Verse 12.1🔗

Arjuna now speaks in a totally different manner. His thought trend is different now. He asks, ‘Which of these two types of people are considered to be better: those who are always engaged in your bhakti, devotional love towards you or those who merge in the Brahman, the unmanifest, formless, Cosmic consciousness?’ arjuna uvāca evaṁ satata yuktā ye bhaktās tvāṁ paryupāsate I ye cāpy akṣaram avyaktaṁ teṣāṁ ke yoga-vittamāḥ II 12.1 Please be clear, Arjuna is not asking for himself. From here, the discourse becomes a simple discussion. It is more like trying to record the truth for future generations. The questions from here onward are neither doubts nor enquiries.

Arjuna tries to put the whole thing down in the expression form, so that it will be a useful reference for future generations. A flow of Arjuna’s love for humanity, an expression of his divine experience, prompts him to seek answers to these vexing questions and record the answers from the godhead Himself. Arjuna asks, ‘Who will be established in You totally? Will it be a devotee or a person who is enlightened?’ Religious people or so-called religious people, confuse others with this verse about Arjuna’s question as to whether worshipping the form or worshipping the formless is right. These people are so confused that Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 863 they do not know right from wrong.

They use their intellectual arrogance and misunderstanding to confuse others. Let me tell you, this is not what Arjuna meant by asking this question. If we look at Kṛṣṇa’s answers, we will understand. Experience Or Expression? Completion Or Enriching? Arjuna asks, ‘Is it good to be established in the experience of the Divine consciousness, just to stay in it and enjoy the eternal bliss that flows from that experience? Or is it better to express that love and gratitude created by the conscious experience towards the whole world and every living being? Which is correct? Which one is preferred?’ See, when we have a spiritual experience, some people stay in that experience with closed eyes, that’s all.

Only with eyes closed can they see God. They do not seek to use their senses, since the bliss within is so great and beautiful that absolutely no sensory input remotely matches that bliss. However, there are others who are impelled to open their eyes, by the Universe to communicate that blissful experience through their expression to enrich others. The so-called scholars enter into endless debates on savikalpa samādhi and nirvikalpa samādhi. Savikalpa samādhi is the state where the experience of samādhi continues. Nirvikalpa samādhi is when the expression of samādhi starts. Savikalpa samādhi is supposed to be a lower state, and one is supposed to work towards the second and higher state of nirvikalpa samādhi.

But it is not an ironclad rule. In my case, both happened together. I did not go through two stages. I went through just one and reached the state where the experience was allowed to be expressed. It was the will of the Divine, Parāśakti. Please understand that this is not a choice that people make. An option is not presented to those who have such experiences. Those who experience the Divine transcend that point of freewill. They are driven wholly, in each step that they take, by Parāśakti, the Universal energy; by Kṛṣṇa, the Super-conscious Divine. Arjuna understands that he and others who have had an experience of the Divine, face the choicelessness.

He knows that Kṛṣṇa decides what he should do. Yet, he asks because he wants everyone to understand. Arjuna asks, ‘What type of a person is greater? Is it a person who closes his eyes and sees God within himself or a person who opens his eyes and sees God in every being? Who is greater?’ Please understand, he is not asking whether worshiping the form or worshiping the formless is greater. Yet so-called religious people have interpreted it that way, and created problems between the teachings of the great masters, Ādī Śaṅkarācārya and Rāmānuja. Śaṅkara followed jñāna, the path of knowledge, and Rāmānuja followed bhakti, the path of devotion.

Jñāna, focuses on the formless through intellectual queries. Bhakti focuses on the form, sheer devotion, as if the Divine were alive as It indeed is! However, those who have studied Śaṅkara and Rāmānuja in depth know that there was much devotion in Śaṅkara’s approach and much knowledge in Rāmānuja’s approach! Both approaches converge. One without the other never works. Expressing the gratitude that happens because of the experience is devotion. Having that experience and rejoicing, staying in that experience is knowledge; that’s all. Kṛṣṇa’s answer is that both paths are the same. The paths are intertwined. The first one leads to the second one and the second one leads back to first one.

We have heard the term vicious circle. First one leads to the second and the second one leads back to the first one. Now, I want to introduce another word, ‘virtuous circle.’ Vicious circle leads to low energy or lower level of consciousness. Virtuous circle leads to high energy, a higher level of consciousness! Bliss leading to devotion and gratitude, devotion and gratitude leading to bliss: these two form the virtuous circle that lead us to higher consciousness. Bliss means the experience of completion that leads us to the expression of gratitude and enriching. Again, the expression, the gratitude of enriching, leads us to bliss, and bliss leads us to deeper completion.

One leads to the other and therefore it is a virtuous circle. Bhakti Yogaḥ Love Is Your Very Life 865 Usually we are caught in the vicious circle. Fear leads to greed and greed leads to fear. More fear leads to more greed, and more greed leads to more fear. This is the vicious circle. Here Kṛṣṇa introduces the virtuous circle. Virtuous circle is what He calls dharma, righteousness, that which must be followed in the path of truth. Dharma means virtuous circle, that which leads us to live and express higher and higher levels of Consciousness. That in turn leads us to higher and higher levels of blissful experience. Consciousness and bliss lead to expression of that consciousness and bliss, which in turn lead to higher level experiences. Fix Your Mind On Me