Jnana and bhakti - two wings of the same bird!

[Guest guest]

Thank you Raviji for leading this discussion in the right direction

and also for putting 'things' in their proper prospective.

 

how can one reach the 'formless' brahHman without transcending the

form?

 

How can one be a 'nirguna' jnani without being a 'Saguna' bhakta at

some point?

 

Members, i would like to narrate an incident that took place In shri

Ramakrishna paramahamsa's life.

 

Shri Totapuri was shri ramakrishna's guru. Totapuri was an adept of

the formless reality, the cloudless sky of the absolute. He regarded

the worship of divine forms as childish.

 

Totapuri knew that Ramakrishna, despite his appearance as a simple

devotee of the Goddess, was inwardly prepared to receive initiation

into the knowledge of the absolute, in which all forms and all

emotions are left behind.

 

Totapuri approached Ramakrishna with the proposal that he receive

initiation into Advaita Vedanta. Ramakrishna replied, "I must ask my

Mother Kali." He entered the temple and received permission from the

living divinity that he experienced pulsatiing through the stone

image enshrined there.

 

That evening, Toatpuri began instructing Ramakrishna in Formless

Meditation. But as Ramakrishna concentrated deeply, the radiant

figure of the Goddess appeared to his inner eye. When he reported

this to Totapuri, the austere naked monk took a sharp stone and

pressed it firmly against Ramakrishna's forehead, instructing him to

concentrate on the pain and assuring him that he could transcend the

divine form and merge into the infinite expanse of the absolute.

 

Once more, Ramakrishna meditated and, as he later expressed it, "with

the sword of wisdom, I cut through the divine form of Kali." Her form

dissolved, and his individuality completely disappeared into Her

formless aspect. For three days Ramakrishna was completely lost to

the world in a near state of suspended animation called Nirodha,

seated in the small Meditation Hut, motionless, all breathing and

body functions slowed to a standstill.

 

 

Totapuri was amazed,! Totapuri had practiced for forty years to

achieve the same level of experience -- nirvikalpa samadhi -- the

disappearance of individual identity in the Absolute. It occurred to

Ramakrishna in a single sitting.

 

Totapuri as an orthodox wandering monk never remained more than three

days in one location. However, he became so awed by Ramakrishna's

ability in Samadhi to remain 'rigid as a corpse for days on end',

that he broke his longstanding rule, resulting in him staying eleven

months at Dakshineswar hoping to learn from the man who had

previously been his disciple. During this long stay he contracted

serious dysentery. There was prolonged and severe pain, which was

distracting Totapuri during meditation. Since he considered the body

just a medium, essentially unnecessary after the realization of the

Absolute, he decided to give up his body by drowning in the Ganges.

He walked out into the river, but, even though the river should have

been extremely deep, at least in the middle, no matter how far he

went the water never got above his knees. He ended up without ever

reaching deep water. Eventually he came upon the bank on the far side

and when he turned to look back, he saw the Kali temple gleaming in

moonlight and experienced a sudden deep Awakening. He recognized

sheer divine power and consciousness, moving through all beings and

controlling all events, including his own attempt to discard the

body. Totapuri thus accepted the manifest universe and its energy as

a radiant _expression of the Absolute. The demarcation between form

and formless no longer existed for him. Although his whole life had

been spiritual in nature, Totapuri, without any verbal teaching, had

opened beyond he experience of the formless absolute into the

continuum of consciousness, from which no divine, human, or natural

forms are excluded and to which no particular doctrine exclusively

applies.

 

courtesy- http://www.angelfire.com

 

this is also narrated in the gospel of Ramakrishna.

 

 

our beloved Shankara bhagvadapada himself says... " Iswara

anugrahadeva pumsam adwaitha vasana," -It is only through God's own

grace that one can comprehend Him as being without name and form!

 

i am sure you are all familiar with adi shankara's baja govindam...

 

one verse reads...

 

bhagwatgita kinchidadita

gangajala lava kanika pita

sakradapi yasya murari samarcha

tasya yamaha kim kurate charcha?

 

one who has read one word of Bhagvat gita

one who has drank one drop of ganges water

one who has chanted the holy name of the Lord (murari or any ishta-

nishta)

how can even the lord of death approach such a person....?

 

the esoteric meaning is if one has reads the scriptures , visitsd

holy

places of pilgrimages and constantly remembers the name of the lord

(nama smaranam), he is forever immortal? mukta-jivi?

 

if this is not a description of bhakti yoga, what else is ?

 

bhakti yoga is the easiest and the most natural way to reach the

lotus feet of devi... but bhakti should not be confused

with 'fanaticism' - that is what people in lower stages of bhakti do

(the gauna bhaktas) for them , my 'krishna' is superior to your

shiva or shakti little realizing that theare all divine

manifestations of the same 'parabrahman' !

 

this, you see shri ramakrishna singing the songs of Kali and also

dancing in ecstasy to the Krishna songs of chaitanya mahaprabhu! for

a jnani worships 'brahman' in all his divine manifestations! this

was true of adi shankara too! he composed hymns on all deities shiva,

narasimha , govinda besides numerous hymns on devi!

 

Jnana and bhakti are not mutually exclusive ! they converge at some

point! jnana without bhakti is lame and bhakti without jnana is

blind!

 

folks, and what is true 'jnana' ? jnana does not refer to dry

knowledge of vedas, upanishads and the gita! jnana means 'knowledge

of the self'

 

Tat TWAM ASI!

 

SHRI GURAVE NAMAHA!