Christianity as Bhakti Marga

Our passage continues: ‘No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what His Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you.’ We are to love one another because Christ has revealed unto us what He has heard from the Father and we know what our Lord doeth. Our knowledge is not attained by a course of painful or severe reasoning; it is given to us. Wedo not always grope in the dark nor do we arrive at conclusions only by putting together this with that; we are also told what we ought to know. The Divine Christ illumines us and pours into our souls floods of light. Weare not like servants who are simply bidden to serve but are not told why. Their duty is simply to obey, not to understand. If they ask questions or seek to understand why they are bidden to do certain things, they will be rebuked and regarded as impertinent. And often they are not even interested in finding out the reasons for the commands given them. Their loyalty is not deep enough to demand such a knowledge, for full understanding is asked for only when there is full love. But Christ and His devotees are like friends who fully know each other’s hearts. God is beyond our understanding, and yet His love has unveiled His heart to us and we see some at least of its workings. When there is genuine love, knowledge is imparted even before it is asked for. And such knowledge, spontaneously given, has a fulness which is quite different from the poverty of the knowledge which is reached by the highest flight of the intellect. This does not, however, mean that the intellect ceases to work. For understanding and turning into practice this divine knowledge, which is so generously given, it has to put forthits utmost capacity. Though put in an extreme form, there is a great deal of truth in the words of Ramakrishna Paramahathsa: ‘ Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the same. There is no difference between pure knowledge and pure love.’ *

It will thus be seen that in responding to God we are taught fully to exercise our will, feeling and thought. By this it is not implied that St. John expresses in the passage quoted above exactly the ideas of a modern psychologist about the mind of man. The account already given makes it sufficiently clear to us that if we are to abide in God and to respond effectively to the stirrings of His limitless grace within, we must do so with our entire being. If our response is to be real, no part of our personality can be left out. Only thus can our union with Christ become genuine. When do we say that there is an ideal fellowship between a father and his son? Itis only when the son conforms to the will of his father and does what his father bids him do. So long as the son makes an effort to translate into action the wishes of his father, so long: will he be one with his father. Such conformity in action is not,. however, everything. Unless there is love, it might be external and mechanical. It is only when the son is filled with love for his father and does with real joy what his father wants him to do, that he can be said to. be one with his father. And such love is not possible unless there is knowledge with it. In fact where there is love, there wili be knowledge also. A son instinctively understands his father if he loves him and the father also shows the workings of his heart to his son. The fellowship of a son with his father, then, consists in obedience and love and knowledge. Ifthe sonsays that he understands all that his father wants him to do and yet does not carry out in practice what he thus understands, or if he says that the thought of his father fills him with joy and yet does not seem really to understand him, we say that there is something wrong in the relationship between them, Only when he carries out the desires of his father, finding love and joy in suca conduct, and understanding the reasons for his father’s wishes, can he be said to be one with his father. Such an ideal relationship often breaks down in human life and raises all sorts of perplexing questions about personality and freedom and yet it is quite important to bear it in mind for we shall find in it the key which will unlock much of Johannine thought.’

The order of importance assigned in this passage to will, feeling and thought is evident throughout the Johannine writings. Is it not the natural order? Let us take again John’s favourite illustration of a father and his son. In extremely early life, the son is only taught to obey and he obeys, not knowing the reason why. Even if the father sought to explain the reason, it would be beyond the little boy’s understanding. Though he does not know why he has done a certain thing which his father has told him to do, he knows, however young he may be, that he has pleased his father by doing it and this knowledge gives him real joy. As the son grows in years and in understanding, the father explains to him the reasons for his asking him to do certain things and then loving obedience becomes intelligent conformity with the father’s will. This is repeated in the religious life—first obedience without understanding though with love and joy and then only the knowledge which explains and illumines.

Again, the emphasis laid in this passage on the willis thoroughly characteristic of John. Love and joy are in a sense determined by the will. Our love consists in keeping the commandments of Jesus; it does not merely enjoy itself in ecstacy, but is connected with action. Joy too is no aesthetic rapture but comes from keeping His commandments. Yet again, the knowledge spoken of here is not. speculation but the knowledge which is necessary for the doing of our duty. Thus a man’s will, which is obedient to the Father’s will, is like a sober charioteer driving the chariot of Bhakti and having well under control the powerful horses of feeling and reason. Endless have been the instances in which, in the absence of the charioteer, emotion has gone out of control and brought the chariot to ruin. Our own countty provides innumerable examples of Bhaktas who have been ruined by emotion. To them a life in God has meant rich ecstacy and exuberant rapture. For this they have lived and worked in a world of their own, cutting themselves off from the terrible and urgent needs of the men around. But when they have set out on their course the powerful animal they have yoked to their chariot has played havoc with them, and they have come down broken and exhausted.t There have been other Bhaktas who have been likewise led into trouble by reason. They have had the mistaken notion that their life in God consists in study and meditation. Study has become scholastic discipline and meditation has developed into speculation. Instead of knowing any better the God whom they set out to reach, they spend their time in accumulating useless knowledge which only serves to fill their mind with pride but does not reveal the God whom they wish to worship. With great wisdom, therefore, John insists upon bringing our feeling and reason under the strong and restraining influence of the Father’s will.

In Hindu literature also Bhakti is the going forth of one’s whole personality to God. A great many Bhaktas have certainly been inclined to attach too much importance to the emotions, while a few have come too exclusively under the power of the intellect. But, speaking in general terms, we may say that Bhakti is not merely intellectual meditation on God nor a rapturous emotional experience of Him nor a steadying of the will to draw near Him. It is all these together, though necessarily the terms used by the

Hindu writers do not wholly correspond to the western terms—thought, feeling and will.

The Bhaigavata-Purana thus lays down the ideal for a Bhakta:

‘ Whatever he does with the body or the tongue or the mind or the senses or the intellect or the nature which isin accordance with his self, he must consecrate it all to the Supreme Narayana.’”*

“He who offers to me with Bhakti leaf, flower, fruit, water, that, offered with Bhakti, [ accept from the sure self,

“Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever penance you do, O Kaunteya, do all that as an offering to me.””

‘Our body is the shrine and the firm mind the devotee.

We have cleansed the shrine with truth.

And erected God, the jewel of our mind, as the image.

With love as ghee and milk made into a dainty dish,

We have worshipped Him.’ ®

It is evident from these verses that Bhakti involves the whole man. If we ask the early ‘Tamil Bhaktas, who lived before Ramanuja and the Bhagavata- Purana, what they mean by Bhakti and what they do when they practise Bhakti, they will not say that they simply wait until God enters their soul filling it with joy and bliss, mor will they say that they sing and dance until He enters them, but they will say: ‘We havea longing to draw near Him. That longing is planted inoursouls by God himself. With His help we think of Him, steadily and constantly and with deep love, in order to realize that longing. As wedo so, He enters our souls. We keep meditating on Him if He is to remainin us. His - dwelling in cur hearts brings with it joy and light and freedom from impurity and release from the everrecurring cycle of births and deaths. And we sing and dance filled with rapture because of this experience.’ Song and dance are not regarded as the means by which God is inducted into the souls of these Bhaktas as they were among the dervishes and the ancient Hebrew “sons of the prophets.’ If they had been so regarded we might suspect that the Bhaktas’ experience of God was primarily an emotion; but they are rather the outward expression of that experience.

Thought certainly plays an important part in Bhakti. The Tamil Bhaktas constantly tell us that they have “held Him fast with their minds.’ They speak of him sometimes as entering their will (cittam), their heart (nehjam), their innermost heart (ullam), but more often do they speak of Him as dwelling in their understanding (unarvu), mind (cintai), intellect (pundi) or thought (ennam).*

2 It is very difficult to give the exact English equivalents of these Tamil psychological terms,

The Bhaktas give feeling its due weight. The term Tévaram, the name applied to the collection of Tamil Saiva Hymns by Jhanasambandar, Appar and Sundarar, has by some been interpreted to mean ‘that which awakens love for God.’ ‘ Nothing matters but love ’ says Appar ina significant hymn.’ Here is a striking passage recalling St. Paul’s hymn on love in Ist Corinthians Xlii:

“The bones may he used as firewood and the flesh cut up and roasted on fire until it becomes aglow like gold.

‘Yet except for those who melt with love and are stirred in the depths of their soul, the Jewel,

resplendent like the Sun, is impossible of attainment.’ *

In Hindu Bhakti literature we do not find many references to what may be termed the activities of the will. This is no doubt to be explained by the deeprooted Hindu conviction that the will is to be entirely suppressed as it is the creator of desires and consequently of actions and so of births in which the actions are to be enjoyed. And yet in their endeavour to draw near to God the Bhaktas do seek to steady their thoughts, to control their senses and to eliminate their passions. In spite of frequent failures they pursue the mystic quest, and this implies that their will has been educated and that they are not always helplessly driven to and fro. by their strong mystic feelings. |

In the religious books of our country the danger of egotism is frequently and forcibly asserted. It is often pointed out that the root of many of our troubles is this ‘sense of ‘I’ and ‘mine.’ Now if Bhakti means an exercise of our personality in our communion with God, the result may be the strengthening of this sense of the ego. If we respond to God using our will, feeling and thought, as John asks us to do, we may be led to develop our ego, which will be a grave mistake. But the passage which we are studying points out three different ways in which the sense of personality may be kept under discipline and not allowed to develop into an ego in the ignoble sense. It is necessary to draw near to God using fully all the will, feeling and thought we have, but this does not mean that we are to be slaves to them.

The first way is explained in the words:‘ This is my commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this thata man lay down his life for his friends.’ There are occasions when even love, the greatest and highest of human achievements, can degenerate into something ignoble. Love can become self-love. We may love because of the joy which it gives us. But selfish love will be impossible if we lay to heart the profound teaching of Jesus. A man should even lay down his life for his friends as Jesus Himself did. When we realize this, we shall find that love will be purified of all selfish taint. If we can impress upon our minds the teaching of Jesus, repeated all through the New Testament, that love’s end is not selfish enjoyment but its readiness to help and suffer and even die, there will never be any danger of its strengthening the claims of a false ego.

The next way is through the conviction that our call comes, not from any special merit on our part, but from God’s working in the soul. ‘Ye did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.’ If there is any reason for us to think that it is we who first awoke out of the lethargy or indifference and resolved to seek God, unlike millions who are sunk in worldly life, we may easily begin to have a false sense of our own importance. But the real truth must be writ large in our souls that it is God’s grace which awakens in us a love for Himself. Then we shall be constantly led to contemplate the grace of God, who has loved us without any thought of our own worthiness or goodness. A _ constant recollection of this fact will fill our souls with a humility which will purge us of everything thatis ignoble or selfish.

The third way is also explained here. ‘Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.’ There is a natural and logical development of thought in our passage which reaches its climax in this verse. The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John seems to make the bearing of fruit the great end of the life in Christ. With such graphic power is this truth unfolded that we are led to think that the bearing of fruit is the final bliss of the life that is lived in Christ. But this verse seems to point to something higher still. We have been chosen to bear fruit in order that our fruit may abide and that whatsoever we ask of the Father He may giveitto us, There seems to be then something beyond and higher than the bearing of fruit and that is the readiness to ask of God and to receive from Him whatsoever we want.

In the theory and practice of Mysticism petition has always been regarded as belonging to a lower stage of spiritual developmentthan communion. With remarkable unanimity mystics have taught that to ask God for this gift and that is not of the highest form of religion, If we have a friend we should not think of troubling him with requests everytime we met him. He would get tired of us and our friendship with him would evaporate for we should always be thinking of what we could get from him and not of him. Itis only when we can find joy in God, apart from anything He may give us or do for us, that our life with Him can be of the highest type. This experience of the mystics seems to need some such correction as that of John who teaches that even in the highest stage of mystic experience, we have to realize the infinite difference that exists between us and God, and to depend on Him for what we need. ‘This dependence appears to be the mark of all the stages of the religious life including the highest. There have been some mystics who have looked forward to absorption in God, But here we are taught that on the contrary the distinction between God and man continues with full force, especially in the form of man’s dependence on God,