The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self- 7: Swami Krishnananda.

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Saturday 07, September 2024, 05:45.
Article
Scripture
The Duty of Karma Yoga: Cooperating with Our Higher Self: 7.
Swami Krishnananda
(Spoken on October 14, 1984)

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Dasya is total subjection of oneself to the magnificence of God. We feel that we are utter servants, as it were, and God is the Supreme Master. He is the Lord of all lords, the Father of all fathers, the Master of all masters, and therefore, we are His servants. Rarely, in extreme forms of elevated devotion, God is considered as one's own equal, like a friend. We speak to God, as it were, as if He is in front of us. There were some saints in India, and perhaps in the West also, who could speak to God and summon Him, and they could expect God to do anything for them. If they ask Him to bring a vegetable, He will bring it like a servant boy. They develop such an intimate relationship with God that they have no fear of Him. They love Him in the same way as they love a friend. It is rare to find such devotion prevalent in human beings, but it is one of the nine mentioned in tradition.

Atma-nivedana is the last method of devotion. Actually it should not be called a method; it is the culmination of devotion. “I am Thine.” We have completely dedicated ourselves.

Atma-samarpana is the soul's offering of itself to the universal spirit. These are the well-known nine methods of devotion called navavidha bhakti in bhakti yoga shastras, scriptures of devotion.

There are also five ways of attitude, called bhavas. There is no need to expatiate on that because they are intensely mystical methods of the soul's feeling for God. A novitiate or a beginner cannot understand what all this means. We may love God, but how would we love Him? Would we consider Him as our father? Would we consider Him as our boss, a master? Would we consider Him as our equal, a friend? Or would we consider Him as our child, and caress Him? What is the way in which we can express our affection? Bhakti yoga is a masterly science of psychology in the sense that in the introduction and suggestion of these ways or bhavas of bhakti, a system has been discovered to transmute human love into divine love. It is impossible to destroy the principle of affection in the human mind. Either it is there as it is in normal human beings, or else a person is unconscious. In all conscious states, there is a movement of consciousness in the form of a liking or affection for something, and anyone who is sufficiently educated in human psychology and nature knows what love is, what affection is, and what are the things that can evoke affection in any human being.

These objects which evoke human affection are transferred to the personality of the Supreme Creator of the universe so that this Ultimate Being, external to which there can be nothing, becomes the very same thing which pulls us in this world of attractions. Whatever attracts us in this world is the Universal Being Himself. That is, we see this there, whatever it be, and it is up to anyone to find out what it is that pulls one's affection. So it is suggested that this verse abhyāsepy asamarthosi matkarmaparamo bhava means the bhakti yoga method of human communion with God through feeling or love. But even this is a difficult thing. We cannot even love God. We cannot love anybody, really speaking. We always love with a knife hidden under our armpit, and we develop this kind of attitude even with God: “I love God. Thou art all, but give me something.” So even the love of God, which is apparently considered by the Almighty, Sri Krishna, as a third alternative and the most diluted form of approach, even that is hard for us.

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Continued

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