Chapter 6: O Krishna! Giridhari! 


The only reason I am human is to experience this devotion. Liberation I can gain even after I leave the body! Like sweetness is to sugar, devotion is to me. Nothing exists in this world for me except for my beloved Krishna! The moment I remember Him, His presence is with me. My yearning becomes devotion, my conversations become poetry, our union becomes bliss. Those who have experienced will know, for those who haven't, I can't explain! Fortunate are those who in human birth have felt this devotion for the Lord!

The most brilliant expression of consciousness is devotion. God created a mirror to see His love, the reflection was the a beautiful maiden brimming with devotion. In this divine love God embedded the highest wisdom, an essence of Himself. Devotion is an intense longing for the beloved. Devotion is the urge to merge with the divine. Devotion is an intoxication with the nectar of divine love, the cup of the heart overflowing with bliss. Without the juice of devotion all knowledge, all sadhana (spiritual practices) are dead and dry like saw dust.

Love seeks devotion, devotion seeks bliss.
All my desires for love from others is actually seeking divine love. Wanting love from others suffocates. That desire for the perfect love, for an unlimited love, for the unconditional love, to fill an emptiness within, to quench an unending thirst, is like chasing a mirage for water. People are not perfect, their love is not unconditional. I end up only with tears, heartaches and deep sadness. When I realize that the love that I seek is the love of the divine, suddenly there is freedom, expansion, relief, and a smile on my face! That emptiness inside is filled instantly with sweet love, I want to love Him endlessly, no matter how much I try to express my love for Him it is incomplete. That strong urge for His presence, that pleading and prayer, my soul cries, "Oh Krishna! Be with me! Come to me! Govind! Govind!! Govind!!!" Tears of love and yearning roll down my face...

When I was a little girl in Delhi I went with my family to a exhibition of Krishna's paintings, I think it might have been by Hare Rama Hare Krishna organization. I still remember looking at a painting of Krishna stealing butter from a pot and I was so mesmerized that I got lost completely in Him and forgot everything around me. My parents left the hall and were about to leave when they realized I was not with them. They came looking for me and found me starring into the painting! Krishna is my best friend, he is always with me.

I remember when we were in Zambia, we had just returned from a trip to India and my mother had bought a sandalwood statue of Krishna as a gift. I still vividly remember the day when I said to my mother that I would like to keep that statue and not give it to anyone. I must be around 12. I used to hold that Krishna statue in my hand, put on Krishna bhajans, sing and dance with Him. One day in my room He looked so alive in the statue, I asked Him, "is it You?", "If it's you then make your shadow disappear" and it did. So innocent, pure and beautiful where those moments that I shared with Krishna as a little girl. Inside me in a sacred space there is that little girl who lives inside Krishna and within whom there is only Krishna. Whenever I am in deep despair I hold his statue close to my heart and cry, put him on my pillow and sleep.


Each one of us is natural lover, it is the easiest thing to be...
Each one of us attempts to express it differently, but love cannot be expressed...
Each one of us has a definition of love, at different times, for different people, but love cannot be defined...
Each one of us loves someone or something, so deeply, so passionately, but love cannot be found...Where are you, my love, whom I seek and for whom my soul cries, since eons I have longed for you...O my beloved quench this thrist so I may merge with you and be One and Whole! So that there is non other than you in all creation and I will merge with I and roam free and high! Till then I sing in a trance of love... Till then I dance in a play of love. The angels envy, I am here in your company, and experience the colors of love in ecstacy!


At the pinnacle of devotion is liberation
At the pinnacle of knowledge is Divine Love
In Divine Love knowledge is inherent
Without love knowledge is meaningless....


For a devotee this duality is a play, devotion or divine love needs an external God, but in divine love, in bliss and ecstacy the devotee merges into the divine and becomes One. For a Gyani there is no duality - he knows he is God - Aham Brahmasmi. No matter what the path the journey ends in Oneness and one realizes that He is Love, He is Knowledge. 

Raas Leela of Krsna and the Gopis the eternal cosmic celebration...the dance of duality. Krishna is mine only mine! I am dissolving in devotion....merging into my charming Krsna...oh! I am drunk with this bliss! ..and in the height of this ecstacy i become unconscious, nothing remains just His cool divine loving presence :) leave me here I am satisfied, I am finally at rest, my heart at home...


The mind drops to the heart becomes meditation...
The heart longs, oh! my beloved, blossoms into devotion...
These tears of devotion... become precious pearls...
In the dance of trance unbecome...merge...transend...

The sage Narad in his Bhakti Sutras - The Aphorisms of Love explains the nine forms of devotion:

1. Sravaam listening to Bhagavat Katha or glories of the Lord.
2. Kīrtanam singing God’s glories.
3. Smaraam remembering HIM in our minds.
4. Pādasevanam. serving the Lotus Feet of the Lord.
5. Arcanam which is worshipping the idol form of God.
6. Vandanam – paying obeisance to HIM by detaching himself from other distractions and offers his undivided attention.
7. Dāsyam in which the devotee considers himself as a humble servant of the Lord and is ever ready to serve HIM without the slightest idea of receiving anything in return.
8. Sākhyam In this kind of devotion the devotee reaches to that height or level whereupon he starts considering the Lord as his friend.
9. Atmanivedanam in which the devotee offers himself completely to God thinking whatever God does is right.

Around the 15th century there was a burst of devotion on earth with Sufis and Hindu saints singing love poems for the divine. Buddha was was wise, enlightened and complete. Devotional saints Chaitanya and Meera experienced ecstasy, danced, sang and they were also enlightened and complete. They experienced the highest state of devotion, "What am I without You?". This body is capable of both wisdom and devotion. Devotion is not to be explained or understood, devotion is a poem to be sung! 


Meera Bai

Meera bai epitomizes Bhakti (devotion). Her unwavering love for her Krishna was the most beautiful, even Krishna would helplessly be drawn to her. Her conversations with Krishna, came out as love poems Bhajans, and are remembered even today. For a devotee all love songs are bhajans (devotion songs) and all bhajans are love songs. She did not want to get married but was married to Rajasthani Mewar prince Bhoj Raj when she was 13. She was not interested in married life, for her no one existed except Krishna. Her husband was a nice person, he built Meera a temple for her Krishna. He died a few years after the their marriage in war. Meera's father-in-law liked and protected Meera. After he died Meera's older brother-in-law and other in-laws were very unjust to Meera and tortured her. She was also a rebel and an unconventional woman. She never let go of devotion for Krishna not matter how much anyone tried. In the bleakest time of her life when her in-laws rebuked her and her own family didn't want her back is when she sang the bhajan, "Mere to Giridhar Gopal dusaro na koi". I don't know why her life was full of so much misery. Finally she decided to leave her in-laws, one night she left the fort of Chittaur with deep pain in her heart, "Why don't they understand why I love Him so much?" For many days hungry and thirty she traveled through the desert. She spent sometime in the home town of Krishna, Mathura and Vrindavan. She always wanted to find a Guru and gain knowledge. Saint Chaitanya's disciple in Mathura refused to initiate her into meditation saying that she was a woman. To him she said, "I thought the only male in this universe is Krishna, the rest female". She then went to Varanasi and was initiated by Saint Tulsidas. It was after this she sang, "Payoji maine Naam ratan dhan payo. Vastu amolik di mere Sat Guru, kiripa kar apanayo". "Naam" is when a disciple is given the meditation mantra from their Guru. She finally went to Krishna's kingdom, Dwarka in Gujarat. Her youngest brother-in-law, Udai, had now built a new capital, Udaipur, with beautiful palaces and wanted Meera bai to come back. He sent a few people to Dwarka to convince her. She was so happy in Dwarka and didn't want to go back. At night she entered the Dwarka Deesh mandir and in her supreme glory, her one-pointed devotion for Krishna and intense longing to unite with him, she did, all that was there was light, no matter. When the priests went in to look for her all they found were her garments. She left when she was around 50. 

If you asked me to choose between this love and knowledge, I would choose love. Knowledge seems so cold, dry and pales in comparison with the love song, dance and celebration with the divine! Meditation? Come feel this ecstasy, the elation, the bliss when a lover merges with the beloved. It is electrifying. This too is samadhi -  a sweet samadhi - not that emptiness. 
Meera reads the love of Radha and Krishna in the Geet Govind:

Kabir

I love another saint of the 15th century, Kabir. He wrote such simple yet wise poems which spur an individual to look for a deeper meaning to life. Here is one of my favorite poems of sant Kabir:

Sufis
Sufism is a devotional mystical dimension of Islam. Sufi poems and music is so close to my heart. I wish that this would once again evolve in the Muslim culture. The wisdom that is embedded in the love poems of the Sufis is the most beautiful and heart moving. There are so many old Sufi poems and contemporary Sufi songs that I listen to. Rumi is one of the most revered Sufi saints, known for his mystic style. Rumi's poems elegantly and consistently touch our inner being and inspire us to go beyond our limitations towards the Divine. Rumi believed in the religion of love. Here is one the Rumi poems I like:

I love a contemporary Sufi singer, Abida Parveen. She is like a Sufi herself, see her immerse herself and sing as though in a trance.

Krishna expounds Bhakti to Arjun in the Bhagavad Gita Chapter 12. Krishna talks about a ladder of Bhakti. Doing each action as an offering in a Puja (prayer) to the divine is Karma Yoga. Taking what comes as Prasaad (God's offering). A Swamiji explained Karma Phal (fruits of actions) so well - he said Karma Phal is a technical term which means drop the worries and anxieties for the future. Keep your mind in the present, action is done in the present. If the mind is free from worries, anxieties then it is calmer and more focused and less dissipated to act. Worrying about the future takes away so much energy of the mind. When Vasanas are 80% then drop the worries. They become 60% then do Karma Yoga, the mind and Vasanas get more purified. Then at 40% do Abyasa, practice, to bring back the wandering mind again and again. I think for that Pranayama and focus on breath is good. Then when 20% Vasanas are there mind can be purified through meditation, contemplation. Then Krishna explains that knowledge is more important than abyasa, meditation more important than knowledge. The highest form of devotion being meditation on the formless, cosmic consciousness.  And renouncing the fruits of action more important than meditation. Peace immediately follows. This is the ladder of Bhakti. 

Devotion is a shadow of the Self. This devotee is nothing but You, this love I feel inside is nothing but You, this longing for You is nothing but You, this offering is nothing but You, You are the goal, it's all You oh Lord! Bhakti is like a Yagya. 
Brahma arpanam Brahma havir
Bramha agnou Bramhan ahutham
Brahmeva thena ghantavyam
Bramha Karma Samadina" --Bhagavad Gita 4.24

Brahman is the process of giving, that which is being offered is also Brahman; by Brahman (me) it is offered into Brahman and united.

Brahman is to be attained by seeing Brahman in all actions.

There are different stages a devotee evolves through. First there is a need for a form, as the heart fills and mind only in Him the devotee sees the divine in all forms and everywhere. The devotee then sees the divine as the essence behind all of creation and worships Him as the formless. As the devotee merges and dissolves he becomes one with the divine. This is the ultimate knowledge, and at the climax of devotion there is only this ultimate truth of Oneness. 


Devotion is unconditional love between me and the divine and at the peak of devotion, the merging into the divine one becomes unconditional love, bliss. In my life I have experienced this devotion and this unconditional love with my mother, my son and my Guru.