I was recently going through a series of articles being put on the website of Sringeri Mutt (www.sringeri.net) under a section called Upadesha Lahari. It contains translations, audio, video of lectures of current and former Jagadgurus of Sringeri Mutt. The articles published there are really good and meant for common men who are interested in spiritual elevation.
Here I summarize one of those articles which is a translation of Anuraga Bhashanam (lecture on devotion) delivered by Jagadguru Shankaracharya Sri Bharati Tirtha Mahaswamiji at Kapaleeshwara Temple in Chennai during his Vijaya Yatra in 1986
To worship God (Bhagavan) and thereby become the recipient of His Grace is what has been traditionally regarded for thousands of years as an ideal to aspired for. It is our responsibility to keep up that tradition.
यस्याहुरागमविद: परिपूर्णशक्ते-
रंशे कियत्यपि निविष्टममुं प्रपञ्चम् ।
तस्मै तमालरुचिभासुरकन्धराय
नारायणीसहचराय नम: शिवाय ॥
Sri Shankara has conveyed much about how Iswara should be worshiped. Normally, when we visit a temple, we do not go empty-handed; we take some offerings with us for Ishwara. What is the most fitting offering to Bhagavan? The reply given by Sri Sankara in the form of a prayer to Ishwara is quite interesting.
“O, Lord, what shall I offer You? What competence do I possess for offering anything to You? What is the object not possessed by You which I can give You?”
Offering gold, gift of money, modern articles, cool sandal wood paste etc to God is not appropriate. Bhagavatpada analyzed all these options and came to a conclusion.
“O, Lord, I am not competent to offer anything to You. However, there is an object, which I am going to dedicate to You. It is my mind.”
Many raise the objection, “It is not possible to offer the mind to Ishwara. If the mind were to be an external object, we could take it and place it at His feet. But it is not so. We cannot physically handle the mind. How then can we dedicate our minds to Ishwara?” The answer is, “By keeping Ishwara in our minds at all times”. The import is that a person must ever engage himself in thinking of Ishwara. He should not entertain any other thought in his mind.
Is it possible to achieve such a mental state?
In Lord Krishna’s time, the Gopis were ever contemplating on Him. We read in the Bhagavata that the minds of the Gopis did not think of anything or anyone, but the Lord. A devotee has composed a beautiful verse about the condition of the Gopis.
विक्रेतुकामा किल गोपबाला मुरारिपादार्पितचित्तवृत्ति: ।
दध्यादिकं मोहवशादवोचद्गोविन्द दामोदरमाधवेति ॥
The Gopis earned their living by selling milk and curds. In order to attract the attention of people to the items the Gopis had to loudly utter, “Milk! Curds!”. Instead, the Gopis shouted, “O, Govinda! O, Damodara! O, Madhava!” and so on. They set out to sell milk and curds but as their minds were ever engaged in the thought of the Lord, the words “milk” and “curds” did not come out of their mouth. They were uttering the names of the Lord.
God will accept whatever one offers to Him if one’s mind is ever engaged in thinking of Him.
Bhagavan has declared in the Gita:
पत्रं पुष्पं फलं तोयं यो मे भक्त्या प्रयच्छति ।
तदहं भक्त्युपहृतमश्रामि प्रयतात्मन: ॥
“I will accept whatever one offers Me with true devotion.”
Though it is only the knowledge of the Self which leads to liberation, a person who is not competent to tread the path of knowledge should worship Ishwara with devotion. What, indeed, will be the fate of a person who lacks the competence and the opportunity to directly get the knowledge of the Self and yet does not tread the path of devotion?
सा त्वस्मिन्परमप्रेमरूपा ॥
So say the Sastras. One must direct one’s attention exclusively to the Lord; such a state of mind is termed as devotion.
Devotion is not a path meant only for common folk. It is not as if the wealthy ones need not be devoted. All are equal from the standpoint of Ishwara. It will be a grave sin if one were to think that one need not bow down to Ishwara just because one is affluent.
Please read the complete translation of the Bhashanam at the following link
Reminds me of one of the verses in Bajagovindam
ReplyDeletepraNaayaamam pratyaahaaram
nityaanitya vivEka vichaaram
japya samEta samaadhi vidhaanam
kuruvavadaanam mahadhavadaanam
Meaning:
Control your breadth, thoughts and tongue every moment, everyday; carefully, very very carefully
Abstract of the Bhashanam
ReplyDeleteThe greatness of Bhagavan is unlimited. To worship Him and to thereby become the recipient of His Grace is what has been traditionally regarded for thousands of years as an ideal to be aspired for. It is our responsibility to keep up that tradition.
Normally, when we visit a temple, we do not go empty-handed; we take some offerings with us for Ishwara. What is the most fitting offering to Bhagavan? According to Adi Sankara, It is the mind. One must direct one’s attention exclusively to the Lord; such a state of mind is termed as devotion. Through this, one can attain supreme good in life. This task is certainly possible - constantly engage the mind in the contemplation of the Lord, like the Gopis remembering Lord Krishna all the time.
Though it is only the knowledge of the Self which leads to liberation, a person who is not competent to tread the path of knowledge should worship Ishwara with devotion.
I partially agree with you Abstracter.. But, I have a slightly different thought as opposed to yours
ReplyDeleteYou said
"a person who is not competent to tread the path of knowledge should worship Ishwara with devotion."
I feel: Worship is something like a child learning to talk and walk. It does not mean child is not competent. But it simply has no proper balance. Those who are elder and know how to walk will help the kid learn to walk and talk by showing direction.
Just like crawling, slowing walking, later talking, reading writing will become the process for a kid so it is with a human to learn and know the supremo. However, none should be tagged as incompetent.
@Anweekshaki
ReplyDeleteHere competent or incompetent does not mean to label permanently
It implies that at this point of time, the individual is competent or incompetent.
For e.g. A kid of 6 yrs is incompetent to study engineering book as it has not learnt the fundamentals. It becomes competent once it learns the fundamentals.
The Brahma Sutras start with the sutra "Atato Brahma Jignasasva" which means Now, Therefore the enquiry into Brahman. It only mean only when you are competent enough for the study of Brahman you can proceed into its enquiry
I would want to narrate a story to explain what I meant by telling none are incompetent
ReplyDeleteThere was a boy who wanted to gain the supreme knowledge and hence went to forest, did tapas, learned veda, finally gained all he wanted. One day when he was meditating under a tree a crow drops its remains on him. Angry Rishi saw the bird and to his power the bird burnt into ashes.
Later, that afternoon he went to a nearby village for his bhiksha. Be sang "Bhavati bhikshaaM dEhi". A voice from inside of a lady came "wait a min sanyasi, I am busy taking care of my sick husband, wait till I come"
Again the angry sanyasi in his mind spoke to himself "this lady would not have spoke this way if she knew what happened with the crow"
The lady came after 5 min and while offering him the bhiksha she told him "Your anger is better be shown with birds and not with me". Listening to these words the sanyasin was surprised and asked her how did you come to know.
Seeing god in all and devoting life to him is more than 1000 years of tapas. So, who is incompetent. Is it the sanyasi who knew all knowledge of vedas and supreme OR is it the housewife who dint even know to read or right but just blindly believed in devotion.
I say both are just two different road to the same place. Hence, I said there is no difference between a person reading athato brahma jignaasa and the person in front of idol worshipping with all his heart
@Anweekshaki
ReplyDeleteBut Sri Adi Shankara says
"Though it is only the knowledge of the Self which leads to liberation, a person who is not competent to tread the path of knowledge should worship Ishwara with devotion."
The path of knowledge is more preferred way and implies the devotion to knowledge. The path of devotion you have mentioned is equally important but only in case he cannot tread the path of knowledge. This is my opinion
I am not sure where Shankara says this. If he says this I somehow probably I am unable to connect to his words either because of lack of knowledge.
ReplyDeleteRamakrishna Paramahamsa was illiterate. He gained all knowledge and intelligence through devotion. While we have Swami Vivekananda who was his own disciple, who took a different path. He took a path of knowledge. This real world example is contradicting with what Shankara says
So, I would like to see the original text of the translation which you have written above. There might be some mis-interpretation.
@Anweekshiki
ReplyDeletesome points
I am not speaking about the process here. Neither one [knowledge/devotion] is superior or inferior to another
Both the saints (ramakrishna paramahamsa/vivekananda) might have attained the highest objective of their lives. It has nothing to do with illiteracy.
It is always advised to gain knowledge and show your devotion which probably according to me justifies to you the devotion you show [this is for a common man]. To put it another way the path of devotion is more abstract and creates doubts within you. This can be solved correctly if you have knowledge. So knowledge and devotion should go hand in hand.
Ramakrishna paramahamsa was probably knowledgeable (nothing to do with illiteracy. He should have understood the scriptures aste) and devoted
Not probably, but surely RamaKrishna paramahamsa was knowledgeable. That is the point I made in my previous post when I told
ReplyDelete"He gained all knowledge and intelligence through devotion"
I agree knowledge has nothing to do with literary
One need not justify his/her love towards their mother OR do you thing they have to justify? Devotion is just belief a strong trust that the kid has when its in the arms of a mother. Mother will never drop the kid. That is devotion. But, slowly the kid learns that mother can drop the kid by accident; that is knowledge. It had no reason to learn about this until it started walking. Once it started walking, there was no use of this knowledge because the kid is no more in the arms of mother. Yet the trust and devotion remains
I think you have mistaken devotion to emotion. What you said in case of Mother and Kid is emotion and not devotion.
ReplyDelete"He gained all knowledge and intelligence through devotion"
devotion is not a process. You support your devotion through knowledge. As you said devotion is a belief. When some one questions that belief you answer through your knowledge
So, knowledge is a means for justification. After reading, analysing, studying vedas completely Sri Shankara says
ReplyDeletenaamasnaraNaadnyamupaayam
nahi pashyaamO bhava taraNe
meaning: I do not see any other means or way or a single idea, for crossing this life
So, after learning so much ultimately every rishi learns that the ultimate is just devotion.
And I was not speaking of emotion when I spoke about mother. I was speaking of devotion. Devotion comes from detachment and from detachment comes love. On the other hand one who is emotional is attached.
Let me get back to the statement made by Shankara.
"a person who is not competent to tread the path of knowledge should worship Ishwara with devotion."
From this statement of shankara; I guess he is trying to convey one thing to those who are ignorant. he meant probably "ho fools, all I have learnt after learning so much knowledge is that devotion is the ultimate. So, believe me and simply devote your life for govinda, instead of wasting your life in learning this truth".
@Anweekshaki
ReplyDeleteThere is another problem here. It is not mentioned here to ignore the path of knowledge. It is just told that until your competent to tread the path of knowledge you follow the path of devotion.
Again your are making devotion superior to knowledge. This is not the case. Neither can be inferior or superior. Both have to go in tandem.
I believe if a individual is competent to tread the path of knowledge but ignores it thinking devotion alone is superior he is making a grave mistake and has chances of making the devotion into superstition
Commendable efforts ...The 'Tattva' is brought about very beautifully in the description above.
ReplyDelete