Kanchi Maha-Swamigal's Discourses on Advaita Saadhanaa (KDAS-57)

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Namaste.

 

For a Table of Contents of these Discourses, see

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For the previous post, see

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SECTION 44: BHAKTI AND THE HEART

Tamil Original: http://www.kamakoti.org/tamil/d-san118.htm

 

As one progresses in the bhakti, Love and the submissive attitude consequent

to that, the SadhanA that has been done so far make the mind and intellect

light and they are drawn by the ego to be sucked into the recesses of the

heart. Everybody knows that in that bhakti, the true bhakti wherein the

individual soul delivers itself to the paramAtmA -- this is Atma-nivedanaM

- there is no role or work for the intellect. Not only that. Even the mind

has no work there. Mind is nothing but an aggregate of volitions and

indecisions (samkalpa-vikalpa). These two have no role in true bhakti. True

bhakti is the state where we rest in the thought "It is Thy Will". The

feeling of bhakti is not one among the many feelings that arise in, and are

experienced by, the mind. VatsalyaM (affection), madhuraM (pleasantry) and

dAsyaM (servanthood) are often talked about as the indicator-qualities of

bhakti. But there is a mountain of difference between these and the

affection that a mother gives a child, the love that spouses exchange with

each other, and the submissiveness that a dedicated servant shows to his

boss. Is there not a ton of difference between the affection shown by a

woman to a neighbour's child and the tenderness that she showers on her own

child? Far more than that is the bhakti that a great devotee shows to his

god of devotion! The same degree of difference will there be when love or

servanthood are exhibited as bhakti to the Lord! These feelings arise

somehow through somebody and are of a unique class by themselves, far more

purified, far more powerful, than ordinary feelings of the mind.

 

Thus, true bhakti is not the work of the mind. It arises from the ego itself

that lies deep within as a steadily rooted feeling of 'I' without any of the

perturbations of the mind. Further it arises not to nurture that ego, but

to lighten it and dissolve it in the unique self that is also its own root

source by going into the locale of the Atman. For desiring to dissolve there

must be some one to desire. Without its being there, how can there be a

desire to dissolve? And that singleton is the ego. It is not the ego that

does the bhakti, but the ego exists for doing the bhakti!

 

What should not be forgotten here is this. This bhakti that arises in this

quest for the goal of advaita is not like the ordinary bhakti which has the

goal of varied experiences of 'rasa'. Because for that experience of the

'rasa' one has to hold on to the individual jIva. So do those philosophers

say who consider bhakti as an end-in-itself and that itself as mokSha. But

here, the basic maxim that in order to be doing bhakti eternally, the

egoistic individuality has to be there eternally, is invalidated. Indeed

the objective here is to dissolve the ego by Love. How can it remain

continuously dissolving? After a certain period of dissolution, the ego has

to be totally extinguished, so that there is nothing more to dissolve. If

Bhakti is intended to be a coating to be applied over and over, then one can

be doing that continuously. When actually it is not a coating, but an acid

in which the ego dissoves, then how can it be an eternal process? Bhakti

plays the role of acid for the ego. The ego thus gives itself up to bhakti;

thereby in the heart which is the locale for the ego, the ego thins out and

thins out until there is no more ego but only bhakti pervades there. And the

heart then becomes the locale for bhakti.

 

As one matures in that bhakti, along with the change in Ashrama (i.e. having

taken SannyAsa) and along with that bhakti -- that is, dissolving the ego

in the goal through Love - one continues the shravaNa, manana and

nidhidhyAsana. Bhakti now sprouts fast and full in the heart and the

feeling of ego is eradicated. But before it is totally eradicated, the

locale which is like the physical heart is filled up by the subtle atoms of

bhakti.

 

Wherever the Upanishads speak of the heart as the locale for the ego,

(Ch.U.VIII - 6 - 1, BrihadAranyaka U. IV-2-3) the Acharya speaks only of a

'lump of flesh' . Even then it should not be taken to mean it is a

full-fledged physical organ. That is why the words "like the physical

heart" were used above. It is the organ which pumps blood that is totally

physical. This heart however is in between the physical and the subtle. The

chakras that yogis speak of, and many of the nADis are totally subtle. They

do not fall in any X-Ray. This heart also is not to be captured by X-Ray.

Still it is not that subtle. It is this heart which somehow controls in an

integrated manner, by its life-feed, the blood circulation done by the

physical heart, the passage of breath conducted by the physical lungs, the

functions of the nerves prompted by the physical brain and the functions

that take place in the digestive organs and the associated passages. It does

this control through the nADis that start from it. Without the feeling of

'I' in the Jiva, what can happen in a body? That is why this 'power' has

been given to the heart which is the locale for the ego. Probably because of

the importance for the JIva of all the physical functions of the body and

the necessity of the Jiva to monitor them, this heart is also kept

'semi-physical'.

 

Even though it is semi-physical, once the continued practice goes on with

the thought that ego is to be dissolved, in due time it becomes subtle and

becomes almost just space. The Atma-sthAnaM (the locale for the Atman)

however is more subtle; it is kAraNa-AkAshaM (causal space) - it is the

centre point of the heart. This subtler thing cannot be approached by

anything physical or semi-physical. Only by lightening the ego, making it

subtle, it can enter the subtler space. This lightening of the ego

(*ahamkAra-kArshyaM*) is what is done by Bhakti.

 

When Bhakti ripens, it is only Love that shines through the whole heart

more prominently than the flesh and the nADis. That is why it goes by the

name of the heart. When somebody has no love or kindness we say they are

heartless. Sometimes we combine the two and say loving heart, or kind heart..

The Inner Organ (antaH-karaNa) has four organs in it. But note that never

are they identified with their physical locations in the body. The location

of mind is the neck, but we never call those who have a good mind as one

with a neck! Or, for that matter, someone with a good intellect as one

with a face!. The reason is, among these fleshy physical organs, the organs

of the antaH-karaNaM sit like a person in a chair; the chair is never

identified with the person in that seat!

 

The heart also, when it is semi-physical, is the chair for the ego, as I

told you earlier. But we do not call some one with a lot of ego as one with

a heart. It is in the subtle form of the heart that love, unlike anything

else, penetrates deep into the core, and that is why we identify love with

the heart. Further when we refer to Bhagavan as *hRdaya-vAsI* we are not

saying that it is He who sits in the semi-physical heart donning the robe of

Jiva with an ego. We are actually saying that it is He who shines forth from

inside having melted the physical into the subtle by Love at its peak of

excellence. Maybe we are not understanding it in all this detail but at

least we understand that He manifests himself in Bhakti that is full of

Love.

 

(To be Continued)

PraNAms to all students of advaita.

PraNAms to the Maha-Swamigal.

profvk

 

 

 

Latest on my website is an article on Krishnavatara, the Miraculous. See

http://www.geocities.com/profvk/HNG/Krishnavatarapage1.html