naradabhakthisuthra adhyaya1-suthras 7 to 9

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Suthra7- sA na kamayamAnA nirOdharoopathvAth

 

It is not desire because it is a

form of renunciation.

 

Bhakthi is love for the Lord. The

term love in modern times has come to denote only physical love which is kama. There are different kinds of love even in the

worldly sense, such as that between, mother and child,between friends, between

sister and brother, between guru and

sishya etc. But the word denotes the

love between man and woman because it is the most absorbing and more lasting if

it is based on real affection and self sacrifice.That is why the kind of

bhakthi known as madhura bhakthi is extolled by the saints and devotees in

literature and music. The songs of Meera,

and the pasurams of Andal and the

azvars are examples of this.

 

Meera seemed to have told the disciples of

Roopgoswami, her guru, when she was prevented from seeing him in Brindavan,

because he would not see women,that in Brindavan only Krishna is the man and

all the rest are women only. Same idea is expressed by the scriptures . In this

world of beings the Lord is the Supreme purusha and all the jivas are like His

wives, because He is the bharthA of all. A devotee has the same outlook towards

the Lord and hence the expressions of

madhura bhakthi like that of gopis to Krishna

has no eroticism but is only beautiful.

 

In Hinduism even physical love is

not considered as taboo unlike in other religions but is considered as

something natural and instinctive. But the great saints and acharyas try to

elevate us from the carnal level by transforming our physical love to the love

of the Lord thus sublimating it.Hence To depict the Lord as a lover is the most

beautiful and in fact the chapters describing the rasakreeda in Bhagavatha are supposed to be the soul of

the epic. The one who narrated it was a realised soul, Suka and those who heard

it were rshis, who have renounced the world and it was told for the sake of a

man approaching his death who wished to

concentrate his mind on the Lord during

his last days.

 

This is the explanation of the

first part of the suthra, 'sa na kAmayamAnA.' Now to come to the second part,bhakthi is

said to be a form of renunciation.This is because the devotee renounces

everything else except his love for the Lord, which is self- effacing, and

pursued for its own sake.

 

Some may argue that to attain the

Lord is also a desire. It may start with that because you cannot give up one

without attaching yourself to something else.Thiruvalluvar says,'patrugapatratrAn

patrinai appatrai patruga patru vidarku.' This , means, one should give

up all desires except that about God which has to be pursued in order to detach

from all other desires. But his desire matures in course of time into

desirelessness because the devotee gets infinite bliss by his devotion alone

when the Lord becomes part and parcel of himself and there is no desire even to

attain him. The state is called by Thyagaraja as 'smaraNE sukham.'

 

Now is it wrong to pray to God

for the fulfilment of one's desires and the one who does so is not a bhaktha?

Krishna says in Gita, 'chathurvidDHA bajanthe mAm,' there are four kinds

of devotees, the one who is suffering and wishes to be free from it (Artha),

the one who is desirous of getting what he wants (arTHArTHee) , the one

who thirsts for knowledge(jijnAsu) and lastly the wise man(jnAnee)

The bhaktha described above belongs to the last class. "All of them are

dear to Me," says Krishna , "but the

jnani is my very self."

 

Now let us examine why man turns

to God under normal corcumstances, not considering those who were born jnanis

among devotees like Prahlada. A man thinks of God only when he is in trouble.

This is the first stage of Artha.Then once free from his suffering he

starts praying for this and that and it is the stage of arTHArTHEE. When

he finds that he cannot get everything he wants or when he realises that no

worldly thing can give him permanent happiness he turns towards spirituality

and becames a jijnAsu.Finally he acquires the wisdom that the Lord is

the only reality(vAsudevassarvam ithi) with whom he is

in an inseparable relationship because He is the inner self of all.This is the utmost limit of

bhakthi(parA kAshTA). Then nothing else matters except his love

for the Lord which itself is the goal attaining which nothing more is desired.

So this stage is called renunciation.

 

 

suthra8-nirodhasthu lokavedavyApAranyasah

 

This renunciation is the

consecration of all activities vedic and secular.

 

The word nirodha mentioned

in the last suthra is explained here. Nirodha is not the cessation iof

all activities, spiritual and secular.As Krishna says in Gita,'na hi kachith

kshaNamapi jAthu thishTathi akarmakrth,'(BG-3.5) no one can desist from

action even for a moment.Even when physical action seems to have ceased, mind and

intellect continues to act.So the renunciation of action means only nyAsa, consecration.

 

All sages and saints who had

renounced the world continued to do the vedic karma like yaga etc., not for

their own sake but for the welfare of humanity. Adisankara caused a shower of

gold to help a poor couple and so did vedanta Desika to help a brahmachari who

wanted to become a grhastha.Krishna says in the Gita that He Himself works

incessantly as the world would come to a standstill if he does not do

so.(BG-3.24)

 

So what is renunciation? It means

dedicating all activities for the purpose of God-realisation and divine

service, which implies complete consecration of body, mind and intellect to the

Lord as made out in the Gita, 'yatlkaroshi yadhaSnAsi yajjohOshi dhadhAsi

yath; yath apaSyasi kountheya thath kurushva madharpaNam.'(BG-9.27), which

means that one should make whatever he does, eats, offers, gives or sees, an

offering to the Lord.

 

The devotee is free from the

desire for fruit and the sense of agency. He does everything to please the Lord

and as His service and acts only as an instrument in the hands of the Lord.

Hence he has no ego which is the cause of bondage.So what is renounced is not

the action but the ego.All activities secular or spiritual are done as the

worship of the Lord Bhakthi yoga results in jnana that all beings are part and

parcel of the Lord, which is Brahmabhavana and the actions of such a

devotee is nothing but karmayoga. Thus jnana, bhakthi and karma combine for a

devotee.

 

Suthra9-thasmin ananyathA thadvirOdhishu udhAseenathA cha

 

The renunciation outlined in the

previous suthra means a single-minded devotion to the chosen form of God,and

exclusion of everything contrary to it with indifference.

 

A true devotee has no attraction

for the outside world because his whole world consists of the Lord of his heart

and everything he does is the service to the Lord as given in the the sloka 'kAyEna vAchA manasEndhriyairvA

buddhyathmanA va prakrthersvabhAvath karothi yath yath sakalam parasmai

nArAyanAyethi samarpayami, I offer to the Lord Narayana whatever I do with

my body, mind, intellect and the self ( means ego here) and by natural

instincts,'

 

Thus he is neither influenced by

joy nor by sorrow because he considers everything as the prasadha,

blessing. Joy and sorrow pertain only to the body, mind and intellect and all

the three are engrossed in the devotion of the Lord. This furher explained in

the next two suthras.