advaita bhakti - Jnaneshwar Maharaj

[Guest guest]

there is interesting stuff on that here-now site re: Jnaneswhar

Maharaj who was advaitin and bhakti both....

 

http://www.here-now4u.de/eng/wp-koi1e.htm

[Guest guest]

Namaste,

 

Here is an analysis by Sri Ramana:

 

http://www.ramana-maharshi.org/m_path/1964_4/fillers.htm

 

Jnana and Bhakti

By Dr. T. N. Krishnaswami

 

 

Jnana and Bhakti are like two sweets made out of the same sugar, of

which you can choose whichever you like. Giving up 'mine' is Bhakti;

giving up 'I' is Jnana. The former gives up all his possessions; the

latter gives up the very possessor of the possessions.

 

 

Bhakti is turning the mind towards God. Self-enquiry, the path of

Jnana, turns the mind to its own inner essence, which is the Self. In

Self-enquiry the subject sets out in search of himself. He who seeks

must exist. This existence is itself the Self. In Bhakti one is

disgusted with one's individual self and feels one's nothingness or

unimportance and fixes one's mind on the Higher Power. When the mind

at last becomes fully aware of the Higher Power it is awed by it and

absorbed into it. This is total surrender of the ego. The man no

longer is; God alone is.

 

 

The Cloud of Unknowing, a 14th Century Christian work in which the

soul is oned with God, says that all creatures have in them two

powers, one a knowing power, the other a loving power. To the first,

God, the Maker of both powers, is eternally incomprehensible; to the

second He is comprehensible. This is the wonderful miracle of

love. "He may well be loved but not thought. Love may reach God in

this life but not 'knowing'." So far is Bhakti, but the book

continues: "And therefore swink and sweat in all that thou canst and

mayest for to get thee a true knowing and a feeling of thyself as

thou art. And then I trou thou shalt have a true knowing and a

feeling of God as He is." This is Jnana. He who does not know his

Self cannot know and much less love God.

 

 

Here is what the Maharshi says on the subject: "To long for happiness

is Bhakti. To long for the Self is Jnana."

 

 

It is Jnana to know that the Master is within you, but to commune

with him is Bhakti. When the love of God or Self is manifest it is

Bhakti; when it is in secret it is Jnana.

 

 

To know the Self as bliss is Jnana; efforts to uncover this natural

bliss are Bhakti. A bhakta makes no plans, trusting that God who sent

us here has his own scheme, which alone will work. He claims nothing.

He has surrendered his personality, so that his actions and their

results are due to the Higher Power. He accepts whatever befalls with

equanimity. He has learnt from the Gita that actions go on of

themselves, without an actor. A cyclone causes havoc but there is no

actor responsible for it. God has created actions but no actor at

all.

 

 

One-pointed thought of God is Bhakti; one-pointed experience of Self

is Jnana. When 'other' arises there is fear. There should be one

alone, whether we call it God or Self.

 

 

 

Regards,

 

s.

 

 

 

advaitin, "Paul J. Cote" <pjcote@l...> wrote:

> there is interesting stuff on that here-now site re: Jnaneswhar

> Maharaj who was advaitin and bhakti both....

>

> http://www.here-now4u.de/eng/wp-koi1e.htm