(Aug 11,2013) Paths to Approach God – Jnana, Yoga, Bhakti, Karma

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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(June 21 ,2013) Spiritual Message for the Day – The Highest Realization – The Communion of The Soul With The Absolute

The Highest Realization – The Communion of The Soul With The Absolute

Divine Life Society Publication: Kathopanishad: Additional Exhortations from the Mundakopanishad by Swami Krishnananda

The initial instruction in the Mundakopanishad is that a search for Truth should be launched upon after one carefully examines the character of the world of sense and of works, whereby a distaste for objects spontaneously arises in the mind on the knowledge of the fact that nothing of the realm of impermanence can be an adequate means to the realisation of the permanent or the everlasting, there being no conceivable link between the two patterns of experience. Upon arriving at this stage of understanding, the student goes humbly to the Teacher, who is well versed in the sacred lore (Srotriya) and is established in the wisdom of Brahman (Brahmanishtha). To such a well-prepared disciple does the Master offer initiation into the divine mysteries.

The first experience into which the student is introduced is that of the Cosmic Being – Virat: "The heavens are His head; the sun and moon are His eyes; the quarters are His ears; the Vedas are His speech; the air is His breath; the universe is His heart; the earth is His footstool: – such is the great Soul of all beings." From Him do emanate Time and Space, gods, men, beasts, birds, food, relationships both perceptional and social, rules of conduct, bodies and worlds. This Supreme Being is all this universe: one who knows this secret hidden in the cave of one's heart tears asunder the knot of ignorance.

To reach Him, the way is meditation. In a symbology, the method of meditation is described. "The Pranava (OM) is the bow; the self is the arrow; Brahman is the target; this target is to be aimed at by one well trained in vigilance and one-pointedness of attention; then does one become one with Brahman, even as the arrow merges into its target, well hit." "By taking hold of the mighty weapon of the bow of the wisdom of the Upanishads, one should fix on it the arrow sharpened with continued contemplation and worship; the bow is to be bent and drawn forth with the force of an ardent yearning for the goal; thus, do you hit that target of the Imperishable Brahman, my dear!" When this is achieved, when the soul unites itself with Brahman, Brahman is seen everywhere. "The immortal Brahman is in the front, Brahman behind, Brahman to the right, Brahman to the left, Brahman above, Brahman below; all this universe, is just this Brahman, the Great, spread out everywhere."

Though this is the highest form of spiritual practice prescribed in the Mundaka, it also provides us with a slightly lesser and easier technique intended for those who are of more moderate endowments. "God and the individual are like two birds perching on the same tree. These two birds are of like plumage and are eternal friends. One of these two eats the sweet fruit of the tree, and is bound; while the other merely looks on eating nothing." "Though seated in the same tree, the individual is sunk in grief due to impotence caused by delusion; when he beholds the other, the adorable one, the master, he becomes freed from sorrow." The contact of the soul with objects brought about by desire for them is the eating of the forbidden fruit. The Lord supreme is God, by a vision of whom the soul is lifted to the exaltation of immortal existence. Such a soul which is free "rejoices in itself, sports with itself, and its activity consists in the realisation of universality."

"But he who runs after desires, cherishing them in his heart, is born in those respective places where he can fulfil the desires; whereas of him whose desires have reached their consummation (on account of sublimation), all desires melt away here itself (in the realisation of infinitude), due to having attained to perfection of the Self." Having attained Him, the Supreme Being, the sages, satisfied in knowledge, with perfected consciousness of the Self, free from all desires, serene in being, the heroes – they attain to everything, from every side, fixed in and united to that which is everywhere." "All the faculties of the individual vanish into their sources, all the presiding deities of one's faculties merge into their original forms, and all actions, and the individuality of the self – all these reach communion with the Supreme Imperishable." "As the flowing rivers, casting their names and forms, become one with the ocean – so does the knower, freed from the bondage of name and form, attains to the Highest Divine Being."

The lower and the higher means of reaching the Supreme Reality, the ways of difference, equality and union, are all to be found here concisely explained. At the lowest stage, the soul seems to be totally severed from God and the world, and the ultimate Fact appears as a collaboration of three real entities. The highest realization, thus, is the communion of the soul with the Absolute, as rivers become one with the ocean. From the figure of the two birds, which are only friends, we come to the knowledge that they are capable of reaching sameness (Sarirya) of nature in their essentiality, which means that they were never wholly different in character, except artificially. From this uniformity of structure, again, the realizations rises to the status of supreme independence.

Continue to read:

Kathopanishad: Additional Exhortations from the Mundakopanishad by Swami Krishnananda

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