Devotion or Bhakti: Discourse from Devi

[Guest guest]

Dear friends,

 

I hope you have been following my two previous postings which contain

instructions on Bhakti Yoga (Path of Devotion) from Sri Sathya Sai Baba and the

Uddhava Gita (though I might not have sent them to advaitin). The following

instructions

on Bhakti comes from Devi, the Mother Goddess, excerpted from the Devi

Bhagavatam

and is perhaps the best discourse I have come across on Bhakti.

 

 

 

Devi's Instructions on Devotion or Bhakti

 

Srimad Devi BhAgavatam

(Devi BhAgavata Purana)

Book 7, Chapter 37

 

1. The HimAlayAs said: - " O Mother! Now describe your Bhakti Yoga, by which

ordinary men who have no dispassion, get the knowledge of Brahma easily.

 

2-10. The Devi said: -" O Chief of Mountains! There are three paths, widely

known, leading to the final liberation (Moksha). These are Karma Yoga, JnAna

Yoga and Bhakti Yoga. Of these three, Bhakti Yoga is the easiest in all

respects; people can do it very well without incurring any suffering to the

body, and bringing the mind to a perfect concentration. This Bhakti (devotion)

again is of three kinds as the Gunas are three. His Bhakti is Tamasi (Tamasic)

who worships Me, to pain others, being filled with vanity and jealousy and

anger. That Bhakti is Rajasic when one worships Me for one's own welfare and

does not intend to do harm to others. He has got some desire or end in view,

some fame or to attain some objects of enjoyments and ignorantly, and thinking

himself different from Me, worships Me with greatest devotion. Again that Bhakti

is Sattviki (Sattvic) when anybody worships Me to purify his sins, and offers to

Me the result of all his Karmas, thinking that Jiva and Ishvara are separate and

knowing that this action of his is authorized in the Vedas and therefore must he

observed. This Sattviki Bhakti is different from the Supreme Bhakti as the

worshippers think Me separate; but leads to the Supreme Bhakti The other two

Bhaktis do not lead to Para Bhakti (the Supreme Bhakti or the Highest unselfish

Love.)

 

11-20. Now hear attentively about the Para Bhakti that 1 am now describing to

you. He who hears always My Glories and recites My Name and whose mind dwells

always, like the incessant flow of oil, in Me Who is the receptacle of all

auspicious qualities and Gunas. But he has not the least trace of any desire to

get the fruits of his Karma; yea he does not want sAmiipya, sArshti, sAyujya and

sAlokya and other forms of liberations! He becomes filed with devotion for Me

alone, worships Me only; knows nothing higher than to serve Me and he does not

want final liberation even. He does not like to forsake this idea of Sevya (to

be served) and Sevaka (servant who serves). He always meditates on Me with a

constant vigilance and actuated by a feeling of Supreme Devotion; he does not

think himself separate from Me but rather thinks himself "that I am the

Bhagavati." He considers all the Jivas as Myself and loves Me as he loves

himself. He does not make any difference between the Jivas and myself as he

finds the same Chaitanya everywhere and manifested in all. He does not quarrel

with anybody as he has abandoned all ideas about separateness; he bows down, and

worships the Chandalas and all the Jivas. He who becomes filled with devotion to

Me whenever he sees My place, My devotees, and hears the Shastras, describing My

deeds, and whenever he meditates on My Mantras he becomes filled with the

highest love; and his hairs stand on their ends out of love to Me and tears of

love flow incessantly from both his eyes; he recites My name and My deeds in a

voice, choked with feelings of love for Me. [ N. B. -The Para Prema Bhakti is

like the maddening rush of a river to the Ocean; thence in the shape of vapour

to the highest Himalayan Mountain peaks to be congealed into snow where various

plays of bright colours take place.]

 

21-30. O Lord of the mountains! He worships Me with intense feeling as the

Mother of this Universe and the Cause of all causes. He performs the daily and

occasional duties and all My vows and sacrifices without showing any miserly

feeling in his expenditure of money. He naturally longs to perform My

festivities and to visit places where My Utsabs are held. He sings My name

loudly and dances, being intoxicated with My love, and has no idea of egoism and

is devoid of his body-idea, thinking that the body in not his. He thinks that

whatever is prArabdha, (done in his previous lives) must come to pass and

therefore does not become agitated as to the preservation of his body and soul.

This sort of Bhakti is called the Para Bhakti or the Highest Devotion.

 

Here the predominant idea is the idea of the Devi and no other idea takes its

place. O Mountain! He gets immediately dissolved in My Nature of Consciousness

whose heart is really filled with such Para Bhakti or All Love. The sages call

the limiting stage of this devotion and dispassion as Jnana (knowledge). When

this Jnana arises, Bhakti and dispassion get their ends satisfied. Yea! He goes

then to the Mani Dvipa when his Ahamkara does not crop up by his prArabdha

Karma, though he did not fail to give up his life in devotion. O Mountain! That

man enjoys there all the objects of enjoyments, though unwilling and at the end

of the period, gets the knowledge of My Consciousness. By that he attain the

Final Liberation for ever. Without this Jnana the Final Liberation is

impossible.

 

31-33. He realises Pare Brahma who gets in this body of his the above Jnana of

the Pratyak AtmA in his heart; when his, Prana leaves his body, he does not get

re-birth. The Shruti says: - "He, who knows Brahma, becomes Brahma." In the

logic of Kantha ChAmiikara, (gold on the neck) the ignorance vanishes. When this

ignorance is destroyed by knowledge, he attains all his knowledge the object to

be attained, when he recognises the gold on his neck.

 

34-37. O Best of Mountains! This My consciousness is different from the

perceived pots, etc., and unperceived Maya. The image of this ParamAtmA is seen

in bodice other than the AtmA as the image falls in a mirror; as the image falls

in water, so this ParamAtmA in seen in the Pitrilokas. As the shadow and light

are quite distinct, so in My Manidvipa the knowledge of oneness without a second

arises. That man resides in the Brahma Loka for the period of a Kalpa who leaves

his body without attaining Jnana though he had his VairAgyam Then he takes his

birth in the family of a pure prosperous family and practising again his Yoga

habits, gets My Consciousness.

 

38-45. O King of Mountains! This Jnana arises after many births; it does not

come in one birth; so one should try one's best to get this Jnana. If, attaining

this rare human birth, one does not attain this Jnana, know that a great

calamity has befallen to him. For this human birth is very hard to attain; and

then the birth in a BrAhmin family is rarer; moreover amongst the BrAhmins, the

knowledge of the Veda (the Consciousness in exceedingly rare.) The attaining of

the six qualities (which are considered as six wealth), restraint of passions,

etc.; the success in Yoga and the acquisition of a pure real Guru, all these are

very hard to he attained in this life. O Mountain! The maturity and the

activities of the organs of the senses, and the purification of the body

according to the Vedic rites' are all very difficult to attain. Know this again

that to get a desire for final liberation is acquired by the merits acquired in

many births. That man's birth is entirely futile, who attaining all the above

qualifications does not try his best to attain this Jnana so one should try

one's bent to acquire the Jnana. So one should try one's best to acquire the

Jnana. Then, at every moment, he gets the fruits of the Ashvamedha sacrifice.

There is no doubt in this. As ghee (clarified butter) resides potentially in

milk, so the Vijnana Brahma resides in every body. So make the mind the churning

rod and always churn with it. Then, by slow degrees, the knowledge of Brahma

will be attained.

 

Man attains blessedness when he gets this Jnana; so the Vedanta says: Thus I

have described to you in brief, O King of Mountains! all that you wanted to

hear. Now what more do you want?

 

Here ends the Thirty-seventh Chapter of the Seventh Book on the glories of

Bhakti in the MahA PurAnaman, Sri Mad Devi BhAgavatam, of 18,000 verses, by

Maharishi Veda Vyasa.

 

Reference:

Swami Vijnanananda, The Sri Mad Devi Bhagavatam, New York: AMS Press, 1974.

ISBN: 0404578268, pp. 728-731.

 

 

 

 

 

--

Warmest regards,

Ruben V. M.

rubenn

_____________

Believe that God is one, though he is addressed and prayed to by different

groups of people in different names. -Sathya Sai Baba.