Naradabhakthisuthra

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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.