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Chapter 7
PRAPATTI OR SURRENDER TO GOD
35. Desireless Bhakti: Its Varieties And Fulfilment
16. All those belonging to these three sub-types are no doubt desireless, but their approach is not holistic. They approach God either through work or through love or through knowledge. Lastly, about the fully-blossomed bhakta. He is a man of wisdom. Whatever he sees, he sees nothing but different forms of the Lord. In the handsome and the ugly, in the prince and the pauper, in men and women, in birds and beasts—everywhere he has the sacred vision of God. Saint Tukaram’s prayer to the Lord was, ‘नर-नारी बाळे अवघा नारायण। ऐसें माझें मन करीं देवा’ (‘O Lord! Orient my mind in such a way that I find You alone in men and women and children.’) In Hinduism, there is worship of serpents, worship of an elephant-headed God[1], worship of even the trees. All this may appear silly. But we find the height of such ‘madness’ in the fully blossomed bhakta. He sees God in everything, right from an insect or an ant to the sun and the moon, and his heart overflows with joy. ‘मग तया सुखा अंत नाहीं पार। आनंदें सागर हेलावती ।’ (‘Then the bliss knows no bounds. The ocean of joy surges in the heart.’) You may say, if you like, that this magnificent divine vision is an illusion; but such an illusion is the height of bliss and happiness; it is a treasure of joy. In the serenity and majesty of an ocean, the man of wisdom sees the glory of the Lord. In a cow, he sees His tenderness. In earth, he sees His forgiveness and the capacity to bear. He finds His purity in the clear sky, His grandeur and splendour in the sun and the moon and the stars, His delicateness in flowers. Even in an evil man, he sees the Lord testing and trying him. Thus he is constantly seeing Him everywhere. Doing so, one day, he ultimately merges into the Lord.[2] |
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