Re: Sampradaya = Bhakti Marga?
Pranam Smaranam ji,
Originally Posted by
smaranam
samarpaN -- offer the false-ego at BhagvAn's Lotus Feet and completely depend on HimshraddhA, vishwAs -- complete trust and faithprem -- LovevyAkuLtA -- earnestnessruchI --- tastekshamA --- forgiveness (for other beings since paramAtmA lives in them or they are His)
Suppose if someone lacks these qualities - by the way of simply lacking, or perhaps due to cultural reasons - can these be cultivated? If, say, vyAkultA, or ruchI, or prema - surely which look like a state of being, so what if someone isn't naturally endowed with these? All the talk of Dharma will then just remain that - talk. What if someone who lacks this part, bhakti, and instead builds arguments around it, by saying "I am into gyANa, gyANa is higher than bhakti you know."I wonder how many people really mean Bhakti when they say "Bhakti". How come Bhakti came about to be misconstrued as "tears and madness"? Is there even something like "separate paths of Bhakti mArga, GyANa marga, and so on"? Isn't Bhakti by definition itself the mArga? Isn't mArga = path = division = pantha?Namaste Ram-ji,Very interesting points, indeed. With the example of Vir-Shaiva (Lingayata) sampradaya you clearly explained how what appears on the surface as "mere Bhakti" turns out to be the whole range of practises employed within Dharmic perimeters. So, in view of OP, does this mean that Bhakti is in reality "more than Bhakti"?Now, for example, suppose A and B both want to learn swimming. One of the ways to do that is:A and B go over Internet, watch a lot of Youtubes, download a plenty PDFs, and finally - just to confirm their knowledge - start discussing between themselves as to "What is the true way of swimming?" Initially the discussion is civil, but things then go south.Next, the other way of learning to swim is:A goes over the info available on Internet etc, and then decides on a fateful day to visit the pool. B, on the other hand, directly goes to the pool and enrols under an experienced trainer there. Both A and B start practising - A on the dint of self effort, and B following the trainer's instructions - they even exchange their learnings in between.In the first method, neither A nor B actually learnt swimming. In the second narrative, both tried and learned many styles of swimming- so today both know "how to swim correctly", even as each of them has developed different preferred swimming styles, even while conversant with other styles.
Things to remember:
1. Life = yajña
2. Depth of Āstika knowledge is directly proportional
to the richness of Sanskrit it is written in
3. Āstika = Bhārata ("east") / Ārya ("west")
4. Varṇa = tripartite division of Vedic polity
5. r = c. x²
where,
r = realisation
constant c = intelligence
variable x = bhakti
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