WHAT IS BHAKTI

What Is Bhakti?

Bhakti means “devotional service.” Every service has some attractive feature that drives the servitor progressively and on. Everyone of us within this world is perpetually engaged in some sort of service and the impetus for such service is pleasure we derive from it. Driven by affection for his wife and children, a family man works day and night. A philanthropist works in the same way for love of the greater and a nationalist for the cause of his country and countrymen. That force which drives the philanthropist, the householder and the nationalist is called rasa, or a kind of mellow (relationship) whose taste is very sweet.

Bhakti- rasa is a mellow different from the ordinary rasa enjoyed by mundane workers. Mundane workers labour very hard day and night in order to relish a certain kind of rasa that is understood as sense gratification. The relish or taste of the mundane rasa does not long endure and therefore mundane workers are always apt to change for the weekend, he goes to places where he goes to their position of enjoyment. A businessman is not satisfied by working by the whole week; therefore, wanting a change for the weekend, he goes to a place where he tries to forget his business activities. Then after the weekend is spent in forgetfulness, he again changes his position and resumes his actual business activities. Material engagement means accepting a particular status for some-time and then changing it. This position of changing back and forth is technically known as bhoga- tyaga, which means a position of alternating sense enjoyment and renunciation

A living entity cannot steadily remain either in sense enjoyment or in renunciation. Change is going on perpetually, and we cannot be happy in either state because of our eternal constitutional position. Sense gratification does not endure for long, and it is therefore called Capala- Sukha or flickering happiness. For eg. an ordinary family man who works very hard day and night and is successful in giving comforts to the members of his family thereby relishes a kind of mellow, but his whole advancement of material happiness immediately terminates along with his body as soon as his life is over. Death is therefore taken as the representative of God for the aesthetic class of men. Then the devotee realizes the presence of God in the shape of death. At death everything is finished, and one has to begin a new chapter of life in a new situation, perhaps higher or lower than the last one. In any field of activity- political, social, national or international- the result of our actions will be finished with the end of life. That is sure.

Bhakti-rasa, however, the mellow relished in the transcendental loving service of the Lord, does not finish with the end of life. It continues perpetually and is therefore called amarta, that which does not die but exists eternally. This is confirmed in all Vedic literatures. The Bhagavad- Gita says that a little advancement in Bhakti-rasa can save the devotee from the greatest danger- that of missing the opportunity to be a human being in the next life. The rasas derived from our feelings in social life, in family life, or in the greater family life of altruism, philanthropy, nationalism, socialism, communism etc. do not guarantee that one's next life will be as a human being. We prepare our next life by our actual activities in the present life. A living entity is offered a particular type of a body as a result of his action in the present body. These activities are taken into account by a superior authority known as daiva or the authority of God. This daiva is explained in the Bhagavad Gita as the prime cause of everything, and in Srimad Bhagavatam it is said or stated that a man takes his next body by daiva-neterna, which means by the supervision of the authority of the Supreme. In an ordinary sense, daiva is explained as “destiny.” Daiva supervision gives us a body selected from 8400000 forms; the choice does not depend on our selection, but is awarded to us according to our destiny. If our body at present is engaged in the activities of Krishna consciousness, then it is guaranteed that we will have at least a human body in our next life. A human being engages in Krishna consciousness, even if unable to complete the course of bhakti-yoga, takes birth in the higher divisions of human society so that he can automatically further his advancement in Krishna consciousness. Therefore, all bonafide activities in Krishna consciousness are amarta or permanent. This is the subject matter of The Nectar of Devotion.