[Advaita-l] Bajanai sambradayam

[jaldhar at braincells.com]

On Thu, 21 Jul 2022, Venkatesh Murthy via Advaita-l wrote:

> The 12th chapter of Gita recommends Bhakti marga.

It does not.  The word marga does not occur anywhere in that adhyaya. 
There is only karma informed by bhakti and jnana informed by bhakti.

Krishna Bhagavan does not want Arjuna to sing "La la la Krishna is so 
great!  Hooray for Krishna!"  He wants Arjuna to have faith in Him so 
Arjuna will follow His instruction, take up his bow and arrows and kill 
the enemy.


> By practice of Bhakti the
> devotees will get Chitta Suddhi and gain eligibility for Jnana. They do not
> have to put difficult effort like the people contemplating on Akshara
> Brahman. Ishwara will lift the devotees out of Samsara quickly. This is
> Krishna’s promise in the Gita.
>
> If Bhakti is pure and Death comes before Jnana the devotee will go to
> Brahma Loka. There he will get Jnana and Moksha.
>
> Therefore there are two paths for the same goal - one extremely difficult
> and other easy. A wise person will choose the easy path.

The point of shloka 5 is only that focusing on an nirguna form of Brahman 
is hard because we are embodied beings.  Therefore we find it easier to 
deal with a saguna murti than an abstraction.  We have to remove that 
attachment to the body and that is hard for an embodied being.  It is only 
in that sense that meditating on a form of Bhagavan with devotion is 
easier.

But easier doesn't mean easy.  Krishna Bhagavan describes saguna upasana 
as:

mayyeva mana Adhatsva mayi buddhiM niveshaya |
nivasiShyasi mayyeva ata UrdhvaM na saMshayaH ||12|6||

"Fix your mind on Me alone.  Think only of Me.  Without a doubt you will 
live only in Me from then on."

Maybe 1 in 10,000 would-be bhaktas has that kind of fortitude.

It goes on to say if that fixation cannot be achieved, one should 
repeatedly practice until it is possible. (shloka 7)  If one is unable to 
achieve even this one should at least act according to dharma and offer up 
those actions as service to Bhagavan.  (shloka 8.)  Even for the leeast 
competent bhakta, the practice of ones svadharma is a must.  In no way can 
singing songs be a substitute.  An enhancement yes but not a replacement.

We do people a disservice by claiming this is easy and this is hard 
without knowing them thoroughly first.  And they above all need to know 
themselves and be honest with themselves about their capabilities.

-- 
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar at braincells.com>