Paths to Approach God - Jnana, Yoga, Bhakti
or Karma?
The One
Supreme Absolute Alone Is - The
Teachings of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
The
faculties of knowledge and action in the human individual correspond,
practically, to the functions of reason, will, emotion, and the impulse to act.
We rationally and intellectually consider the pros and cons of a particular
step to be taken – this is the rationality behind our way of living. Apart from
pure intellectual or rational assessment, there is also a faculty in us which
goes by the name of will – volition – which decides and determines a course of
action or a purpose to be fulfilled. There is also a very important
contributory factor in all of our engagements in life, namely emotion or
feeling, and there is also the vigor which impulses to act. Practically, the
human being is exhausted by these operations: reason, will, emotion, and an
impulsion to vibrate as activity in some direction or the other.
The way of life of the human being is also the way in which we live a religious life. Even our practice of yoga and our concept of God, has to be cast in the mould of these endowments.
The religious life that we
live is also conditioned by these principles of our psyche, and though it is
true that we should harmonize the operations of all these faculties due to
certain inborn traits in us, characteristics into which we are born right from
the beginning of our life, we are not capable of paying equal attention to all
these. There is an automatic preponderance of one or the other of these
faculties, so that people are either predominantly intellectual, and the
emotions do not play such an important role in them, or they are pre-eminently
feelingful, touchy, sentimental, emotional and the reason does not play an
important part in their life. There are others who are terribly active, they
cannot sit in one place; there is always a tendency to move and do something or
the other throughout the day. There are also psychic types who are
accustomed to concentrate. It is rarely we see people with all these faculties
in proper proportion – an integrated individual.
These faculties in the human
being are the instruments of the practice of yoga. We cannot contact reality
except through the apparatus with which we are endowed. These four features
mentioned determine and decide our encounter with God, the Supreme Being; and
the way in which we visualize the Supreme Being through these faculties goes by
the names of the various yogas: jnana, yoga, bhakti,
karma and the like, which adopt the
techniques of reason, will, emotion and action.
Mayeva
mana adhatswa mayi buddhim niveshaya; nivashishyasi mayeva ata urdhwam na
samshayah (BG 12)–"Absorb
yourself in Me." This has been understood to signify a communion of the
soul with the Absolute. "May your reason be united with My Being."
Our principle faculty of
knowing is reason, for all practical purposes, and when the reason is dissolved
in a higher reason, the individual practically is swallowed-up in the larger
dimension of this Infinitude. In simple terms, it means to jump into the Ocean
of All-Being, and dissolution of one's self in the All-Consuming Reality. No
mortal who considers himself or herself as a human being can have the strength
to embrace the ocean or the fire of God without terror for the affirming
feature or the character of individuality. That is the last sacrifice that we
would be prepared to do, and nothing can be more fearsome than that. And any
argument that God is all things will not be adequate here. "Let God be
anything, but I will not do this sacrifice."
Bhagavan Sri Krishna, a good
master, psychologist and the teacher of the Bhagavadgita, seems to know this
weakness of human nature. So the
teaching goes, "If you cannot so forcefully unite your whole being with
Me, try by repeated practice - abhyasa-yoga,
or repetition of concentration, to establish this contact with Me and carry on
this practice throughout your life."
Yamas,
niyama, asana, pranyama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana are the
graduated techniques prescribed for those who cannot at one stroke attain this
union with the All. But we are not in a position to concentrate our minds even
in this manner; it is very difficult for us. Even for a few hours of the day
this type of concentration is hard, due to the power of the sense organs – the
desires, the passions, the grief, the frustrations, and the many troubles to
which a man is heir. Then what can be done?
Then the teacher seems to suggest that if
this application of our will in the way of direct concentration becomes
difficult for us for any reason, we should engage ourselves in service in His
name – that is service of God through devotion to Him, maybe in the form of
worship. Sravanam, kirtanam, vishusmaranam, padasevanam,
archanam, vandanam, dasyam, sraksham atamnivedanam – these are the
ways of devotion. See God in all, serve God in humanity, feel His presence in
everything, worship Him in all visible objects, mankind or otherwise. This is the
large manifestation of the Creator in the form of this universe. Through the bhavas of bhakti or the various methods of
devotion, resort to this daily practice of doing such things as is pleasing to
Him.
‘All our actions be for My
sake’. That means to say, one is always keeping in mind the vision of the
presence of God, even when one is performing one's daily routine. All the
routines or duties of a devotee or a bhakta are
worships of God in one way or the other, whether it is worship in a temple or atithi satkara in the house. This
is what is called karma-yoga; action performed as yoga, is somehow
inseparable from action performed in the name of God.
"The abandonment of the
fruits of action at least may be your way, if everything is not possible and
any other thing is not practical. Neither can you reason and argue and unite
your total understanding with Me, nor can you find time to concentrate on My
Being. You have not got the will, nor will you be able to feel My presence,
love Me whole-heartedly. Then do your duty as per your station in a human society
in a particular given circumstance or environment. But this duty that we
perform should be such that it does not get tagged-down to a result that we
expect to follow for our own personal benefit or advantage or personal
satisfaction.
There can be higher
satisfaction – not necessarily a personal pleasure arising from our performance
of duty, because the correct performance of duty is possible only on the basis
of a higher understanding, and wherever there is right understanding, there is
a great satisfaction. We cannot say that there can be only duty minus the
feeling sense in it, though this feeling of satisfaction need not be connected
with personality, egoism or individual affirmation, or selfishness of any kind.
So, karma, bhakti,
yoga, jnana
– these seem to include every possible approach of man to God.
Excerpts from:
The One Supreme Absolute Alone Is - The
Teachings of the Bhagavadgita by Swami Krishnananda
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