Kanchi Maha-Swamigal's Discourses on Advaita Saadhanaa (KDAS-50)

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For a Table of Contents of these Discourses, see

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SECTION 34: BHAKTI AND ITS PLACE IN THE PATH OF JNANA

Tamil Original: http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/dk6-108.htm

 

[(Important note by VK): I would like to particularly draw

the attention of every one to this section (and a few

following sections), where the Mahaswamigal delineates very

clearly the role of bhakti in advaita-sAdhanA. It is very

important for every one of us to absorb this material

because very often every practitioner or student of advaita

raises or meets with questions about Bhakti vs. Jnana,

saguna bhakti vs. nirguna upAsanA, or questions like ‘how

can bhakti have any place amidst the concept of

non-duality’.. Once for all the answers are given here

(and in the ongoing sections) by the Mahaswamigal. Note

that he mentions a ‘lower-grade’ bhakti and a ‘higher-grade

bhakti’ and also another bhakti even higher than that!]

 

Viveka-ChudaMAnI (#31 / 32)

mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM bhaktireva gharIyasI /

svasvarUpA-nusandhAnaM bhaktir-ity-abhidhIyate //

 

mumukShu is one who longs for mokSha. To help in the

obtaining of that mokSha there are many procedures, many

instruments of help. The processes of ‘shravaNa, manana

and nidhidhyAsana’ (hearing, thinking and contemplation)

are of such kind. All the components of

sAdhana-chatushhTayaM (the set of four disciplines of the

sAdhanA) that we have been talking about all along are only

such instruments of help. Collectively they are all called

‘sAmagrI’. It is not ‘sAma-kriyA’ as is wrongly spoken of

in the Tamil world; it has no connection with ‘kriyA’. When

several things form necessary accessories to a certain

object to be attained, they are together called ‘sAmagrI’.

We use the same word in the sense of ‘instrument for help’

(upakaraNa). Here the word used is

*mokSha-kAraNa-sAmagryAM*. This therefore means ‘among the

instruments of help for the obtaining of mokSha’.

*gharIyasI* means ‘that which has weight’. Among the eight

siddhis the process of becoming heavy like a rock is called

‘gharimA’. ‘gharIyasI’ means ‘heavy’ and ‘heavy’ implies

importance and connotes ‘the best’. This is the meaning

carried into the word ‘ghanavAn’ (a prominent figure). So

here the Acharya says: ‘the best among such instruments of

help that lead to mokSha’. And what does he indicate as

‘the best’?

 

This is where he brings in ‘Bhakti’!

 

It is the Acharya who delineated for us the

sAdhana-chatushhTayaM, followed by shravaNa, manana and

nididhyAsana. That completes the path – is the general

understanding. But here he suddenly brings in something

which is not there and says that is the most important

instrument of help!

 

Whereas jnAna and bhakti are known to be two distinct

paths to mokSha, it is he who wrote the Viveka-chUDAmaNi

for us and chalked out the sAdhanA regimen, which is

supposed to take us along the jnAna path. But in that very

path, he gives so much importance to bhakti! He says the

prime instrument of help for mokSha is bhakti!

 

In the jnAna path, that he presents and publicly preaches

for the world, it is not as if there is no place for

bhakti. But that place is at the very beginning, at the

baseline. In other words it comes even before one starts

the four-component-sAdhanA. Even before one gets admitted

to his college of JnAna, karma and bhakti are subjects

that should have been finished! The eligibility for

proceeding on the jnAna path is a mind which is pure and

potentially capable of one-pointedness. Only then can entry

be made in this path. In order to get that very

eligibility, he prescribed desireless action for purifying

the mind and also worship with devotion for disciplining

oneself to become one-pointed. In sum, Bhakti is something

that is an external component of (advaita) sAdhanA, far

removed from the core regimen.

 

Among components there are what are called external

(*bahiranga*) and internal (*antaranga*) components. The

internal ones help directly in achieving the objective.

External ones stay far away and help indirectly. For

example, take a large dinner arrangement. The direct causes

are the host and the occasion for which it is held. The

farmer who produced the groceries used in the dinner, the

officer who procured them, the shopkeepers who sold them,

the cook who prepared the food, the one who supplied the

vessels and crockery -- are they not all of them a cause?

Among these, perhaps the cook and the servers may be

included in the list of ‘internal’ components; but all the

others are only ‘external’.

 

In the same way it is well known that, in advaita

tradition, jnAna is the internal sAdhanA-component for

mokSha, and for that jnAna to arise, the internal

components are shravaNa, manana and nidhidhyAsana, and,

though not to that extent internal, but still to be

included as ‘internal’, the four of

‘sAdhana-chatushhTayaM’. Outside of these are the

‘external’ components, namely karma and bhakti.

 

When such is the case, the prime-most proponent Acharya of

advaita declares the external component Bhakti as a very

important accessory (*sAmagryAM gharIyasI*) and makes it

get the status of an ‘internal’ component. How is that? Why

so?

 

You might have expected a Swami of advaita mutt to talk

only of advaita; but it appears I have been talking too

long elaborately and in this process of my extensive talk,

only some of you might remember what I told you long ago:

namely, the matter about the two ‘grades’ – ‘lower’ and

‘higher’ – in both shraddhA and bhakti. The Bhakti that was

spoken of as a component for attaining one-pointedness of

mind, is the ‘lower grade’ bhakti -- a subject at the

high school level. In that context it is an ‘external’

component of advaita-sAdhanA. Now we have come to the level

of a post-graduate Ph.D. level; at this point, the bhakti

that is spoken of as *sAmagryAM gharIyasI* (the heaviest

component) belongs to the ‘higher grade’. Mark it; there

is ‘the highest’ also. That bhakti is what is done by a

jnAni who has attained Enlightenment. Why he does it, for

what purpose and in what manner – these are questions for

which answers are known only to him! Maybe even he does not

know. Only the Almighty who makes him melt in that Love

knows. That matter is outside of our expositions.

 

What comes within our exposition is the bhakti which is an

‘internal’ component-sAdhanA for mokSha and which is spoken

of *sAmagryAM gharIyasI*.

 

In order to know why the Acharya brings it in this

fashion, we have to first understand what Bhakti is.

 

(To be Continued)

PraNAms to all students of advaita.

PraNAms to the Maha-Swamigal.

profvk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prof. V. Krishnamurthy

 

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