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Chapter 12
SAGUNA AND NIRGUNA BHAKTI
65. Saguna And nirguna Are One: My Own Experience
28. Hence, words fail while attempting to describe the difference between the saguna devotee and the nirguna devotee. Saguna and nirguna come together in the end. Though the spring of bhakti may flow out of saguna, it reaches nirguna in the end. Long back, I had gone to Vaikom at the time of satyagraha there. I knew that the birth-place of Shankaracharya was somewhere on the Malabar coast. While passing by the Malabar coast, it occurred to me that Kaladi, the birth-place of Shankaracharya must be somewhere nearby. On enquiry, my local companion told me that it was just 10-12 miles away and enquired whether I would like to go there. But I declined. The purpose of my visit was to observe the Vaikom satyagraha[1]. I thought that it was not proper for me to go anywhere else. I still think that what I did was right. But every time I went to bed, the village of Kaladi and the image of Shankaracharya would stand before my eyes and I could not sleep. That experience is still fresh in my mind. Thoughts about Shankaracharya—the power of his wisdom, his divine certitude in the advaita philosophy[2], his rare and fiery vairagya that considered the phenomenal world as trash, his serene language, and the infinite debt that I owe to him—would crowd in my mind. Then I realised how nirguna is filled with saguna. Had I visited Kaladi, I perhaps would not have felt such surging emotions. Even in nirguna, saguna is at its zenith. I rarely write letters to friends making routine enquiries, but the thought of them is always there in my mind. Saguna thus lies hidden in nirguna. They are essentially one. Worship of an idol or visible acts of service and constant thinking about the world’s welfare without any outward indication of worship—both these have the same worth and value. |
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