Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
I am going to talk to you today about
Bhakti Yoga,
the traditional
yoga
of love and devotion
as practiced in the East
for thousands of years.
In the ancient epic
of Mahabharata,
Lord Krishna
speaking to Arjhan
on the battlefield
says
..."oh, Arjhan, there are three
ways in which
in which one can find the truth
in which one can realize God.
The first is
Karma Yoga
the yoga of action.
The second is
Gyana Yoga
the yoga of knowledge
and the third and the most superior
is Bhakti Yoga
the yoga of love and devotion.
Arjhan says,
"Krishna, explain to me
what is the difference between these three kinds of yoga?"
And Krishna
pronounces
the differences
between the three yogas.
Before I go into
the distinction
between the three types of yoga,
let me make it clear
that the word, yoga,
as used in the Eastern tradition
is not confined
to bodily postures
or exercises
or just breathing in a certain way.
Yoga
literally means
union
and the term yoga,
in Eastern mysticism,
has been used to signify
the union
of the self with the
overself.
The union
of the individual
with the total,
the union of man with God.
Therefore, yoga is a method of experiencing
oneness.
Experiencing
a going back
to the original home
from where there is no separation.
So yoga has been used in that deeper sense
in all these discussions.
To come back to the distinction
between the three types of yoga
let me take up
Karma Yoga first.
Karma means...action.
Karma yoga
is the yoga of action.
Krishna teaches
that if
you performed your actions
skillfully
and do not expect any reward for it
except the reward for performing the action skillfully
you are a yogi
and you are a karma yogi.
You are a yogi
of action
and you are performing
the yoga
of action.
What does it really mean
if you can perform
actions skillfully
and not expect a reward
this means you are willing to surrender
your action
to the will
of a total self
which is not any individual
supervising your work, assigning work to you, not your employer
not your supervisor in the business,
not somebody teaching you something.
You have
agreed to surrender
your will
to the total will.
Therefore
the effect of karma yoga
or the effect of yoga of action is to inculcate
a sense of surrender
to the highest
total consciousness.
Next, what is
Gyana Yoga
or ..........Yoga
or the yoga of knowledge.
This second form of yoga requires
that we contemplate with our intellect,
with reason,
with thoughts.
And we carry on this kind of consideration
and contemplation
till we find the limits of knowledge,
till we find the limits of intellect,
till we find there are certain things
which cannot be answered by intellect alone.
Many people
who rely heavily on reason, logic, intellect,
fail to understand
that there are many experiences in human life
which the intellect cannot comprehend.
They believe that a sharp intellect
should be able to comprehend almost anything
and therefore they frequently ask questions
regarding
the limitations of the intellect.
I remember
my own teacher, the Great Master,
was once asked this question
by a group of intellectuals
which included some attorneys, barristers,
some judges of the courts,
who were using intellect and reason all the time in their professional work.
They came up to the
Great Master
and said, "Master,
you keep on telling us
that intellect has a limitation
that intellectually, by reasoning and by using logic
you cannot get all the knowledge.
But we practice intellect
and logic and reasoning everyday
and we find that if we are
sufficiently
sharp
and clear in the use of intellect, we can comprehend anything.
Can and you give us an example
of some human experience
which defies intellect
and cannot be explained in reasonable or logical terms?"
The Great Master smiled
and he said, " yes
i can give you one simple illustration
it is very difficult
nay it is impossible
for the intellect
to understand
that the whole of God
can come
wholly, without breaking up
without becoming apart
into each one of us
and still remain whole
and yet
He will remain whole
totally from where He came."
A statement like that cannot be understood by the intellect.
and, yet, it is an experience of truth
which one can
go within,
transcend the mind,
transcend the intellectual apparatus
and find out to one's own satisfaction.
Such truths
defy
the laws of logic and reason and, therefore, are beyond intellect
But intellect
can grasp
that there are certain things beyond itself
and as the intellect
logically builds up
an understanding
of what is available within
the framework
of time, space, and causation
and therefore available to mental comprehension.
Then there must be some things
that are beyond time, space and causation
and therefore
do not fall into mental comprehension.
This ability
of the intellect
to gain knowledge of its own limitations
and to accept
that there is something that goes beyond that knowledge
is the knowledge
that we speak of
in santa yoga or
Gyana yoga, the yoga of knowledge
This kind of knowledge
we are able to find out that there is something beyond knowledge and therefore
the intellect plays
an important role
in pushing us beyond
the intellectual
limitations
to real knowledge.
This yoga
eventually
gives us the same feeling which Karma Yoga gave
that we have to surrender
to a power
to an overwhelming conscious, conscious existence
which goes beyond our own intellect.
And therefore it is beyond our mind
This ability
of the human intellect
and the human mind
to discover
that that there is something beyond the mind
and it is more real and it is acceptable to the mind.
This knowledge
is what helps
and gives...great...
impetus
to going
towards
a higher knowledge beyond the mind.
Krisha says, if one has secured
knowledge
of the mind
intellectual knowledge, one can step on to spiritual knowledge.
But the third type of yoga
Bhakti Yoga,
the yoga of love and devotion
has always been considered
the highest.
What is the yoga of love and devotion?
The yoga of love and devotion
is the yoga
our the union experienced
through love or through
identification with the Beloved.
What is this experience of love which we speak about?
Love is an experience
of identification with another.
Losing one's own
consciousness
of the self, of the ego,
and becoming
coterminous
with the consciousness of the Beloved.
This ability to identify with another
and thereby
have an experience of oneness
is the experience of love.
And when one
performs
an action or lives a life
which entails love and identification with another
where one can forget oneself and remember another
where one remembers another to such an extent, one does not know who is remembering but
only the one who is remembered.
This kind of devotion
this kind of service,
this kind of offering
to the Beloved
is called the yoga of love and devotion.
When one is practicing
the yoga of love and devotion
what happens?
One is able to overcome the same ego
the same self
and surrender
to someone else.
The net effect
of all the yogas
is the same.
That is
there is a self
beyond
the egoistic self, the individualistic self,
and that self is real.
If you perform
Karma Yoga, or the yoga of action,
you reach the same point
which is
that there is a higher self
to which you can surrender.
If you
practice Gyana Yoga
or the yoga of intellectual knowledge, you can come to the conclusion
that there is something
beyond one's own individual self, beyond one's own
intellect
beyond one's mental grasp,
and one can reach that
and therefore
it is again a surrender
of the individual self to a
accepted...
intellectually accepted higher self,
whom we might give any name.
We may call the over self, the higher self, God, totality, oneness, whatever we like.
For the intellectual process
also leads to the same conclusion.
And finally,
Bhakti Yoga,
the yoga of love and devotion
directly takes us
for the same stage
of forgetting one's self
and relying more and more on the knowledge created by love
of the Beloved, not of one's own ego.
In meditation
people want to go within
and experience
the transcendent
something that transcends the mind.
They want to expedience something
that is not physical.
Something
that goes beyond body awareness.
They want to withdraw attention
to go into another world,
into another dimension.
How does one do it?
What are the real ingredients
of meditation?
We find
that in meditation
we try to concentrate our attention
on one's own self.
Every process of trying to go within
entails
trying to concentrate attention
on one's own self.
What is the self? We do not know.
Therefore
an attempt is made to close the eyes
and take some kind of a posture
by which
we can hold attention that has been scattered around the world
back to our own self, within.
And we want to sit in peace and quiet.
So that this
particular experience
of withdrawing consciousness to one's own self,
can be not only felt,
but can be experienced within.
This meditation,
or the experience of one's own self,
within one's self,
is hampered
by our own ego and our own mind.
People who have tried to practice
meditation
have found that when they try to sit within their own self,
the mind,
utilizing memories
utilizing
associations outside
utilizing
the pull of desires outside
utilizing the pull of attachments outside
continues to drag the attention outside
and therefore one cannot peacefully sit
within oneself.
Therefore meditation fails.
Therefore the main obstruction
and the main obstacle
to successful meditation
is one's own ego and one's own mind.
This individualized mind
that sits inside and says, "I can do it."
this I can do it, this I that claims to do it
becomes the obstacle to doing it.
And that is why
the successful meditater
requires some means
by which he can
overcome
the obstacle created
by his own ego
and his own personal self.
This particular distraction
that the individual ego
can create
in meditation
cannot be overcome
except by something
that can take attention
away from the ego.
People have tried to find many ways
people have tried to see
if this negativity of the mind
that prevents us from finding peace within ourselves
can be overcome
by more positive thinking
and they have tried to substitute
this negativity and negative thoughts
by more positive thoughts.
But the end result is
that the positive thoughts are also thoughts
emanating from the same ego.
And even if a person can positively make a determination
it is
prefaced by, " I can do i."
and that "I" becomes a stumbling block again
to the successful achievement of yoga.
People struggle hard,
they make a big effort
to overcome the "I."
But they see the contradiction pretty soon.
If you struggle hard and make a big effort to get something
you are boosting the same "I" that you are trying to overcome.
How can
you beat your "I" with the "I?" How can you beat your ego with the ego?
The ego can give you knowledge
that it is
becoming an obstacle
it can cannot
remove you
from the
uh... awareness or experience
of the ego.
merely by re-asserting that ego.
Some people say, "we should do meditation effortlessly
in order to overcome this."
Therefore they try very hard to become effortless
thereby creating a contradiction
in the own
meditation.
This is a serious
question
which a serious student and practitioner of meditation
puts to himself.
What is the answer
to this distraction, this obstacle
which does not let me have successful meditation?
How do I overcome the problem
of my ego?
Is there anyway
in which I can find a simple method,
a mechanism, a
mechanical way of doing things which would overcome the ego?
As one goes over the list
or possible alternatives
to overcome the ego
one finds most of them are structured,
most of them are mechanical,
most of them involve effort ,
and therefore
they are merely
the same
ego coming back in a different form.
Therefore
any kind of structured effort, any kind of structured methodology
defies
this problem of finding a solution
to the obstacle created by the ego.
If there is a way
a real way
which can take us away from the distraction of the ego
it's love and devotion.
Love is the only known, human experience
which makes one forget
one's ego.
You can look at many experiences in life
but you will find that when you are in love with somebody
when you are identifying you with somebody
when you care so much for somebody that you forget yourself,
that is perhaps the only moment
when you lose site of the ego
and put it in second place.
In all other human endeavor
ego is given first place.
Therefore,
for successful meditation,
one has to put the ego in second place
and that is only possible
if you combine meditation
with the experience of love
and with the experience of devotion.
Love and devotion
are the necessary adjuncts
of successful meditation
which can take you
beyond the realm of the ego, and therefore eventually
beyond the realm of the mind into pure spirituality.
But, love and devotion,
are not merely terms that you can use
one cannot sit
within oneself and say,
" I am now practicing my meditation with love and devotion."
Saying so brings you back into ego.
Making an assertion
that I love someone,
I love someone very deeply,
i really love someone.
These assertions don't make it real love.
They only make it a re-statement
by the ego
of something desirable.
It only means that the ego wants something that is desirable and has
given the name of love
Most of the time
when we look at this world and we want to find out what are they talking about
when they speak of love.
We find they are talking of attachments,
they are talking of togetherness.
They are talking of, I and you
they are talking of he and she, they are taking of he and he
she and she.
They are talking of two beings
and love is considered to be a relationship
of two beings
in which both of them
seem to occupy an equal place.
But in real love
it doesn't happen like that.
In real love
you don't have an experience of two
In real love when
I love you, I cannot have an experience of I and you.
If I am really in love, I can only have an experience of you.
My consciousness, my awareness
should be so much transferred to you,
should so much occupy... you,
that it should really
become you,
be identified with you, that is called love.
Therefore, when
we use the word, love, in everyday language
we're not referring to love
as we defined it
in spiritual practice.
We are using the word, love,
for attachment.
An attachment is a mental activity
in which
the division of I and you
still exists and persists till the end.
Whereas in spiritual love, or in the love of the spirit,
one transcends that division
and identifies with the Beloved
and can really expedience oneness.
Attachment
at v
can give us
expedience of togetherness.
Love gives us the experience
of oneness.
But love is not such a simple thing to find.
One cannot make up one's mind and say,
"now from tomorrow
I am going to practice love.
From tomorrow I'm going to have a new style of living, where I will give up my
ego and practice love."
Because a decision of this kind
a plan for tomorrow made like this, itself a plan of the ego.
itself is the plan of individual consciousness
and therefore defies experience of love.
Love doesn't come
from mental planning.
Nobody can plan for love
just like nobody can plan to have
an intuitive flash.
Nobody can plan to have
a sudden flash of gut knowledge getting information on what to do.
these
subtle experiences
of love
intuition
and equally so, beauty and joy,
they come to us suddenly,
they come to us from nowhere
we can't explain them
we can't say how they came, where they came from
they come form an area
which defies even time and space.
They have no cause, therefore they are not mental.
intuition, love,
beauty, joy, and happiness
which are associated with spiritual awareness
they come from the soul, the spirit
and not from the mind.
and therefore they belong strictly to a spiritual experience.
Any kind of experience of love and devotion
is a spiritual experience.
But when it is related to something real,
it is called a spiritual yoga.
And therefore Bhakti Yoga,
or the yoga of love and devotion,
is the highest
pure spiritual yoga.
It transcends the mind and gives us an experience
beyond the mind.
The mind can only perform functions within its own framework.
The mind cannot go beyond time,
they mind cannot go beyond space,
the mind must invariably follow
the laws of cause and effect.
Consider, what are the functions of the mind
that we
deal with every day?
The mind is
interpreting sense perceptions,
the mind is
reasoning and
arguing within itself using logic.
The mind is in a creative mood
and creating new patterns.
In any of these activities
whether it is sensing
or reasoning or thinking
or creating,
the mind is using time
and space
and follows the laws of cause and effect.
It is this framework
of time, space, and causation
which binds the mind together
to a certain level of experience
that cannot be...
reached
except through this framework.
And therefore it divides
the total spiritual experience
from the mental experience.
All this talk of universal mind
all this talk of a higher universe
it which the mind becomes one
all this talk is confined to
only that part of the human consciousness which is mental.
But, above the mind,
we have the spirit.
And the spirit
defies this framework
the spirit goes beyond time,
space, and causation.
When we have a spiritual experience,
we do not need any time.
Indeed it does not perform itself in time.
A spiritual experience does not come itself in time.
Take love,
you have all experienced love.
Sometime or the other
it came so suddenly
before that it was not there
and suddenly it was there.
Was any time taken in the experience?
Can you compare it with thought?
Even the smallest thought
can be measured.
it took one minute, or half a minute, or five seconds, or one second, or half a second
or a millionth part of a second
every thought can be measured in terms of time.
Every thought can be associated with
with some space.
Every thought
has a cause and an effect.
But not so the experience of love,
nor the experience of intuition.
These transcend
this framework of time, space, and causation.
When true spiritual experiences
are above
time, space, and causation
surely
no part of mental effort
and no amount of mental struggle can give us that experience.
The real
spiritual experience
comes through this
new dimension
which is beyond time, space and causation.
This is the dimension I have been talking of all the time.
The Bhakti Yoga
the yoga
of love and devotion
the yoga
in which
one can
transcend this mental framework
go beyond time, space, and causation.
And find a truth that is non-mental.
Find a truth that does not come in our
day to day effort
to say, "I can do it, I can do it."
Something that I cannot do it, but my totality can do it.
Something for which I can be ready.
Something which I can accept.
Something that comes from my own totality, but not from the individual will.
This particular experience
of the higher spiritual experience
comes through Bhakti Yoga,
the yoga of love and devotion.
The yoga that does not require thoughts
The yoga that only requires love
and service of love, which is devotion.
That is in truth
the real yoga, the Bhakti Yoga.