Bhakthi & Jnanam

(Adapted from Swami Paramarthananda’s Sivarathri talk}

We have got a vast religious literature which highlights the importance of bhakti or devotion to God, called hereafter Bhagavan and also on jnanam or spiritual knowledge.  And our tradition says that both bhakti and jnanam are equally important and they complement and reinforce each other.  Both bhakti and jnanam have got two levels. One is general and the other is special called Samanya and Visesha i.e Samanya bhakthi and Visesha bhakthi; Samanya Jnanam and Visesha  jnanam.  Let us see each one of them briefly and how they in sequence lead an ordinary person to Moksha.

Samanya jnanam – General knowledge of Bhagavan.

In our tradition Bhagavan is creator of the entire universe and is Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnipotent.  Through His Grace one can have his desires fulfilled and his problems solved.  One seeks His Grace through devotional worship of Him.  This devotional worship called bhakthi is through prayer and puja.  At the end of every sthuthi there is a phala-sruthi giving a list of what one can get through that sthuthi.  One will find in the phala-sruthi that almost everything is promised; name, fame, money, position, possession, children, grandchildren and even moksha. For example one verse in the phala- sruthi of Vishnu Sahasranamam states:

dharmarthi prapnuyad dharmam artharthi chartham apnuyat |
kamanavapnuyat kami prajarthi prapnuyat prajam ‖ 4 II

He who seeks Dharma, will get Dharma; He who seeks wealth, will get wealth; He who seeks pleasures, will get pleasure; He who seeks children, will get chidren.

These assurances inspire a person to worship Bhagavan with love and reverence.

Samanya bhakthi – General devotion to Bhagavan

In Bhavad Gita this is classified as artha bakthi and artharthi bakthi.  In artha bhakthi devotion is seasonal, the bhaktha engaging in devotional activities like puja, parayanam etc, only when he is in distress or want and not otherwise.  In artharthi bakthi, the devotee is steadfast in his bhakthi and remembers Bhagavan regularly with puja and parayanam but his devotional activities are always accompanied  by an application for material help for himself and/or his relatives.  Even though Bhagavan cannot be limited to any particular form, for the sake of puja our scriptures offer varieties of forms. Thus we have got several deities, several forms in which one can worship that Bhagavan and some of the Samanya bhakthas choose a particular form for their regular worship called ishtadevata.  Such keen devotees after a time are not satisfied with Samanya jnanam and start seeking Visesha jnanam, special knowledge of Bhagavan.

Visesha jnanam - Special knowledge of Bhagavan

This can be gained only through the study of scriptures under the guidance of a Guru.  Guru’s guidance helps one to get at the correct intended meaning.  Scriptures like Bhagavad gita and Upanishads give the special knowledge of Bhagvan.  One learns that before creation Bhagavan alone was there and He created the world out of Himself like the spider that has the material for the web as part of itself and creates the web out of itself.  Bhagavan has got two portions called Purusha and prakrithi.   The word prakrithi is defined as ‘prakarsena karoti yogadvat prakṛti’; that which can be shaped into anything.  The entire creation including time, space (akasa), vayu, agni. apah and prithvi are only modification of the prakrithi part of Bhagavan.  Since the entire creation is a modification of these elements, the entire material universe one experiences is Bhagavan only.  As prakrithi becomes the inert material universe  Purusha becomes the Consciousness principle that makes experience of universe possible.  At the level of human being the body-mind complex is the inert prakrithi and the sentient Consciousness principle behind them is Purusha. So that experiencer, ‘I am’, is none other than the Purusha part of Bhagavan.  So the subject experiencer is Purusha part of Bhagavan and object experienced is prakrithi part of Bhagavan and all living beings are prakrithi Purusha rupa Bhagavan alone.  Lord Krishna describes prakrithi and Purusha in Gita chapter 13 thus:

Prakritim purusham chaiva viddhyaanaadee ubhaavapi I

Vikaaraamshcha gunaamshchaiva viddhi prakritisambhavaan II

Know thou that prakrithi and Purusha are beginningless; and know also that all modifications (such as likes and dislikes etc.) and all objects constituted of the three gunas (sathvam, rajas and tamas) are born of prakrithi. (13-20)

Upadrashtaanumantaa cha bhartaa bhoktaa maheshwarah I

Paramaatmeti chaapyukto dehe’smin purushah parah II

Purusha dwelling in this body is really the same as Supreme (Bhagavan).  He is also called the witness, the true guide, the sustainer, the experiencer (with the upadhi), the Overlord and Absolute as well. (13-23)

So when one attains Visesha jnanam. he realises that his real self, Athma is none other than Paramathma and that this is true of all other human beings as well and also he sees Bhagavan everywhere and in everything, living and non-living. And this Visesha jnanam leads to Visesha bhakthi.

Visesha bhakti- Special devotion to Bhagavan

Visesha jnanam with the realisation of Bhagavan everywhere and in everything  leads to Para bhakthi which is described by Lord Krishna in chapter 12 of Gita as the attributes of a Para bhaktha referred to as a 'bhaktha dear to Him'. This Para bhakthi is the special bhakthi.   This bhaktha’s reverence is not towards a particular form of Bhagavan or to a particular symbol like Saligramam and Sivalingam but his reverential attitude is to everything in creation and is free from raga and dvesha. This Visesha bhakthi is that of a Jivan Muktha, a liberated person while living.

So  an ordinary person with Samnya jnanam takes to Samanya bhakthi to achieve his material goals.  As his bhakthi becomes deeper and more intense he seeks Visesha jnanam adopting spiritual goals. Attaining Visesha jnanam, his bhakthi matures into Visesha bhakthi that takes him to Jivan mukthi.

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