Existing to Love
Q & A with Swami B. V. Tripurari
"While monists cherish eternal "being," Vaishnavas cherish eternal
loving. In short, monists love to exist, whereas Vaishnavas exist to
love."
Q. Within the Hindu tradition, saints who practice mystic yoga are said
to develop powers (siddhis), such as levitation and mind reading, as
byproducts of their mastery. Comparatively, saints in the bhakti
tradition manifest no such superhuman powers. Why?
A. It is not true that siddhis do not manifest in the lives of saints
in the bhakti tradition. Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Madhvacharya,
Ramanujacharya, and other great Vaishnava saints performed many
miraculous acts. The miracles of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu are recorded in
books such as Chaitanya Bhagavata and Sri Chaitanya-caritamrta. Among
the miracles of Sri Chaitanya is his jungle lila in which he caused
ferocious animals to chant and dance in ecstatic love of Krishna.
However, in Vaishnavism, perhaps more than in other Hindu traditions,
the attainment of siddhis is not considered very important. This is
because Vaishnavism is a grace-based path centered on love and devotion
to God. Rather than attaining power, Gaudiya Vaishnavas are concerned
with attaining and even overwhelming the powerful himself with the
power of love. Of course, siddhis are discussed in Vaishnava
literature. Of the eighteen listed in Srimad Bhagavatam, eight are
described as being spiritual, having their shelter in God, and ten are
described as being psychic, having their shelter in the material mode
of goodness (sattva-guna). Siddhis are described there in the context
of identifying them as being distractions, or even obstacles on the
path. With this understanding, the practitioner can dismiss them as
they arise so that he or she can concentrate on developing pure love of
God.
In this connection, there is a famous story illustrating the Vaishnava
viewpoint on yogic siddhis. A yogi was demonstrating his personal power
by walking on water across a wide river. All who saw him were awestruck
by this exhibition with the exception of one humble devotee of Krishna.
When asked why he was not impressed, the devotee replied that the
yogi's power was worth less than a rupee. Why? Because for the price of
a rupee one can take a boat across the river while keeping one's
feet from getting wet as well.
Q. I've noticed that some gurus from India are like stars that radiate
love and light in all directions. Conversely, some who practice
Vaishnavism seem rather stingy with their love; preferring instead to
direct it one way, toward Krishna, with the mindset that love "trickles
down" from there.
Why should different traditions within the larger context of Hinduism
produce such distinct mentalities, and where does love really belong?
If one aspires to love Krishna but not one's fellow man, then how is it
possible to manifest love of God to humanity in a meaningful way?
A. True spirituality involves loving all beings and nature as well, but
within the spectrum of spirituality people prefer and pursue different
realizations. Gaudiya Vaishnavas practice devotion to Krishna because
this manifestation of God represents the heart of divinity--the romantic
love life of the Absolute; they want to be involved in this unique
transcendent experience.
Other transcendentalists (monists) believe there is ultimately no
distinction between the individual soul and God. They focus their
attention on the all-pervasive feature of divinity envisioning other
manifestations of God as partial expressions of an ineffable
Absolute--Brahman. Their desire is to merge the self (atma) into oneness
with Brahman. Thus for the monists there is no love in transcendence
per say, as their goal is to experience no sense of any "other," and
thereby no object of love.
As in all true yogic paths, pursuing this realization requires
rejecting the exploitation of matter for personal satisfaction. For
monists, this gives rise to a broad sense of universal compassion that
evolves into an experiential state of eternal, unadulterated being.
Vaishnavas also come to the experience of universal compassion and
eternality, but while monists cherish eternal "being," Vaishnavas
cherish eternal loving. In short, monists love to exist, whereas
Vaishnavas exist to love.
Bhagavad-gita says, yoginam api sarvesam, "Of all yogis, one who abides
in me (Krishna) with full faith, worshiping me in devotion, is most
intimately united with me and considered the best of all." This verse
speaks of dynamic oneness with God; oneness in devotion and love that
allows for the object of love (Krishna) and the lover (the self/atma)
to exist in simultaneous union and difference. This post-liberated
state known as rasa, love in transcendence, is the be-all and end-all
of Vaishnavism.
Monists may appear universal when they express equal affinity for all
manifestations of divinity, but this mindset does not lead to pure love
of Krishna (prema). The path to prema requires nothing less than
single-minded devotion to the perfect object of love--Sri Krishna. This
is not the goal of the monists; only Vaishnavas are interested in the
pursuit of such love in rasananda--eternal loving ecstasy. This
transcendent experience is possible in the fullest sense only in
relation to Sri Krishna, who is appropriately known as Rasaraja--the
King of Rasa. Those who carefully study Krishna bhakti as compared to
paths centered on Buddha, Shiva, Brahma, Durga, or the pursuit of
nirvana or spiritual oneness (sayujya-mukti), will know that rasananda
is available only in relation to Sri Krishna and his avataras. At the
same time, one who properly understands and follows the path of Krishna
bhakti will exhibit love everywhere, as kindness to all beings and
chanting Krishna nama go hand in hand. Gaudiya Vaishnavas consider
these two, chanting and kindness, to be the essence of dharma (sarva
dharma sara). They see all Hindu gods and goddesses as manifestations
of Krishna's power and potency, being venerable in that light.
However, as you mentioned we do find that some in the name of Krishna
bhakti appear to be hardhearted, showing little in the way of love for
humanity or nature, and may even exhibit a tendency to vilify other
gods and goddesses. Such misrepresentation of Krishna bhakti is often
the result of an intellectual orientation to devotion in which
knowledge (jnana) and detachment (vairagya) override love as the focus
of one's practice. This may also involve a fundamentalist orientation
to Krishna bhakti that results in vilifying other Vaishnavas in the
name of strict adherence to a misunderstanding of Vaishnava doctrine.
Sri Bhaktivinoda Thakura, the pioneer of the Krishna consciousness
movement, addressed such misunderstanding of Vaisnavism when he wrote,
"Those who think that devotion to God and kindness to others are
exclusive of one another will not be able to cultivate pure devotional
service to Krishna. Their activities are only a semblance of devotion."
Editor's note: Swami Tripurari's book Rasa--Love Relationships in Transcendence can be
downloaded here:
http://swamitripurari.com/2010/08/rasa-love-relationships-in-transcenden
ce/
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