True Spiritual Living

by Swami Krishnananda

Now, what is meant by intense feeling for God? What does it mean? Have we, at anytime, felt an intense feeling for God? The word tivra, or intense, has a special meaning. It means almost the same thing as what the word ananya signifies in the Kathopanishad or the Bhagavadgita. Ananya-prokte gatir atra nasty (Katha 1.2.8), says the Kathopanishad. Ananyas chintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate (Gita 9.22) says the Bhagavdgita. Ananya means one who is not devoted to any other. This is supposed to be the most purified form of divine devotion. Devotion is divine love, and love becomes intense when it has only one object before it. If it has two objects, the love cannot be called intense. Has our feeling only one object before it, or has it more than one object? If it has two objects or three objects, then the love or feeling is mild. If it has hundreds and thousands of objects, it is very poor indeed; it cannot get even a pass mark. But if it has only one object, it is supposed to be intense. It can apply even to earthly love if there is only a single object – such as money, for example. For a miser or a greedy millionaire, moneymaking is an object, and for the whole day and night he will be thinking only of the means of acquiring more and more of wealth. There are others who work for name, fame, status in society, power, authority, and so on. If this is the only aim that is before the mind and it cannot think anything else – it does not want even to take lunch or breakfast or even to sleep, and says, “I will work only for this” – then it is whole-souled feeling for an object. Why should we sleep and why should we have breakfast, lunch, when the mind is after something else? We will not feel hunger at that time. It is not that we are starving or fasting; the feeling of hunger itself is absent. We do not need anything at that time, because we are filled with something else.

Although it is possible to conceive a singleness of purpose in earthly loves or worldly affections, it is not possible to conceive what it means spiritually, because these things are not known to us, and we have not seen them. We cannot, therefore, even imagine them. We have seen earthly objects, and so we can understand what it means to have whole-souled love for one object only. But what does it mean to have whole-souled love for God? This is difficult for the mind to conceive. It becomes difficult for the simple reason that God is not an object. He is not an object in the sense that He is not outside us and, therefore, we cannot love Him in the ordinary sense of earthly affection etc.

Even the bhakti scriptures, treatises dealing in divine love, speak of apara bhakti and para bhakti – or, as they say, gauna bhakti and ragatmika bhakti, etc. Gauna bhakti, or apara bhakti, means devotion or love that requires accessories, instruments. We require some apparatus to stir our affection or love. If the apparatus or instrument is absent, it will not work. For example, there are some musicians who cannot sing unless there is an instrument. They want a harmonium, a violin, a veena or something, because they cannot sing without it. Otherwise, their singing is not beautiful. But, an exuberance can take possession of oneself, and then we start singing even without an instrument, and we will dance even without a tune accompanying us. Devotees speak of ragatmika bhakti or para bhakti as the real form of devotion or love, which does not require any accompaniment. It does not care even for moral and ethical codes of society. It breaks all boundaries of human convention. It has not even shame, to tell you the truth; we may call it shameless, if we like. Such is wholesouled love. A person becomes shameless when the love becomes whole-souled. Whether it is in the world or in the realm of spirit, they act in the same way. This is when the taste for the object inundates the personality wholly.

Raga means a taste, a tinging of the whole personality with the character of the object which is loved. We assume the characteristics of the object. We become the object that we love. We go on thinking about it, and we become that. We forget that we are so and so. We are the very same thing that we are wanting. This is ragatmika bhakti. This happened to the gopis. If we read the Rasapanchadhyayi in the Tenth Skanda of the Srimad Bhagavata, we will learn what it was. They were not gopis or persons; they were Krishnas themselves. The object of their love was they themselves. The distinction between the lover and the loved is abolished in ragatmika bhakti or para bhakti, in whole-souled love. One gopi started killing Putana, another gopi started destroying Vrikasura, a third gopi started playing the flute, and so on, as if they themselves were Krishnas. We become that which we love; this is the highest form of love. There is no love there, as a matter of fact, because in ordinary language ‘love’ means the movement of our emotions towards something outside. When we ourselves have become that object, where is the movement of our affection? We have gone mad, that is all. All great devotees were mad people, God-intoxicated; and we become mad when we are possessed by a single feeling, whether it is temporal or spiritual.

Now, such a kind of tivrata or intensity of devotion, ardour for the practice of yoga or the realisation of God, seems to be called for. How many of us are fit for it, is difficult to imagine. A little thought bestowed upon this subject will also reveal why we are not getting anything, in spite of our crying for days and months and years. We are deceived, unfortunately. Though we cannot adequately know the causes of this deception, it goes without saying that there is a sort of deception in which we seem to be entangled; and this deception comes into play when the object of our quest is kept out of sight by the presentation of something else which is made to appear equally good or even better. This is what happens to everyone.

The object of our quest has been kept out of sight completely; it is not in front of us. Not merely that. We will not be allowed even to think that it is kept out of sight. We will be brainwashed thoroughly, so that everything looks alright. We will go on muttering the same formula that has been given to us by the world, and we will do this till the body drops. Thus, two catastrophes can befall us as spiritual seekers. That we can forget our aims is bad enough, but something worse can happen. We can remember something contrary to it and take it as our objective. No wonder that no one can practice yoga, and no one can love God.

But the yoga sastras insist upon this requisite: tivra samveganam asannah. The effort of the mind cannot bring about this kind of intensity. We are always placed in a state of quandary whenever we think about this matter. The whole-souled love of God cannot come by human effort. Human effort is inadequate for the purpose, because it would be something like attempting to carry burning coals with a piece of straw. We cannot carry it. Even a great master like Acharya Sankara did not answer this question properly when he himself raised this point in one of his passages in the Brahma Sutras commentary. How does knowledge arise in the jiva? Not by human effort. Because effort towards knowledge is possible only when there is knowledge, and we are asking the question how does knowledge arise. How can love of God arise in a person? It cannot arise by effort, because who can have the energy to put forth such effort as to invoke the power of God, which can rouse such a feeling for God. So, the great Advaitin Sankara himself says – apparently contrary to his doctrine itself, we may say – that it is Ishvara anugraha. Isvaranugrahadeva pumsam advaitavasana, says Dattatreya in his Avadhuta Gita. It is very difficult to understand what all this means. The feeling for the unity of things arises due to the grace of God. This is what the Avadhuta Gita tells us. Isvaranugrahadeva – only by that, and no other way.

So, while from one side it looks that hard effort is necessary, on the other side it appears that we have to be passively receptive to the ingress of divine grace, always awaiting the call, and yearning for that light and blessing which can come upon us at any time. Whatever be the means by which such a love of God can rise in ourselves, this is an indispensable. And there is no other alternative – nanyah pantha vidyate ayanaya – no other alternative for us. No other path can be seen. There is no way out. This is a must for each and every person. And when that intensity of feeling arises, miraculous experiences automatically follow, which is the glorious consummation of yoga.