Some brief reference to the ubiquitous Bhakti traditions should be made as they constitute such an important aspect of Hinduism as practised by many ordinary Indian people, as well as the more recent movements centring upon the Bhagavad Gita and Krishna Consciousness. Bhakti is a form of ritual devotion to a particular deity, well articulated by Krishna’s “Only through Love shall men see me and know me and come unto me” (1). It is predicated on the understanding that God can only be ‘known’ through worship, adoration, acts of Love; that through study, intellection and mere cognition alone, Divinity can never be directly experienced. Thus, also, the European medieval text of anonymous authorship ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’. The once pan Indian Shiva Siddhanta traditions, which are now more commonly found in Southern India, are bhakti movements, with a dualistic notion of Shiva as the Supreme Being:
“Shaiva Siddhanta (Śaiva siddhānta) is a subtradition of Shaivism that propounds a dualistic philosophy where the ultimate and ideal goal of a being is to become an enlightened soul through Lord Shiva’s grace. The normative rites, cosmology and theology of Shaiva Siddhanta draw upon a combination of Agamas and Vedic scriptures”(2).
In this system of belief, rather than all humanity simply being God at source needing only to remove the veil of maya – illusion – to see their fundamental oneness with God, the soul and God are distinct, and therefore it is only through such aforementioned acts of devotion that, via the Grace of Divinity, one can attain oneness with It.
In the ‘Bhagavad Gita As It Is’, translator and commentator Swami Prabhupāda makes it clear that, given the nature of modern society and condition of humanity in what the Vaishnava traditions regard as being the Kali Yuga – the Age of Unrighteousness – the only way to achieve enlightenment (and therein ‘moksha’) is via devoting oneself wholly and unconditionally to God as Krishna, which has become formalised into the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKC), now a global movement (3). During my extended stay in Rishikesh last year, the sight of Krishna devotees (usually referred to as ‘Hare Krishnas’) dancing in procession along the street singing ‘Krishna, Krishna, hare hare, etc”, drumming and ringing bells, was a daily occurrence, and, certainly before the pandemic shut down normal societal functioning, walking down the street past their headquarters was always to run the gauntlet of young devotees, usually westerners clad in Indian garb, smilingly endeavouring to persuade you to join them.
It should not be forgotten that the vast majority of formalised religious practice is bhakti by its nature, the worship of ‘God’ as an exterior phenomenon ‘other’ to self. Christianity (outside of the more advanced levels of the Mystic Way) is dualistic and devotional, as is Islam (outside of the more advanced levels of Sufism) and so on. Mystics seek unity with the Divine, which I discuss in the following section.
My Personal View
My own practice is essentially a bhakti one, although I would not ever seek to join a formal tradition such as the ISKC. As indicated, the Bhagavad Gita has been one of the principal guides for my life and therefore I am aware that in it, Divinity is manifest as Krishna, although in my private spiritual pursuits I generally articulate It as Shiva, much in the way suggested by the Shiva Siddhanta. I have had both dvaitist and advaitist experiences, which is to say experienced myself as in a close relationship with the Self as ‘other’, and, if rarely, the spontaneous shift in consciousness wherein the limited ego experience of self dissolves and is replaced by the higher experience of oneself as Paramatman (Parashiva). I have discussed these ideas and experiences more fully in the page ‘Mysticism’. My present aim is to establish myself in this practice but, as I write, it is still early days.
(1) Bhagavad Gita Ch. 4. 11. Translated by Juan Mascaró. 1962. Penguin, Random House, India.
(2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaiva_Siddhanta
(3) The Bhagavad Gita as It Is. A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. 2006
Featured image: Miniature painting depicting Shree Krishna with consort Radha