Post by cnupne on Jun 27, 2012 5:29:24 GMT 5.5
NATURE OF ‘BHAKTI’, MATERIAL TIES AND
THE SEEKER AND THE SOUGHT
It is My Duty to Look After those Who Are The Dependents of Those Who Depend Upon Me
The Bhagavata seems to have a different perception in regard to Krishna’s expression of happiness and Sudama’s, not revealing any of its signs. The Bhagavata might conceive of a completely detached devotee but it can not contemplate a Krishna who is as completely detached from the world and his devotees. The Bhagavata discovers, and that perhaps is the primary thrust of the Bhagavata, human concerns of God which best reveal in His manifestation as Krishna. The Krishna-Sudama episode is one of its most appropriate examples. When Krishna meets Sudama, he is emotionally moved, though he does not mind if Sudama does not reciprocate. Apart, he lauds Sudama’s detachment from all worldly desires but himself takes pleasure in touching him, holding his hands into his own and recalling the days they were together at the Gurukula. He would not let Sudama go back with the gift, whatever it was, he had brought for him. Even if a part of his ‘lila’, he childlike insists for his gift. He delivers to Arjuna his thesis of detachment and delusiveness of worldly relations – the Gita, but bound to Arjuna by ties of love he himself resorts even to things which sometimes sound to be ethically wrong. The Bhagavata’s spiritual world is very different. Here, He who redeems of ties chooses to be in ties himself. Krishna-Sudama episode presents an altogether different dimension of such ties. Here a sincere seeker reaches the Sought and by virtue of his merger in Him overcomes every tie that bound him to the world but in the process the Sought ties Himself to the seeker, and quite strongly. The Bhagavata’s perception of ‘Bhakti’ – devotion, as it reveals in this episode, seems to be alike formulated. Not merely that he worships a Brahmin or equates the service rendered to the Guru as the service rendered to him, at one stage, when the devotee has completely detached himself from the world and has merged into Him, He worships the devotee whom Sudama represents. On many occasions the Bhagavata seems to connote that ‘Bhakti’ is God’s incessant nature for while devotee’s adherence to God is in phases God’s human concerns are in perpetuity and so His devotion of mankind. Godhood, God’s human concerns and His ‘bhakti’ are almost identical