[Advaita-l] BHAKTI AND JNANA COMPARED

[V Subrahmanian]

Sri Swami Sivananda...🌹🌹🌹

BHAKTI AND JNANA COMPARED

1. Jnana is like swimming across a river. Bhakti is like crossing a river
by boat.
2. The Jnani gets knowledge by means of self-reliance and assertion. The
Bhakta gets Darshan of God through self-surrender.
3. The Jnani asserts and expands. The Bhakta surrenders and dedicates
himself to the Lord. He contracts himself.
       Let us assume that there is a rupee coin in the body of a small
circle. It begins to contract and ultimately merges itself into the centre.
This is Bhakti. If this coin so expands that it occupies the whole body of
the circle and the circumference too, it is Jnana.
4. A Bhakta wants to eat sugar-candy. A Jnani wants to become sugar-candy.
5. A Bhakta is like a kitten that cries for help. A Jnani is like a baby
monkey that clings boldly to its mother.
6. A Bhakta attains progressive liberation. A Jnani gets immediate
liberation.
7. A Jnani exhibits powers through will and strong resolve. A Bhakta
receives all the divine gifts through self-surrender and the consequent
descent of Divine Grace.
     In the Gita Lord Krishna clearly points out that Bhakti and Jnana are
not incompatible like oil and water.
     He says: "The man who is full of faith obtaineth wisdom".
     "To these, ever harmonious, worshipping in love, I give
discrimination, by which they come unto Me".
     "By devotion he knoweth Me in essence, who and what I am; having thus
known Me in essence, he forthwith entereth into the Supreme".
     To decry Jnana altogether as some sectarian devotees do, is the height
of folly. To deny Bhakti and Ishwara as some dry Vedantins do, is nothing
but sheer foolishness. A happy combination of head and heart is true
perfection.

 - Sri Swami Sivananda (Science of Yoga, Volume 3, Second Edition July 1982
pp 216 - 217)