realised.

Says Dada Vaswani: The Sufis distinguish between two types of love, Ishq Mijazi, which is the

individualised humanlovethat a girl has for a boy or a boy for a girl, or a parent for his child and

Ishq Haqiqi, which is theloveof truth, of reality. This is a universallovethat extends to everycreature that breathes, because the Beloved exists in all. You treat everyone with respect. Many

Sufi teachers tell their students that unless they have an experience of Ishq Mijazi, they cannot

walk the path.

Dada points to the famous story of Laila-Majnu as an illustration of romanticlovecarried to its

ultimate level. Both were so madly inlovewith each other that mere repetition of each others

name sent them into ecstasy. So fine was the empathy between them that when Majnu trod upon

some glass, Laila, sitting in a carpeted room, found her feet bleeding. Once a camel driver was

going to Lailas town and he asked Majnu if he had a message for her. So absorbed was Majnu is

relaying the message and so unending was it that before he knew it, he was in Lailas town.However, since her parents were against their union, the camel driver advised him to hide in a

local mosque and reported his arrival to Laila. Laila deputed her maid to take him delicious food

every day. Unfortunately, the maid did not know Majnu by sight, and gave the food to a stranger

who also was taking shelter in the mosque and who, attracted by the food, told her that he was

Majnu.

Laila soon suspected that the food was going to the wrong person and she sent a message with

the maid that Majnu should send her two or three drops of blood from hisheartin order for her to

heal from a deadly ailment. The stranger turned pale on hearing the message and hastily pointed

to the real Majnu, who was lying in a room within, emaciated and starving. When he heard the

message, the real Majnu said: Everything I have is Lailas. She can take what she wants.

At some point a Sufi saint told Majnu that if he lovedGodeven one-tenth as much as he loved

Laila, he would be God-realised. Majnu responded by saying that he did not want Allah, all he

wanted was Laila. At that juncture the saint hugged him and immediately Majnu became
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enlightened. An-Al-Haq (I am the reality), said he.

Another conversion of romanticloveto SupremeLoveis the equally famous story of Tulsidas,

writer of the Ramcharitmanas. Tulsidas was so much inlovewith his wife that when she went to

her parents home, he followed her there, braving a life-defying storm and using a snake which

he mistook for a branch to hoist himself to her room. In astonishment, his wife told him that if he

would only turn thelovehe had for her perishable body to God, he would soon be realised.

Mortified, Tulsidas did just that, and became a great bhakta of Ram.

Because thelovewe bear for a beloved is so feverish and fraught in its intensity, it is often

correlated with the supremelovefor God.Godas mystic bridegroom is a metaphor that occurs in

all bhakti literature whether Christian, Sufi or Hindu. In the lore of Christian Mysticism, the

ecstatic works of St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross both refer to Jesus as the

bridegroom and themselves as the bride. Indeed, one of the ceremonies of becoming a renunciate

is for a nun to take Jesus as her bridegroom.

Here for instance is a passage from one of St Johns most famous poems:

O Dark Night

O guiding night!

O night more lovely than the dawn!

O night that has united

The Lover with his beloved

Transforming the beloved in her Lover.

St Teresas outpourings are equally feverish:

Loves whole possession I entreat,

Lord make my soul thine own abode,

And I will build a nest so sweet

It may not be too poor for God.
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This tendency is equally marked in Hindu bhakti literature. Mirabaislovefor Girdhar Gopal,

aka Krishna, was so profound that when her husband, the crown prince of Chittore, died, she

refused to commit sati as she felt her real husband was Girdhar Gopal. In the South, this tradition

is a major part of the Alwars, a group of 12 bhatki saints who appeared between the 7th and 9th

century in Tamil Nadu. Their ecstaticlovepoems called pashuras are regarded by some to be as

sacred as the Vedas. Andal, one of the greatest women saints of India, was so

inlovewithGodthat tradition has it that the Lord ordered a palanquin to be sent to her house

and she be brought to the temples in bridal finery. Andal did this and she merged into the divine

body of Vishnu.

Below is thelovepoetry (translated by A.K. Ramanujam) of Akkamahadevi, another great

woman saint who embodied the principle of lovingGodas spouse:

IloveHim O mother. Listen

Ilovethe beautiful One

With no bond nor fear

No clan no land

No landmarks

So my Lord, white as jasmine, is my husband

So how does one distinguish between earthly romanticloveand thelovethat these great saints

bore for their divine bridegrooms?

While therelationshipmay indeed start with the longings and yearnings of romantic love, the

journey is only complete when the devotee obliterates her will into that of the Lord, and

surrenders herself completely into the divine union.

Swami Nikhilananda mentions three characteristics of Supreme Love:

There is no bargaining. It islovefor loves sake.

There is no fear. Perfectlovecasts away all fear.

There is no rival.Godis the culmination of beauty, sublimity and power.
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Apart from the romantic attitude, devotees assume diverse relationships with God, including that

of child, student, subject, servant and friend. The more intimate and loving

therelationshipassumed, the closer therelationshipitself.

Dada Vaswanihas his own prescription for walking the way of love:

Repeat the name of God

Engage in loving and intimate conversation with God

Establish more and more points of contact with God. Go to Him for everything like a child to

his mother.

Do nothing that will displease God. Confess your weakness toGodand ask for help and

strength to overcome it.

Consecrate all acts to God. There are 101 ways of doing everything. Only one is the very

bestdoing it forloveof God.

Dev Senapati, an Iskcon follower, says that even if you recite the Lords name mechanically, it

will have an effect.

Whatever the steps taken toloveGodperfectly, the bhakta will finally arrive at the ultimate stage

of surrender. At this stage, he submerges his will fully with that of the divine and lives only as an

instrument of the Lord, to do as He wills.v Writes Swami Nikhilananda: The culmination of this intense all-absorbingloveis perfect self-

surrenderbased upon the conviction that nothing happens which is against the devotees welfare.

Thus the lover ofGodis willing to sacrifice his body, if indeed, in the service of any of the

Lords creatures.

The devotee ofGodmakes the highest use oflifeby holding it at the service of others. The

consciousness of the body, which generally breeds selfishness, does not offer him any obstacle;

he knows positively that his body is Gods instrument and should be used to benefit his fellow

creatures.Through self-surrender and love, a devotee knows the mysteries of the Lord, becomes

absorbed in Him and thus attains immortality.

Says Mata Amritanandamayi: Innocence comes then there is love. DivineLovemakes you like

a child.Lovemakes you accept anything and everything. The lover does whatever the beloved

says. We can see this even in ordinary love. When one really loves, ones intellect becomes

empty; one stops thinking. No thoughts, no mind, nothing. Onlyloveremains. This forgetting-
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proceeded to roughhouse them. Swami Ramdas writes: He approached the other sadhus, of

whom Ramdas was the second, with the object of handling them roughly one by one. Ramdas

felt much relieved to see that his turn had at last come. The clerk coming up, caught his hand in a

firm grasp and looked on his face in which he discovered a most welcome smile, bright and

beaming. At once he let go of his hand and drawing himself back a few steps seemed to have

given himself to some thinking. It was Ram who was at work. For, next instant, he asked all the

sadhus to go out of the station.

The lives of the great saints of bhakti literature are full of such moving accounts of trials borne

and endured throughloveof God. Mirabai, for instance, was subject to much harassment from

the new Rana of Chittore after her husbands death. He once sent her a basketful of flowers

hiding a snake inside. When Mira put in her hand, it changed into a Saligrama, a black, round

stone worshipped as an emblem of Vishnu. Another time he sent her poison, which she drank,

calling upon the name of her beloved Giridhar, and lo, it turned to nectar!

Tukaram was a great bhakta from Maharashtra, whose deity was Vitthal, another name for

Krishna. His abhangs, a form of verse much favored by Maharashtras bhakti saints, have

inspired and elevated generations of God-lovers. As a shudra wrapped in a cloud of God-

intoxication, he raised the ire of the priestly community, who made him drown his manuscripts

of abhangs in the river Indrayani. Mockingly, they told him that if he were a true

devotee,Godwould restore his submerged notebooks. Tukaram vowed to pass this test and

undertook a fast-unto-death. On the 13th day of fasting, the river laid the manuscript at his feet,

undamaged. It is said that shortly after that Tukaram disappeared, considered to have been taken

to heaven in a chariot of light.

So what kind of a person is the bhakta? What is his temperament? There can be little doubt that

the bhakta has more than his fair share of emotional receptivity and enthusiasm. Warm-hearted

and idealistic, the bhaktasheartcentre is easily aroused by displays of tenderness and

love.Lovemeans a great deal to the bhakta and it is possible that he has spent much of his time

looking for the perfect love. According to the MBTI type index, the bhakta would fall into the

category of intuitive feelers (NFs), into which most artists, writers and visionaries fit.

Bhakti appeals to theheartand arouses inspiration, it also awakens the imagination, which is

why most artists would naturally take to this path, and why it is luminous with such rich artistic

expression. The bhakta is also a people person, deeply invested in humanity.

According to Dada Vaswani, the two requisites to move into this path are a deep yearning and

humility. Humility is the soul of bhakti, he says.

However, he adds: Almost anyone can be a bhakta, provided they come in contact with lovers
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of God. Thenloveflows into you spontaneously. He likens a bhakta to a well-boiled potato:

Very soft inside. He relates to the woes of others as if they are his own.

How important is aguruto this path? According toDada Vaswaniand Swami Vivekananda,

aguruis indispensable. Says Swami Vivekananda: Whenspiritual forces are transmitted from

the teacher to the taught, they can only be conveyed through the medium of love.

Adds Dada Vaswani: Once a person awakens to the idea of alifebeyond the material he sets

out in quest of someone who can fulfill the yearning, which is a master who has seenGodand is

joined with God. The pilgrim becomes a disciple. There are two things he must do to make his

quest successful. One is to surrender to theguruand the other is to walk the way of obedience.

And what is the correlation between bhakti and the other paths? Are they mutually exclusive or

do people pass through different paths at different times? Says Dr. Rajan Bhonsle: I always

thought I was a jnana margi perhaps because of my education and high academic records. Ithought I was a meditator, because I led people into meditative processes and I could see that

they benefited. But I was not moved by meditation. And finally in my conversation with my

wife, she told me: You are out and out a bhakta.

Others would say that the bhakta and jnani are closely connected. Says Dada Vaswani: Until the

jnani becomes a bhakta he cannot be a jnani. Until he has thatlovefor the Universal Self.

The reverse may also be true. Kamla Tina, a TM teacher, says: Whatever the path, bhakti is the

ultimate step. Total surrender to the deity you worship.

However, one cannot arrive at the bhakti marg until one has gone through the jnana marg.

Understanding has to be there for the devotion to start.

Is the bhakti marg dualistic or non-dualistic? There are conflicting opinions here too.Dada

Vaswanisays: Ramakrishna said: I dont want to be sugar. I want to taste sugar. The bhakta

does not want to be God, he wants to be with God.

Others would say at the final stage the bhakta dissolves into the Beloved and therefore attains

unity.

Perhaps ultimately, all this is a matter of temperament and each bhakta has to draw his own

equation in the matter.

What is important, though, is to walk the path and never let anything stop you from reaching the

threshold of your Beloveds heart. For that to the bhakta is home
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