Importance of Sadhana
Gross Vs Subtle
a. The Hindu mind is assured that the invisible is the real. His scientific curiosity and thirst for knowledge is diverted towards the realm of visible things. The grosser and the more external the things, the lesser is its value to the seeking Hindu.
b. The Hindu has no faith in wasting his precious life and faculties on research into things that he is convinced are absolutely transitory, evanescent.
c. He spares himself no pains to get at the thing that is permanent, imperishable.
Transitory Vs Eternal
a. The Hindu brings to bear all his wisdom, his keen observation, his powerful logic, deep research and searching analysis and scientific calculation in his all-out attempt to pierce beyond the veil of passing appearance and to come face-to-face with the Truth, the Eternal Fact:
b. The Hindu lavishes his genius upon this field that he regards as worth his while, as it is concerned with eternal values;
c. All other territory he considers it idle to waste too much effort upon; for to him, it seems absurd to run too seriously after shadows. Such labours of our ancient stalwarts resulted in the evolution of the marvellous system of Yoga for realising the Truth.
Spiritual Psychology
a. The system of yoga constitutes the practical methodology for the great attainment. These sadhanas are the outcome of the deepest psychology research… It is supra-mental psychology: spiritual psychology.
Maya
a. According to the Indian philosophy, only the Transcendent Being is real, all other are false. The feeling that we are different from That is the work of Maya: Ahankara or egoism is the chief bar to the experience of the Inner Reality.
b. It is this thought of “I” that is the cause of bondage, calamity and agonies.
Ego
a. If the aspirant kills this ego-serpent, he will attain the treasure of transcendent bliss.
b. Therefore, methods have been devised to destroy this arch-enemy of Self-realisation. This is no easy task, however. It has many modification, ramifications, manifestations and grosser by-products…. It lurks through one’s thoughts, feelings, behaviour, speech and action. Man is, in fact, the monument of egoism.
c. Ego is interwoven in the personality and everything about Man. It has to be removed. It requires subtle methods to remove the ego from his intellectual, mental, emotional and physical levels of existence. (pg. 6). That called for many subtle methods of handling such an elusive and subtle ego. (Those who are aliens to the Hindu culture, and even those ignorant Indians, who are unfamiliar with the science of this exercise, ridicule the Hindu system.)
Intellectual Level: Buddhi
6. Ego-barrier is expressed on the intellectual plane: the Buddhi. It is this cognising principle of wrong identification with the body, which the Hindu called Adhyasa, is the main cause of all problems.
7. This identification with the body is the element that gives rise to the following errors:
a. I am such and such person.
b. I am a Brahmin
c. I am a non-Brahmin
d. I am an aristocrat
e. I am a commoner
f. I am rich
g. I am poor
h. I am healthy
i. I am unhealthy
j. I am fair
k. I am dark
l. I am fat
m. I am handsome
n. I am ugly
o. I am clever
p. I am dull, tall, short, old or young, etc.
8. These adhyasas so insidiously woven into Man’s consciousness. He comes to believe them. The identification started right from the moment of birth, even before the intelligence commenced in the infant. Life started with this false identification. The person grows in this self-hypnotism. The Hindu has to, therefore, come up with something that is powerful enough to counter this self-hypnotism. That is why Sadhana came into being.
9. Sravana: Jnana Yoga: 1st Step
a. Sadhana has to be regular and systematic. The first step in regard to this counter attack is “Sravana”: day after day, the seeker sits by his teacher and constantly hears declarations such as “You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are neither sleeping nor in a wakeful state. You are the Self. This is first stage in Jnana Yoga. This is auto-suggestion.
b. These ideas are relentlessly hammered again and again into the aspirant’s mind.
10. Manana: 2nd Step
a. The second step is reflection upon these assertions. This reflection is called manana. To keep up with this manana, the Hindu resorts to studying the scriptures, which is called Svadhyaya.
11. Nididhyasana: 3rd Step
a. The third step is called Nididhyasana, which means deep and intense meditation on a single Truth. The Hindu meditates on the Mahavakyas.
12. Adjuncts
a. Man’s ego is very subtle. It is constantly stimulated and excited into expression by the following factors that attack Man’s external. These are called Upadhis or Adjuncts:
i. Profession
ii. Wealth
iii. Dress
iv. Habits
v. Physical appetites like
1. smoking,
2. gambling,
3. fashion,
4. talent,
5. praise,
6. authority,
7. environments,
8. company, etc.
b. These Upadhis augment the identification with the body. They limit Man’s consciousness.
13. Disciplines
a. It is to counter these countless limiting factors that the Hindu seers came up with the series of disciplines:
i. Give up all sensuality
ii. Control the senses
iii. Control the mind
iv. Give up gross physical comforts
v. Ignore wealth
vi. Give up physical adornments: be simple, wear simple clothes, shave your head,
vii. Give up flowers, scents
viii. Give up dancing
ix. Give up music
x. Live simple and hard life in humble submission to the teacher
14. Neti-Neti Sadhana: 4th Step
a. The ego principle would, nevertheless, still rears its ugly head in other forms. The Hindu seeker has yet another method to deal with this too: Neti-neti sadhana. This is the fourth stage.
Emotional Level
15. While the above are the causes of the Buddhi that operates at intellectual level, there is also another level at which the ego principle operates: emotional level.
16. At this level, it rests at deep attachments, sentiments and infatuations. It expresses itself in the following forms:
a. Affections
b. Attachments
c. Feelings of love to humans and things of this physical world.
17. Sentiment plays a great part in holding the Jiva in bondage. The majority of mankind is enslaved in this manner:
a. earthly sentiments and
b. deluded attachment.
18. Bhakti Yoga
a. The Hindu seers saw the need to transfer this moha, attachment to the world to another so that the Jiva would not be anchored to this world. They came up with Bhakti-yoga. Through this method, the attachment that the Jiva feels towards the impermanent things of this world is transferred to the permanent principle of existence: God.
b. Instead of driving out wrong ideas and substituting them by right thought, the Hindu seers found it easier to divert attachments, sublimating sentiments, affection and emotions to God: by diverting the flow of the heart’s love from mundane objects to a supra-mundane ideal. This can be seen in the pancha-bhavas of Santa, Dasya, Sakya, Vatsalya and Mahhurya: these are clearly indicative of a careful observation and study of the main types of human temperament.
c. The ancient seers had psychological insight into the predominant attachments, the attraction centres of love, loyalty and allied emotions that hold in sway the vast majority of individuals in this world of human relationship. (pg. 11) They were found to classifiable into
i. the calm and composed state of emotional balance,
ii. the element of admiring hero-worship,
iii. the strong ties of companionship between friends,
iv. the maternal instinct (doting) or motherly love and
v. the erotic element expressed as all-absorbing, intense Prem or the passion of pure love between the lover and the beloved.
d. Each of these is such a force under the strong impelling power of which the individual goes to the extent of readily sacrificing his very life.
e. In Bhakti Yoga, we find formulated the admirable technique for gradually transferring this emotional adhesion from an outward physical object to the inward spiritual ideal. (pg. 12). It may be tersely summarised in the two terms of “detach” and “attach”. It is the detaching of the emotional adherence from the earthly objects and attaching the same to the spiritual personality of Ishta. (pg.12)
19. The benefit of this mode or attitude is, the more you progress into this inward realm of love, the more complete does your detachment to the evanescent, perishable physical love-object become until it reaches the state of a total severance of this gross attachment. The attachment, instead is formed with the Divine ideal of the Ishta.
20. In this regard, the nine-fold mode of devotional Sadhana is laid down:
a. Sravana: delighting in daily listening to the Divine Lilas and the glorification of one’s chosen deity. The corollaries of Sravana are the following:
i. Satsanga: company of the wise
ii. Sraddha: faith.
iii. Sadhana Bhakti: devotion to the Lord. At this stage, the sadhak burns the sins and obstalces to his devotion.
iv. Nishta: devoutness
v. Ruchi: taste for hearing and chanting
vi. Rati: Intense attachment
vii. Sthyi Bhava: steadiness or permanent of Bhakti Rasa
viii. Maha Bhava: living in the Lord
b. Kirtan: the singing of hymns and devotional songs embodying sweet and touching sentiments of adoration, prayerfulness, supplication and the like serves to make the devotee’s relation more intimate with the Ishta Deva, and to intensify the bond of gradually progressive affection and love.
c. Smaran: constant recollection of and dwelling upon God’s Lilas serves to further deepen the Yogi’s attachment to the chosen ideal, thus further fulfil the requirement of Nishta (=devoutness).
d. Padasevana: serving the Lord's feet. Actually this can be done only by Lakshmi or Parvati. No mortal being has got the fortune to practise this method of Bhakti for the Lord is not visible to the physical eyes. But it is possible to serve the image of God in idols and better still, taking the whole humanity as God. This is Padasevana. Padasevana is service of the sick. Padasevana is service of the poor. Padasevana is service of the whole humanity at large. The whole universe is only Virat-Svarupa. Service of the world is service of the Lord. Service of the Lord's feet can be done through formal worship to Murtis or idols in temples or to a mental image of God.
(http://sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection§ion_id=496)
e. Archana: Archana is worship of the Lord. "Those who perform the worship of Vishnu in this world, attain the immortal and blissful state of Moksha." Thus says the Vishnu-Rahasya. Worship can be done either through an image or a picture or even a mental form. The image should be one appealing to the mind of the worshipper.
Worship can be done either with external materials or merely through an internal Bhava or strong feeling. The latter one is an advanced form of worship which only men of purified intellect can do. Worship should be done according to the rules laid down in the Varnashrama-Dharma or in the case of advanced devotees worship can be done in any manner they like. The purpose of worship is to please the Lord, to purify the heart through surrender of the ego and love of God. Serving the poor people and worshipping saints is also worship of the Virat-Svarupa of the Lord. The Lord appears in all forms. He is everything. The scriptures declare that the Lord alone appears as the sentient and the insentient beings. The devotee should have Narayana-Bhava or Isvara-Bhava in all beings. He should consider all creatures, down even to the worm as merely God. This is the highest form of Worship.
f. Vandana: Vandana is prayer and prostration. Humble prostration touching the earth with the eight limbs of the body (Sashtanga-Namaskara), with faith and reverence, before a form of God, or prostration to all beings knowing them to be the forms of the One God, and getting absorbed in the Divine Love of the Lord is termed prostration to God. The Bhagavata says: "The sky, air, fire, water, earth, stars, planets, the cardinal points (directions), trees, rivers, seas and all living beings constitute the body of Sri Hari. The devotee should bow before everything in absolute devotion, thinking that he is bowing before God Himself." Lord Krishna says to Uddhava: "Giving no attention to those who laugh in ridicule, forgetting the body and insensible to shame, one should prostrate and bow down to all beings, even to the dog, the ass, the Chandala and the cow. All is Myself, and nothing is but Myself."
The ego or Ahankara is effaced out completely through devout prayer and prostration to God. The Divine Grace descends upon the devotee and man becomes God.
g. Dasya: Dasya-Bhakti is the love of God through servant-sentiment. To serve God and carry out His wishes, realising His virtues, nature, mystery and glory, considering oneself as a slave of God, the Supreme Master is Dasya-Bhakti. Serving and worshipping the Murtis in temples, sweeping the temples, meditating on God, and mentally serving Him like a slave, serving the saints and the sages, serving the devotees of God, serving the poor and the sick people who are forms of God, is also included in Dasya-Bhakti. To follow the words of the scriptures, to act according to the injunctions of the Vedas, considering them to be direct words of God, is Dasya-Bhakti. Association with and service of love-intoxicated devotees and service of those who have knowledge of God is Dasya-Bhakti. The purpose behind Dasya-Bhakti is to be ever with God in order to offer services to Him and win His Divine Grace and attain thereby Immortality.
h. Sakhya: Sakhya-Bhava is cultivation of friend-sentiment with God. The inmates of the family of Nandagopa cultivated this Bhakti. Arjuna cultivated this kind of Bhakti. The Bhagavata says: "Oh, how wonderful is the fortune of the people of Vraja, of cowherd Nanda whose dear friend is the perfect, eternal Brahman of Absolute Bliss!". To be always with the Lord, to treat Him as one's own relative or a friend, belonging to one's own family, to be in His company at all times, to love Him as one's own Self, is Sakhya-Bhava of Bhakti-Marga. The devotee of Sakhya-Bhava takes up with eagerness any work of the Lord leaving aside even the most important and urgent and pressing work, assuming an attitude of neglect towards personal work, and totally concerning himself with the love of the Lord. How do friends, real friends love in this world? What an amount of love they possess between one another? Such a love is developed towards God instead of towards man. Physical love is turned into spiritual love. There is a transformation of the mundane into the Eternal.
i. Atma-nivedana: this is self-surrender. In the Vishnu-Sahasranama it is said: "The heart of one who has taken refuge in Vasudeva, who is wholly devoted to Vasudeva, gets entirely purified, and he attains Brahman, the Eternal."The devotee offers everything to God, including his body, mind and soul. He keeps nothing for himself. He loses even his own self. He has no personal and independent existence. He has given his self for God. He has become part and parcel of God. God takes care of him and God treats him as Himself. Grief and sorrow, pleasure and pain, the devotee treats as gifts sent by God and does not attach himself to them. He considers himself as a puppet of God and an instrument in the hands of God. He does not feel egoistic, for he has no ego. His ego has gone over to God. It is not his duty to take care of his wife, children, etc., for he himself has no independent existence apart from God. God will take care of all. He knows how to lead the world in the right path. One need not think that he is born to lead the world. God is there who will look to everything which man cannot even dream of. He has no sensual craving, for he has no body as it is offered to God. He does not adore or love his body for it is God's business to see to it. He only feels the presence of God and nothing else. He is fearless, for God is helping him at all times. He has no enemy for he has given himself up to God who has no enemies or friends. He has no anxiety for he has attained everything by attaining the grace of God. He has not even the thought of salvation; rather he does not want salvation even; he merely wants God and nothing but God. He is satisfied with the love of God for by that there is nothing that is not attained. What is there to be attained, when God has sent His grace upon the devotee? The devotee does not want to become sugar but taste sugar. There is pleasure in tasting sugar, but not in becoming sugar itself. So the devotee feels that there is supreme joy more in loving God than becoming God. God shall take complete care of the devotee. "I am Thine," says the devotee.
21. In the nine-fold mode of devotion, the first two (=Sravana and Kirtan) serve to saturate the mind with ideas of the Ishta and a wealth of associated thoughts. Their work is augmented by regular formalistic worship like Padasevan, Archan, etc., that leads on to the culminating stages of Bhakti when the devotee’s life blooms out into a constant intense and practical living of one or the other of the attitudes which takes up the entire emotional field of the seeker’s personality and fully dominates his consciousness entering into and colouring everyone of even its minutest phases and fluctuations.
22. The unregenerate individual is selfishness personified, the being of overweening vanity, who theists for self-recognition, self-satisfaction and self-adulation. His ego swells with each and every feather added on to his cap of vanity. A thorough overhauling of his unregenerate, self-bound, egocentric personality is indicate... the first concern to one who would seek redemption from this state."
23. Abhimanas of a man are the fetters that bind him down to his limited individuality. Ego is their substratum and main support. Pride of high birth, pride of learning, vanity of good looks and accomplishments. Arrogance of status or of wealth, the sense of superiority due to innumerable factors connected with the body, consequent sense of false prestige and dignity, sense of shame, are some of the commonest forms of Abhimana present in the average individual. To cast out such vain Abhimana of birth, rank, wealth, learning, etc., is the task behind the Sadhana of the karma Yoga.
24. In the course of their observation and practical study of Man, the sages found out…Gunas had to be transcended one after another in their order of progression. (For instance), Tamoguna has to be converted from the gross Tamas into active Rajas, From Rajas, it could be later transformed into the purity of Sattva. Herein is found the need for a syatmen of Sadhana that could in the first instance assail and break down the gross Tamasic aspects of the ego-sense in the individual.
25. “It is I who did this,” “by me alone was done that,” “All this I have done” – thus asserts the strong abhimana of the extremely unregenerate Tamasic ego in man in his early days of darkness and constricted ego-centred living. The gradual renunciation of this strong, vain, self-arrogating sense of doership… forms the rock-bottom of Karma Yoga psychology.
Source: pages 3-17, Sadhana by Swami Sivananda
b. The Hindu has no faith in wasting his precious life and faculties on research into things that he is convinced are absolutely transitory, evanescent.
c. He spares himself no pains to get at the thing that is permanent, imperishable.
Transitory Vs Eternal
a. The Hindu brings to bear all his wisdom, his keen observation, his powerful logic, deep research and searching analysis and scientific calculation in his all-out attempt to pierce beyond the veil of passing appearance and to come face-to-face with the Truth, the Eternal Fact:
b. The Hindu lavishes his genius upon this field that he regards as worth his while, as it is concerned with eternal values;
c. All other territory he considers it idle to waste too much effort upon; for to him, it seems absurd to run too seriously after shadows. Such labours of our ancient stalwarts resulted in the evolution of the marvellous system of Yoga for realising the Truth.
Spiritual Psychology
a. The system of yoga constitutes the practical methodology for the great attainment. These sadhanas are the outcome of the deepest psychology research… It is supra-mental psychology: spiritual psychology.
Maya
a. According to the Indian philosophy, only the Transcendent Being is real, all other are false. The feeling that we are different from That is the work of Maya: Ahankara or egoism is the chief bar to the experience of the Inner Reality.
b. It is this thought of “I” that is the cause of bondage, calamity and agonies.
Ego
a. If the aspirant kills this ego-serpent, he will attain the treasure of transcendent bliss.
b. Therefore, methods have been devised to destroy this arch-enemy of Self-realisation. This is no easy task, however. It has many modification, ramifications, manifestations and grosser by-products…. It lurks through one’s thoughts, feelings, behaviour, speech and action. Man is, in fact, the monument of egoism.
c. Ego is interwoven in the personality and everything about Man. It has to be removed. It requires subtle methods to remove the ego from his intellectual, mental, emotional and physical levels of existence. (pg. 6). That called for many subtle methods of handling such an elusive and subtle ego. (Those who are aliens to the Hindu culture, and even those ignorant Indians, who are unfamiliar with the science of this exercise, ridicule the Hindu system.)
Intellectual Level: Buddhi
6. Ego-barrier is expressed on the intellectual plane: the Buddhi. It is this cognising principle of wrong identification with the body, which the Hindu called Adhyasa, is the main cause of all problems.
a. I am such and such person.
b. I am a Brahmin
c. I am a non-Brahmin
d. I am an aristocrat
e. I am a commoner
f. I am rich
g. I am poor
h. I am healthy
i. I am unhealthy
j. I am fair
k. I am dark
l. I am fat
m. I am handsome
n. I am ugly
o. I am clever
p. I am dull, tall, short, old or young, etc.
8. These adhyasas so insidiously woven into Man’s consciousness. He comes to believe them. The identification started right from the moment of birth, even before the intelligence commenced in the infant. Life started with this false identification. The person grows in this self-hypnotism. The Hindu has to, therefore, come up with something that is powerful enough to counter this self-hypnotism. That is why Sadhana came into being.
9. Sravana: Jnana Yoga: 1st Step
a. Sadhana has to be regular and systematic. The first step in regard to this counter attack is “Sravana”: day after day, the seeker sits by his teacher and constantly hears declarations such as “You are not the body, you are not the mind, you are neither sleeping nor in a wakeful state. You are the Self. This is first stage in Jnana Yoga. This is auto-suggestion.
b. These ideas are relentlessly hammered again and again into the aspirant’s mind.
10. Manana: 2nd Step
a. The second step is reflection upon these assertions. This reflection is called manana. To keep up with this manana, the Hindu resorts to studying the scriptures, which is called Svadhyaya.
11. Nididhyasana: 3rd Step
a. The third step is called Nididhyasana, which means deep and intense meditation on a single Truth. The Hindu meditates on the Mahavakyas.
12. Adjuncts
i. Profession
ii. Wealth
iii. Dress
iv. Habits
v. Physical appetites like
1. smoking,
2. gambling,
3. fashion,
4. talent,
5. praise,
6. authority,
7. environments,
8. company, etc.
b. These Upadhis augment the identification with the body. They limit Man’s consciousness.
13. Disciplines
a. It is to counter these countless limiting factors that the Hindu seers came up with the series of disciplines:
i. Give up all sensuality
ii. Control the senses
iii. Control the mind
iv. Give up gross physical comforts
v. Ignore wealth
vi. Give up physical adornments: be simple, wear simple clothes, shave your head,
vii. Give up flowers, scents
viii. Give up dancing
ix. Give up music
x. Live simple and hard life in humble submission to the teacher
14. Neti-Neti Sadhana: 4th Step
a. The ego principle would, nevertheless, still rears its ugly head in other forms. The Hindu seeker has yet another method to deal with this too: Neti-neti sadhana. This is the fourth stage.
Emotional Level
15. While the above are the causes of the Buddhi that operates at intellectual level, there is also another level at which the ego principle operates: emotional level.
16. At this level, it rests at deep attachments, sentiments and infatuations. It expresses itself in the following forms:
a. Affections
b. Attachments
c. Feelings of love to humans and things of this physical world.
17. Sentiment plays a great part in holding the Jiva in bondage. The majority of mankind is enslaved in this manner:
a. earthly sentiments and
b. deluded attachment.
18. Bhakti Yoga
a. The Hindu seers saw the need to transfer this moha, attachment to the world to another so that the Jiva would not be anchored to this world. They came up with Bhakti-yoga. Through this method, the attachment that the Jiva feels towards the impermanent things of this world is transferred to the permanent principle of existence: God.
b. Instead of driving out wrong ideas and substituting them by right thought, the Hindu seers found it easier to divert attachments, sublimating sentiments, affection and emotions to God: by diverting the flow of the heart’s love from mundane objects to a supra-mundane ideal. This can be seen in the pancha-bhavas of Santa, Dasya, Sakya, Vatsalya and Mahhurya: these are clearly indicative of a careful observation and study of the main types of human temperament.
c. The ancient seers had psychological insight into the predominant attachments, the attraction centres of love, loyalty and allied emotions that hold in sway the vast majority of individuals in this world of human relationship. (pg. 11) They were found to classifiable into
i. the calm and composed state of emotional balance,
ii. the element of admiring hero-worship,
iii. the strong ties of companionship between friends,
iv. the maternal instinct (doting) or motherly love and
v. the erotic element expressed as all-absorbing, intense Prem or the passion of pure love between the lover and the beloved.
d. Each of these is such a force under the strong impelling power of which the individual goes to the extent of readily sacrificing his very life.
e. In Bhakti Yoga, we find formulated the admirable technique for gradually transferring this emotional adhesion from an outward physical object to the inward spiritual ideal. (pg. 12). It may be tersely summarised in the two terms of “detach” and “attach”. It is the detaching of the emotional adherence from the earthly objects and attaching the same to the spiritual personality of Ishta. (pg.12)
19. The benefit of this mode or attitude is, the more you progress into this inward realm of love, the more complete does your detachment to the evanescent, perishable physical love-object become until it reaches the state of a total severance of this gross attachment. The attachment, instead is formed with the Divine ideal of the Ishta.
a. Sravana: delighting in daily listening to the Divine Lilas and the glorification of one’s chosen deity. The corollaries of Sravana are the following:
i. Satsanga: company of the wise
ii. Sraddha: faith.
iii. Sadhana Bhakti: devotion to the Lord. At this stage, the sadhak burns the sins and obstalces to his devotion.
iv. Nishta: devoutness
v. Ruchi: taste for hearing and chanting
vi. Rati: Intense attachment
vii. Sthyi Bhava: steadiness or permanent of Bhakti Rasa
viii. Maha Bhava: living in the Lord
b. Kirtan: the singing of hymns and devotional songs embodying sweet and touching sentiments of adoration, prayerfulness, supplication and the like serves to make the devotee’s relation more intimate with the Ishta Deva, and to intensify the bond of gradually progressive affection and love.
c. Smaran: constant recollection of and dwelling upon God’s Lilas serves to further deepen the Yogi’s attachment to the chosen ideal, thus further fulfil the requirement of Nishta (=devoutness).
d. Padasevana: serving the Lord's feet. Actually this can be done only by Lakshmi or Parvati. No mortal being has got the fortune to practise this method of Bhakti for the Lord is not visible to the physical eyes. But it is possible to serve the image of God in idols and better still, taking the whole humanity as God. This is Padasevana. Padasevana is service of the sick. Padasevana is service of the poor. Padasevana is service of the whole humanity at large. The whole universe is only Virat-Svarupa. Service of the world is service of the Lord. Service of the Lord's feet can be done through formal worship to Murtis or idols in temples or to a mental image of God.
(http://sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection§ion_id=496)
e. Archana: Archana is worship of the Lord. "Those who perform the worship of Vishnu in this world, attain the immortal and blissful state of Moksha." Thus says the Vishnu-Rahasya. Worship can be done either through an image or a picture or even a mental form. The image should be one appealing to the mind of the worshipper.
Worship can be done either with external materials or merely through an internal Bhava or strong feeling. The latter one is an advanced form of worship which only men of purified intellect can do. Worship should be done according to the rules laid down in the Varnashrama-Dharma or in the case of advanced devotees worship can be done in any manner they like. The purpose of worship is to please the Lord, to purify the heart through surrender of the ego and love of God. Serving the poor people and worshipping saints is also worship of the Virat-Svarupa of the Lord. The Lord appears in all forms. He is everything. The scriptures declare that the Lord alone appears as the sentient and the insentient beings. The devotee should have Narayana-Bhava or Isvara-Bhava in all beings. He should consider all creatures, down even to the worm as merely God. This is the highest form of Worship.
f. Vandana: Vandana is prayer and prostration. Humble prostration touching the earth with the eight limbs of the body (Sashtanga-Namaskara), with faith and reverence, before a form of God, or prostration to all beings knowing them to be the forms of the One God, and getting absorbed in the Divine Love of the Lord is termed prostration to God. The Bhagavata says: "The sky, air, fire, water, earth, stars, planets, the cardinal points (directions), trees, rivers, seas and all living beings constitute the body of Sri Hari. The devotee should bow before everything in absolute devotion, thinking that he is bowing before God Himself." Lord Krishna says to Uddhava: "Giving no attention to those who laugh in ridicule, forgetting the body and insensible to shame, one should prostrate and bow down to all beings, even to the dog, the ass, the Chandala and the cow. All is Myself, and nothing is but Myself."
The ego or Ahankara is effaced out completely through devout prayer and prostration to God. The Divine Grace descends upon the devotee and man becomes God.
g. Dasya: Dasya-Bhakti is the love of God through servant-sentiment. To serve God and carry out His wishes, realising His virtues, nature, mystery and glory, considering oneself as a slave of God, the Supreme Master is Dasya-Bhakti. Serving and worshipping the Murtis in temples, sweeping the temples, meditating on God, and mentally serving Him like a slave, serving the saints and the sages, serving the devotees of God, serving the poor and the sick people who are forms of God, is also included in Dasya-Bhakti. To follow the words of the scriptures, to act according to the injunctions of the Vedas, considering them to be direct words of God, is Dasya-Bhakti. Association with and service of love-intoxicated devotees and service of those who have knowledge of God is Dasya-Bhakti. The purpose behind Dasya-Bhakti is to be ever with God in order to offer services to Him and win His Divine Grace and attain thereby Immortality.
h. Sakhya: Sakhya-Bhava is cultivation of friend-sentiment with God. The inmates of the family of Nandagopa cultivated this Bhakti. Arjuna cultivated this kind of Bhakti. The Bhagavata says: "Oh, how wonderful is the fortune of the people of Vraja, of cowherd Nanda whose dear friend is the perfect, eternal Brahman of Absolute Bliss!". To be always with the Lord, to treat Him as one's own relative or a friend, belonging to one's own family, to be in His company at all times, to love Him as one's own Self, is Sakhya-Bhava of Bhakti-Marga. The devotee of Sakhya-Bhava takes up with eagerness any work of the Lord leaving aside even the most important and urgent and pressing work, assuming an attitude of neglect towards personal work, and totally concerning himself with the love of the Lord. How do friends, real friends love in this world? What an amount of love they possess between one another? Such a love is developed towards God instead of towards man. Physical love is turned into spiritual love. There is a transformation of the mundane into the Eternal.
i. Atma-nivedana: this is self-surrender. In the Vishnu-Sahasranama it is said: "The heart of one who has taken refuge in Vasudeva, who is wholly devoted to Vasudeva, gets entirely purified, and he attains Brahman, the Eternal."The devotee offers everything to God, including his body, mind and soul. He keeps nothing for himself. He loses even his own self. He has no personal and independent existence. He has given his self for God. He has become part and parcel of God. God takes care of him and God treats him as Himself. Grief and sorrow, pleasure and pain, the devotee treats as gifts sent by God and does not attach himself to them. He considers himself as a puppet of God and an instrument in the hands of God. He does not feel egoistic, for he has no ego. His ego has gone over to God. It is not his duty to take care of his wife, children, etc., for he himself has no independent existence apart from God. God will take care of all. He knows how to lead the world in the right path. One need not think that he is born to lead the world. God is there who will look to everything which man cannot even dream of. He has no sensual craving, for he has no body as it is offered to God. He does not adore or love his body for it is God's business to see to it. He only feels the presence of God and nothing else. He is fearless, for God is helping him at all times. He has no enemy for he has given himself up to God who has no enemies or friends. He has no anxiety for he has attained everything by attaining the grace of God. He has not even the thought of salvation; rather he does not want salvation even; he merely wants God and nothing but God. He is satisfied with the love of God for by that there is nothing that is not attained. What is there to be attained, when God has sent His grace upon the devotee? The devotee does not want to become sugar but taste sugar. There is pleasure in tasting sugar, but not in becoming sugar itself. So the devotee feels that there is supreme joy more in loving God than becoming God. God shall take complete care of the devotee. "I am Thine," says the devotee.
21. In the nine-fold mode of devotion, the first two (=Sravana and Kirtan) serve to saturate the mind with ideas of the Ishta and a wealth of associated thoughts. Their work is augmented by regular formalistic worship like Padasevan, Archan, etc., that leads on to the culminating stages of Bhakti when the devotee’s life blooms out into a constant intense and practical living of one or the other of the attitudes which takes up the entire emotional field of the seeker’s personality and fully dominates his consciousness entering into and colouring everyone of even its minutest phases and fluctuations.
22. The unregenerate individual is selfishness personified, the being of overweening vanity, who theists for self-recognition, self-satisfaction and self-adulation. His ego swells with each and every feather added on to his cap of vanity. A thorough overhauling of his unregenerate, self-bound, egocentric personality is indicate... the first concern to one who would seek redemption from this state."
24. In the course of their observation and practical study of Man, the sages found out…Gunas had to be transcended one after another in their order of progression. (For instance), Tamoguna has to be converted from the gross Tamas into active Rajas, From Rajas, it could be later transformed into the purity of Sattva. Herein is found the need for a syatmen of Sadhana that could in the first instance assail and break down the gross Tamasic aspects of the ego-sense in the individual.
25. “It is I who did this,” “by me alone was done that,” “All this I have done” – thus asserts the strong abhimana of the extremely unregenerate Tamasic ego in man in his early days of darkness and constricted ego-centred living. The gradual renunciation of this strong, vain, self-arrogating sense of doership… forms the rock-bottom of Karma Yoga psychology.
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