Spiritual Discourses: Make īśvara the only agenda in your life
By Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati*
Na Me Bhaktaḥ Praṇaśyati – 07
Make īśvara the only agenda in your life. Bhakti, devotion, is wanting to know īśvara as he is. Scientists apply their own methods to know him. Vedanta applies its own method. Either you inquire and learn what īśvara is or you pray to him, “Lord, please reveal your true nature to me, I am surrendering to you.” Surrender is offering yourself completely. The bhakta’s approach is to seek the grace of īśvara so that īśvara reveals himself to the bhakta.
In the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣad it is said, “yamevaiṣa vṛṇute tena labhyastasyaiṣa ātmā vivṛṇute tanuṁ svām, The very self that this one chooses is attainable through that fact of choosing; this self of his reveals its own nature.” When one chooses the Lord, one surrenders to the Lord, meaning that one wants to know the Lord and that is all he wants, nothing else. That’s why it’s called varaṇam, choosing. That choice culminates in the Lord, the self, revealing to the devotee his true nature.
In the olden days, there was a ceremony called the swayaṁvara. Swayaṁvara means “choosing by oneself,” where a young princess chooses the person she will marry. Hundreds of young men are invited into a big court. The princess comes out with a beautiful garland of flowers and goes from one suitor to the next. Her attendant describes the background and talents of each suitor in turn. She looks at each one and proceeds. Poets describe how each suitor’s face shines with hope when she looks at him, and how crestfallen he looks when she walks on. Ultimately, she bestows the garland on only one. She chooses one and only one.
Similarly, we have many attractions in the universe: wealth, name, fame, and a million other things. Of all of these, yam eva eṣa vṛṇute, the bhakta chooses īśvara. Choosing one means that you have already given up all the others. That is called vairāgya. Vairāgya means dispassion towards everything else and choosing the one. The seeker chooses īśvara among all the things available in the world.
Lord Krishna says, “sarvadharmān parityajya māmekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, give up all other choices, give up all other agenda, and choose me. Ahaṁ tvā sarvapāpebhyaḥ mokṣayiṣyāmi mā śucaḥ, once you choose me I will release you from all bondage of karma. Don’t worry; do not grieve.” It is a contract. Bhagavān, who teaches the Bhagavad Gita, is none other than Lord Nārāyaṇa, who is satya-saṅkalpa; whatever Nārāyaṇa says, happens. Therefore, his words are pramāṇa, the valid means of knowledge, meaning that we can trust them. Trusting them means devoting our whole life to that choice, which means giving up all other agendas and making īśvara the only agenda. That is what he wants. Lord Krishna says, māmekaṁ śaraṇaṁ vraja, let me be the only agenda in your life. When you have discovered and understood that you don’t want anything else, then you come to me. Na me bhaktaḥ praṇaśyati. There is nothing that can really harm my devotee who understands this and has this clarity of conviction.
Follow the Programme of Devotion
The programme of devotion has two stages Samyagvyavasito hi saḥ, the proper conviction should arise in one’s life that what I am seeking is God. Whether I call it God, īśvara, Rāma, Krishna, Śiva, happiness, love, knowledge, truth, wholeness, fullness, limitlessness, or ātmā, self, it all amounts to the same thing. For one in whom that conviction has arisen, the Bhagavad Gita gives a programme of devotion to help the devotee grow to the point of recognizing God, īśvara, as himself or herself.
As we have said, īśvara is all pervasive and at the same time, he transcends everything. He is immanent as well as transcendent. Recall the example of the actor who is immanent, meaning that he pervades all the roles, and at the same time he transcends all the roles. Similarly, īśvara pervades everything and transcends everything at the same time.
The all-pervasive īśvara is saguṇa-brahma, meaning brahman with attributes, names and forms, that he pervades. The īśvara that transcends everything is nirguṇa-brahma, meaning brahman that is free of all attributes. But there are not two brahmans. There is only one formless brahman, whose ultimate nature transcends everything. We don’t say that he possesses forms. We say that forms are superimposed upon him, just as the beggar is superimposed upon the actor. Īśvara transcends all the names and forms, but he alone manifests as all the forms.
For a Vedāntin, the ultimate goal is discovering that the attributeless īśvara—pūrṇatvam, fullness, or ānanda, happiness— is one’s own self. But it is very difficult for our mind to dwell upon formless and limitless and attributeless because the mind is accustomed to dealing with forms, names, and attributes in day-to-day life. We are born in duality and we interact with the world of names, forms, and attributes all the time, which means our mind is always dwelling upon names, forms, and attributes.
Therefore, this programme of devotion is given in two stages. The first stage is worshipping saguṇa-brahma, īśvara with attributes. The second stage is dwelling on and recognizing oneself as nirguṇa-brahma, īśvara without attributes. First worship īśvara as manifest in names and forms, and then know īśvara as your own self. These are the two stages of bhakti. Worshipping īśvara who is manifest as names and forms leads to knowing īśvara as one’s own self.
Lord Krishna describes the two stages as, “jñānayogena sāṅkhyānāṁ karmayogena yoginām, the pursuit of knowledge for the renunciates, who pursue contemplation, and the pursuit of karma-yoga for those who pursue activity.” Karma-yoga is worshipping īśvara manifest as the universe. Jñāna-yoga is focused on knowing īśvara as myself. The two stages are karma-yoga and jñāna-yoga. The two stages represent two lifestyles, each having a different focus. The first stage, a lifestyle of serving and worshipping īśvara with attributes, retains the duality between the devotee and īśvara. In the second stage, a meditative lifestyle of study and self-inquiry, the duality is negated by contemplation on and knowledge of the attributeless self. The first is the easier stage, which prepares the devotee for the more difficult second stage.
Devotion is serving, meditating, and knowing
Devotion is love for īśvara that is characterized by deep reverence and śraddhā, faith or trust. Devotion is, therefore, an emotion of the mind that is expressed in the form of serving īśvara, meditating on īśvara, and leading a life committed to knowing īśvara. In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna presents these three devotional forms—serving, meditating, and knowing—as three phases of developing devotion that correlate to the two stages of devotion, karma-yoga and jñāna-yoga.
Serving refers to performing all actions with an attitude of worship, as an offering to saguṇa-brahma, īśvara manifest as the entire creation. The goal is to weaken and ultimately remove the sense of identification with the body-mind-sense complex. That identification is the source from which the sense of limitation arises, which leads to rāga and dveṣa, attachments and aversions, which in turn are the cause of sorrow.
Meditating is mentally dwelling on īśvara. Meditation is a form of devotion common to both karma-yoga and jñānayoga. In karma-yoga, the first stage of devotion, meditating takes the form of upāsanā, dwelling on the glories of saguṇabrahma, such as dwelling on a chosen deity or mentally performing pūjā, ritual worship, to the chosen deity. The goal of meditation in this stage is to increase mental concentration and develop a sense of reverence for īśvara. In jñāna-yoga, the second stage of devotion, meditating takes the form of contemplating on the nondual and nonseparate nirguṇabrahma as revealed by the Upaniṣads and other Vedāntic texts. In this stage, the goal of meditation is knowing brahman as the self.
Knowing is recognizing the jīva’s true identity as transcendent īśvara, nirguṇa-brahma. All attributes, names, and forms are recognized as superimpositions on the attributeless self. Knowing is the ultimate goal of devotion. Serving īśvara and meditating on saguṇa-brahma are the pursuits of karma-yoga, the first stage of devotion. Meditating on nirguṇa-brahma and knowing brahman as the self are the pursuits of jñāna-yoga, the second stage of devotion.
Each phase prepares the devotee for the next phase. Serving helps the devotee reduce the strength and turbulence of attachments and aversions in the mind. With that relatively composed mind, the devotee is able to meditate on brahman with attributes, which increases the trust in īśvara and the ability to surrender individuality to īśvara. This benefit of meditating on brahman with attributes prepares the devotee’s mind for deeper contemplative meditation on the attributeless brahman.
That contemplation ultimately culminates in the knowledge of the limitless self, which is mokṣa, freedom from sorrow. Devotion is offering and surrendering. Inherent in all three phases of devotion are the attitudes of offering and surrendering, with trust in the grace of īśvara. In serving īśvara, the devotee offers the result of action and ultimately offers the very action itself. In meditating on īśvara with or without attributes, the devotee offers the mind. In knowing īśvara as the self, the devotee offers the ego.
Offering the result of action means offering to īśvara any attachment and aversion with respect to outcomes of actions. An action that is performed with attachment to a desired outcome can lead to elation or disappointment, depending on whether the outcome is judged as a success or failure. The person’s happiness thus depends on the outcome of the action if it is performed with attachment to the result. Instead, the devotee cultivates an attitude of graceful acceptance of any outcome, recognizing that the outcome is determined by īśvara. Devotion is the faith that īśvara always gives an outcome that is best for the devotee. This is the attitude of surrendering and offering with respect to the result of action.
Offering the action itself means choosing and performing the action without the motive of satisfying personal desires but with the attitude of being an instrument of īśvara. In offering the result of an action, the devotee offers only attachment and aversion with respect to the result of the action. In offering the action itself, the devotee becomes an instrument in the hands of īśvara, recognizing the grace of īśvara—that even in performing an action, it is īśvara who is acting through the devotee.
In meditating on īśvara with attributes, saguṇa-brahma, the devotee offers the mind to īśvara by narrowing the scope of mental activity to exclude everything other than īśvara in the chosen form. By this method, the devotee forms a stronger identity with īśvara and the qualities of the chosen deity and weakens the identity as an individual jīva. The meditator also improves in tranquility of the mind and the powers of concentration and single-pointed focus. Over time, these benefits of meditation improve the devotee’s qualification to know the truth of the jīva’s identity with īśvara. In meditating or contemplating on transcendent īśvara, nirguṇa-brahma, the meditator offers the mind in contemplation on the nature of the self. Śrī Śaṅkarācārya identifies this as the most exalted devotion, which culminates in knowledge of the identity between the jīva and brahman. In knowing, the devotee offers the ahaṅkāra, ego, to īśvara. This offering takes place as a result of the knowledge that the ego, individuality, is false; it is a superimposition of the limitless, attribute-free self. By knowing the true self, the devotee offers the false self, ego, to īśvara.
Worshipping helps one discover devotion
From this discussion, it would seem that even to begin on the first stage of devotion, karma-yoga, one must already feel reverence and love for īśvara. One might ask, “What if I have the conviction that mokṣa is what I want, and yet I do not feel love and devotion for īśvara? How can I discover that feeling of devotion and love?”
This verse in the Bhāgavatam answers the question about what one should do to discover bhakti, the spirit of love and devotion: “śravaṇaṁ kīrtanaṁ viṣṇōḥ smaraṇaṁ pādasevanam arcanaṁ vandanaṁ dāsyaṁ sakhyam ātmanivedanam.”This is the navadhā-bhakti, devotion expressed in a nine-fold form.
Śravaṇam, listening, means listening to the glories of the Lord. Kīrtanam, singing, means singing his glories or chanting his name. Smaraṇam means meditating or contemplating on the Lord. Pādasevanam, serving the feet; arcanam, offering flowers; and vandanam, bowing down, are all forms of pūjā, ritual worship. Dāsyam, becoming a servant of the Lord, and sakhyam, having a relationship of friendship with the Lord, are attitudes implied in all actions of karma-yoga. Ātmanivedanam, offering oneself, is implied in all of the other eight forms.
These forms are the means both for expressing bhakti, the spirit of devotion, and for discovering bhakti. These different forms are given to us because they are conducive to discovering the spirit of devotion. Spirit can give rise to form and form can give rise to spirit; each one will ultimately help the other one. When you don’t have the spirit, adopt the form anyway to invoke the spirit.
These forms of worship are all actions and they all have īśvara with attributes, saguṇa-brahma, as their object. Therefore, they are forms of karma yoga, the first stage of devotion. They all entail dwelling upon īśvara with an attractive name and form, such as Lord Dakṣiṇāmūrti, Rāma, Krishna, or any other iṣṭadevatā, chosen deity.
Having many attractive choices of name and form available for dwelling upon īśvara is an advantage in Hinduism because the Vedas teach us that īśvara is both immanent as well as transcendent. As we said earlier, īśvara is both the maker as well as the material cause of the world. Therefore, īśvara, the maker, comes in every name and form as the material, just as the clay comes along with the pot. That is why we say that divinity pervades everything. Īśvara is inherent in everything; names and forms are incidental. It is possible to worship īśvara as a name and form when we realize that the essence of every name and form is īśvara. The attributes, names, and forms, do not reduce īśvara to being limited, because the attributes are superimposed; īśvara remains limitless.
To discover love, adopt a particular form of worship and the spirit of devotion will come with time. As the saying goes, “Fake it until you make it.” You intend that someday the spirit should also arise. That is why different forms of īśvara are given to us that are conducive to discovering the spirit of devotion.
…to be continued
*Swami Viditatmananda Saraswati has been teaching Vedānta Prasthānatrayī and Prakaraṇagranthas for the last 40 years in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Throughout the year, he conducts daily Vedānta discourses, accompanied by retreats, and Jñāna Yajñas on Vedānta in different cities in India and foreign countries.
