ANNAPURNA SARADA, Friday, August 21, 2015 8:12 am

A Forty-Year Koan

Swami Aseshanandaji was known as a fiery nondualist and man of deep realization who stated in almost every lecture, “I pay my obeisances to Gaudapada, for he was an illumined soul.”  From the podium he would extol the Advaita Vedanta, transcendence of the gunas, and the absolute need of Nirvikalpa Samadhi for complete liberation.  Then, either in the same lecture or the following week’s, he would proclaim the necessity of the “two wings of the bird,” referring sometimes to devotion and knowledge, or at other times to self-effort and grace.  There was no doubt that Nirguna Brahman (Brahman without attributes, indivisible Pure Consciousness) was the Reality, and everything else, including Ishvara, belonged to relativity.  Yet, for the forty plus years of Swami’s service at the Vedanta Society, we saw him offer puja every noon.  The ideal of renunciation and Brahmavidya was ever put before us.  And then he would do puja.  Those well along on the path of spiritual life will perhaps not have any difficulty with this, but for us young aspiring Advaitists, this was a real, living koan – a forty-year koan transmitted to his students.

Whereas in other times Jnana Yoga and Karma Yoga (paths of Knowledge and Action) were seen to be incompatible, it is also true that there is a lot of struggle for some with the harmony between Jnana and Bhakti (path of Devotion).

With regard to Jnana and Karma, in the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna clarifies action and inaction, Nature and Spirit/Self.  The Self, Atman, is actionless and all of Nature/Prakriti, from Mahat to the proverbial blade of grass, is in ceaseless motion. The Self never acts, Nature/Prakriti does (though not of its own accord). The one of steady wisdom identifies himself with the actionless Atman even while the senses (external and internal) engage with the objects of the senses.  There is confusion and delusion whenever the aspirant applies the truth of Atman/Spirit to Nature and vice versa, or speaking yogically, mixes the Seer with the seen.  The Seer never changes; the seen is always changing.  Sri Krishna states:  “The gunas of Prakriti perform all karma.  With the understanding clouded by egoism, man thinks, ‘I am the doer.’  But the one intuitive into the nature of guna and karma knows that gunas as senses merely abide with gunas as objects, and does not become entangled.  Those deluded by the gunas of Prakriti get attached to the functions of the gunas.”  Gita, 3:27 – 29

One must constantly discriminate about which level of reality one is perceiving/considering (Absolute or relative) and what “self” (which kosha) one is referring to.  It is not uncommon to hear this confusion expressed as “If my nature is pure and perfect why did I embody and end up in this mess?” or “Why would a perfect God create a world like this?”  In the first case, one’s Atman is not in this mess at all – never was and never will be.  “My pure and perfect nature” refers to Atman, which is birthless and deathless, but then it gets wrongly identified with “I” (as in “why did I embody”), which refers to the various layers (koshas) of the psycho-physical being.  In the second instance, “a perfect God” is a confusion of notions.  Perfection is not in time, space, and causation, so if the God one is thinking of is Perfect, then It is not a creator; It is pure Being, actionless.  God that creates is Cosmic/individual mind, the Mahat and its individualized portions (our manas and buddhi).  Yes, that means that we (as individual, collective and the Cosmic Mind) created this/these worlds.

Thus, it is understandable that there has been confusion among aspirants concerning the compatibility of action and knowledge.  If one is identified with Nature and all that takes action, then one is not identified with the Atman.  One has to disidentify with, reject as the not-Self, all that partakes of action, in order to recognize the state of actionlessness inherent in the Self.  Confused about this, the immature and unqualified aspirant renounces work prematurely.  But as Sri Krishna avers, “One does not attain actionlessness by giving up action.”  We have to know how to hear this.  All action/work eventually culminates in Knowledge – the Knowledge that the Self is not gross, subtle or causal, but supremely transcendent and pervasive of all apparent modifications/upadhis.  Later, He states, “Karma is said to be the means of the Muni who seeks to attain to yoga; serenity is said to be the means when he has attained to yoga.” Gita 6:3

Taking up the issue of Jnana and Bhakti, what assumptions underlie their appearance of disharmony?  Are the paths of Knowledge and Devotion truly at odds?  Whereas with regard to Jnana and Karma there is a confusion of identities within the context of Absolute and relative, in the case of Jnana and Bhakti, it is often a matter of temperament mixed with narrowness of outlook resulting from attachment to the dualities of higher and lower, true and false, right and wrong.  Additionally, practitioners may not have a firm yet flexible grasp of a cosmology that traces the apparent manifestation from the Nitya to the Lila and back to the Nitya, i.e. from the immutable Eternal to subtle and gross realms, back to the Eternal.

Sri Krishna tells us that the path of knowledge is far more difficult for embodied beings than the path of devotion. (Gita 12:3-5)  Jnana yoga channels one’s aspirations to the formless, imperishable Reality, and Bhakti Yoga toward one of the blissful forms of God, Ishvara, or even Saguna Brahman, God with qualities, though not necessarily sporting a “form.”  Can Reality be formless and with form at the same time?  Would it divide and distract the mind of the aspirant to follow both paths simultaneously?  Sri Ramakrishna dealt with this issue repeatedly among seekers.  While advising those whose temperament attuned them to the path of devotion, he warned them not to entertain the notion that only their way was true.  And when instructing those whose temperament inclined them toward formless Reality, he cautioned them against thinking that their way alone was correct.  Speaking from direct experience, Sri Ramakrishna could state unequivocally that God was with form, without form, and beyond the duality of form and formlessness.  Consciousness is seamless.

Still, he did not advise one and all to practice both at the same time, as that would harm their spiritual development.  Yet, even as we saw with our teacher, Swami Aseshanandaji, Sri Ramakrishna and Holy Mother had students and disciples of both temperaments, and those who also mixed (Jnana and Bhakti) temperaments.  They guided them accordingly, and the disciples for their part naturally absorbed over time the complete harmony of form, formlessness, and what transcends both.  Sri Ramakrishna would sometimes relate his own experience that a man of Samadhi, returning to consciousness of this “ordinary” realm, will take refuge in devotion to Ishvara.  “There are two here,” he would say, pointing at his heart, “one is the Divine Mother, and the other is Her devotee.”

The crux of the issue with Jnana verses Bhakti is centered on the idea that one is higher than the other.  Adherents of both paths make this claim, actually.  Here, we are more interested in the claims that the path of Knowledge leading to the formless Reality is higher than devotion to the personal God.  In what way is this true?  If we take “higher” to mean Absolute Reality, then there is no argument.  But the word “higher” generally connotes “better than” and that kind of perception often leads beginning aspirants to choose the formless Reality over God with form regardless of their qualification or actual understanding, and then turn their backs on Ishvara in a sense of superiority.  In these instances, it is also likely that the aspirant has not studied Sankhya, or the Tantric versions of Indian cosmology, otherwise it would be understood from the start that Ishvara or Saguna Brahman (Brahman with qualities/gunas) is simply Nirguna Brahman (without qualities/gunas) through the veil of Maya or the modifications (upadhis) of Nature/Prakriti.  Ishvara is simply the highest rendering of Brahman possible to the human mind, as Swami Vivekananda has described It.

There are many kinds of aspirants, but with regard to this issue of Jnana and Bhakti, there are three in particular:

1 – Those temperamentally aligned with the Personal God – these are attracted to the form of God and do not wish to merge, but to sport.   As the saying goes, they prefer to taste sugar, not be sugar, i.e. maintain a sense of separation eternally in order to sport with God.  Once, during a satsang, a man said to Swami that he thought tasting sugar (communing with the personal God) would be preferable.  Swami, responding in a manner that would melt granite, said softly, “only those who have not yet tasted sugar think they do not want to be sugar.” 

2 – Another kind of aspirant is attracted to both God with form and formless Reality.  He or she cherishes love of the personal God, but wants to know Its essence, Brahman, and then move between form and formlessness gracefully in full knowledge and freedom.  (About those who attain this realization, Sri Ramakrishna stated: “These types run a boat race, as it were, between two of the higher chakras.”)  This aspirant devotes himself to concentration of mind and purification of thought and emotion using the form of God, the Ishta Devata, as a support via worship and meditation, while studying the Jnana Yoga scriptures as well.  There is a saying, “You love what you know, and know what you love.”

3 – A third kind of aspirant is not attracted to the forms of God but prefers the formless Reality.  This is not as different as it might seem at first.  While we still perceive the duality of form and formlessness, our attempts to meditate on the formless Reality are modified by concepts of name and quality, even tenuous forms.  For instance, while settling the mind on Reality as “all-pervasive,” there remains an awareness of regions yet to be pervaded.  While thinking of the Infinite, the finite remains as a contrast.  Of course, this is why ordinary mind, inclusive of ego, must be transcended.  The practice of Atma Vichara (Self enquiry) hones this cat-and-mouse game of the mind.

Far beyond the mental knower

Soaring higher, creeping lower

Never caught in wise conception

Is the Atman-pure perception

 

Glimpsed, they say, with inner vision

Lost at once through indecision

There again when least expected

Gone when ego is detected*

Thus, it is to be understood that until absorption in Reality (nirvikalpa, asamprajnata samadhi) is attained, we are knowingly or unknowingly attending on God with form or quality, whether we think of It as having recognizable forms or formless conceptions.  Is devotion/bhakti incompatible with Knowledge?  That depends upon how one understands Bhakti.  According to Narada in the Narada Bhakti Sutras:

Bhakti is intense love for God.  In its intrinsic nature this divine love is immortal bliss.

By attaining It, a man becomes perfect, immortal, and satisfied forever. 

On attaining That a man does not desire anything else;

he grieves no more, he is free from hatred or jealousy;

he does not take pleasure in the vanities of life;

and he loses all eagerness to gain anything for himself. **

According to Shankara:

“Among all means of liberation, devotion is supreme. 

To seek earnestly to know one’s real nature – this is said to be devotion. 

In other words, devotion can be defined as the search for the reality of one’s own Atman.”

***

In his teaching chart, “The Two Complementary Paths,” (see attachment at bottom of post) Babaji Bob Kindler compares points about Jnana Yoga and Bhakti Yoga in tune with the two quotes above.  From it one can easily infer that knowledge is deepened by devotion and devotion is made more profound by knowledge.  Swami Vivekananda once stated, “Jnanam, wisdom, is all right, but there is the danger of its becoming dry intellectualism.  Love is great and noble, but it may die away in meaningless sentimentalism.  A harmony of all these is the thing required.” ****

Swami Aseshananda’s example, his “forty-year koan,” and that of others like him, is a source of inspiration and reflection leading to a comprehensive understanding of the nature of Advaita and the paths to its realization.  Om Shanti

* “We are Atman All-Abiding” vs. 16-17, Babaji Bob Kindler

** Narada’s Way of Divine Love, vs. 2-5, Swami Prabhavananda, translation.

*** Vivekachudamani of Sri Sankaracarya, vs.31-32,  Swami Turiyananda, translation (but these two verses are actually Swami Prabhavananda’s)

**** Swami Vivekananda Vijnanagita, pp. 167-8, Babaji Bob Kindler, editor

V.40.Two.Comp.Paths.pdf

Recent Blogs