Is Bhakti possible for every one ?
CHRISTIANITY AS BHAKTI MARGA
As the Bhagavata-Purana puts it:
'Thus the Supreme One, unlimited and beloved, is naturally present in one's own mind.
Him we must worship with joy, refraining from all other pleasures.' * In the words of Appar:
'IT ever cry Lord, Lord!
The Lord himself is inseparable from my mind.
Keeping the Lord ever in my mind, I will never forget the Lord.' *
Is BHAKTI POSSIBLE FOR EVERY ONE?
The initiative in man's religious experience is always. taken by God.
' He lighteth every man coming into the world.' 'Hecame unto his own.'
This conviction that it is God who first calls us and implants in us deep and strong longings for Himself is often found in the Johannine writings.» We do not endeavour with our unaided effort to attain Him, but He floods our path with light and leads us on to Himself.
It was not we who chose Him and made Him our own, but His gracious choice rested upon us and His hand beckoned to us. Wedid not love Him first but He loved us first, and how deep and immeasurable and eternal is that love!
Heit is who 1 Bhagavata-Purana, 2.2.6.
2 Appar: 'IsanIsan.'
The southern school of Vaisnavas, however, maintain that as a kitten is taken hold of by its mother and carried to a place of safety without any effort on its own part, so the devotee makes no effort, but God's grace does everything for er icin wane 16; 1 John iv. 10, 19.
THE AWAKENING OF BHAKTI
awakens in us Bhakti and does not cease until we attain a real and full experience of the living God.
On this point Hindu Bhaktas too have strong convictions.
Appar, the Tamil Saiva saint, sings:
'I did not know myself at all, Nor did I know my God.
When He knew me as His servant, I knew Him as my God.' * Nammalvar, the Tamil Vaisnava saint, asks:
'I cannot say, I will approach Him and compel Him to dwell in me.
He Himself comes, with yearning for me, And dwells in my body and mingles with my life.
Is it possible for Him now to leave me?'
There are occasionally lines which seem to imply that man and not God begins the process.
' Even though,' cries Sundarar, ' Thou dost not hold to me, I will hold to thee.'
But these rare utterances donot shake the conviction that it is God who, out of His abundant grace, first makes the devotee His own.
If God it is who calls us first, uttering His summons in the depths of the soul where He is immanent, John is never tired of repeating the great and wholesome truth that every one comes within the magnificent and all-embracing gesture of His grace.* Our passage 1 Appar:
' Ennai Etum,'
2 Tiru-Voi-Moli, 1.7.7.
3 Sundarar: Matar Pangulal.'
4 John iii. 16, 17; vi: 39, 40; viii. 37; x.7; xii. 26; ii, 1, 2, 29; iii. 3; iv. 14, 15.
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contains the words : ' The same came for witness that he might bear witness of the light, that a// might believe through him.'
And again:
'There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.'
Belief in Christ is, according to the Fourth Evangelist, the one supreme condition for entrance into the bliss of divine fellowship, but this belief in Christ is not beyond any one's capacity.
Again, our passage declares emphatically:
'But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'
It may seem at first sight as if this reference to being born of God as the first step in the acceptance of Christ removes belief in Him from the reach of every one.
Tf every one who is born of God alone believes in Christ, it may well be that some are begotten of God and others not.
The condition then depends not upon man butuponGod.
Hf (od alone can awaken in men love for Christ, He may, in His mysterious grace, choose to do so in some but not in others.
But being begotten of God is not some mysterious, spiritual process, reserved for a chosen few, but is another name, lofty and significant, for the inherent God-given capacity in all men to respond to the Divine Will working within them.
Any interpretation which places limits upon the operations of God's grace would be inconsistent with the Johannine doctrine that God is love.
If God is love, He cannot well awaken in some the longing for Himself and leave others in the darkness
THE AWAKENING OF BHAKTI
of their own desires.
Nor can we in any other way "understand the tender and kindly John writing with such vehemence of those who do not believe in Christ.
If special grace is needed for believing in Christ, those who do not possess it are not to be blamed.
It is 'because every man has in him the power to accept Christ that John writes with such feeling against those who deliberately fail to use that power.
The idea that God awakens love for Himself in the 'soul by being immanent in the world confirms further this interpretation.
The immanence of God is no random fact, present here and absent there.
The corporate character of John's thinking, for which we shall have evidence all along, comes in here as well.
'There is a solidarity and coherence about the immanence of God.
The whole world, in other words all mankind, is indwelt by Him and there are no jxidividuals who are left out of the gracious sweep of His love.
Further, that God calls the soul by dwelling in it 'means that His call is no external thing.
It occurs in the depths of the personality and affects vitally all the choices and doings of men.
And it is not a single event, but a summons which is continually repeated.
With his endless patience, He keeps stimulating in man a longing for Himself, making the human heart His home.
Because of His constant indwelling in us, Bhakti shall ever continue to well up in our hearts.
Then why are some people good and some people wicked ? To thisthe Fourth Evangelist would say : Itis true God is in every soul.
But the presence of God in the soul does not do away with man's responsibility.
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Man can either accept or reject a full experience of this indwelling God. Inthe words of our text, he can either
'receive the Logos or not receive Him, The words 'as many as received Him' imply that it is possible for every one to accept God.
Theonly explanation, then,. for some men rejecting Him is that they have chosen to use their will in that way.
Using their will to reject. the full experience of the God within, they go from bad to worse, their own deeds bringing upon them the necessary retribution.
Good men, on the other hand, accept the God within and go from strength to strength, their deeds naturally and inevitably causing an enhancement of goodness.
Those who decide to ignore the oft-repeated voice of God are soon lost in the mazes of their own decision and, wandering farther and farther away from Him, shall finally find themselves. enveloped in the gloom of utter darkness.
But those who steadily seek to obey the God within and to listen to His voice of love, ever stimulating them to goodness, will find themselves led, by the momentum of their own decision, nearer and nearer the realms of light, where finally they shall stand in the full blaze of His Divine presence.
It should be noted here that Ramanuja seeks to explain the difference between good men and bad ina somewhat similar way: ' That man who acts with the determination to be wholly on the side of the Supreme Person, the Lord blesses, by Himself creating in him a taste for such actions only as are a means of attaining Him and are extremely good.
But He punishes the man who acts with the determination |
THE AWAKENING OF BHAKTI
to be wholly against Him by creating in him a taste for such actions as stand in the way of attaining Him and lead him downward.' * But this determination to be devoted or opposed to God arises, according to Hindu Bhaktas, from a man's previous karma.
It is his karma which enables him either to have or not have Bhakti.
The importance of karma in determining the genesis of Bhakti is thus expressed by Tayumanavar :
'The flower in blossom has its fragrance, its bees.
But not the bud still cold with dew.'
Though fragrance is inherent in a flower the moment it comes into existence, this fragrance does not spread until the flower blossoms and when the fragrance does spread, bees swarm around the flower.
Thus itis also with the human soul.
From the first moment of its existence divine energy is hidden in it, but this divine energy is revealed only when the soul is ' ripe,' that is, when it has experienced in different embodiments, appointed by the grace of Siva, the whole effect of its works, those which are really its own and those which have been laid upon it by the Lord.
'hen He unites with the soul.
Thus Heis like the bee, and the soul like the flower in blossom."
In thus speaking of karma as the factor which conditions God's grace, Hindu Bhaktas take away from man his immediate responsibility.
It is true a man is held responsible in Hindu thought for his previous 1 §yi-Bhasya 2.3.41. cf, also his Gita-Bhasya xviii.15.
2 The Poems of Tayumdanavar, with a commentary by Puvai Kalyana Sundara Mudaliar, Madras 1916; p. 181.
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karma, but when the data for our previous karma are so doubtful and vague, such a sense of responsibility has little meaning.
The evidence for former karma being -of theslenderest kind, any acquiescence in its fruit becomes a kind of resignation, entirely different from the decisive attitude we take towards actions performed in this life and of whose nature we are thoroughly aware.
John is extremely wise in laying stress on the fact that God's abundant grace is infinite, neither His own partiality nor man's previous karma putting any limit to His grace; what we do now is all that matters.
The first characteristic of Johannine Bhakti, then, is that it is primarily men's response to God.
God is in men energizing them and illumining them. He is their life as well as their light.
All of their capacities— physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual—are given by Him.
He not merely gives them these capacities but. abides always in them flooding them with light, so that they may make the best use of these capacities by relating them steadily and effectively towards Himself.
His indwelling in men, though meant to give thema 'vivid perception of Himself, may not always be clear and distinct.
The Light that is in man may be dim and flickering or may even be turned into darkness,
It is not the fault of the Light, but the fault of the medium through which the Light shines.
So this Light chose to shine fully and with all its glory and effulgence through a perfect medium—Jesus—by beholding whom we behold God perfectly.
The Light in Jesus is not uncertain and dim, as in the hearts of ©
THE AWAKENING OF. BHAKTI
men, but it is full of beauty and truth.
It shows men clearly the path along which they should walk.
But it is for men to decide how they will use their capacities.
They may either listen to the God who is imperfectly in man but perfectly in Jesus and attain to a deeper and deeper realization of His indwelling presence, or they may stifle His voice and set out ona career of their own, using their capacities for purposes other than those for which they were
_teally meant.
By an inevitable law the choice and the deeds which follow confirm them more and more surely in the path of love and devotion to God, or in the path of self-will and destruction away from God.
Not some external bond, over which man has no control, but men's inner choices and deeds make them either the sons of light or the sons of darkness.
Men's response to God covers not merely one supreme moment of choice but a continuous walking in the light.
This important characteristic of Bhakti places on men the main responsibility.
And responsibility is at the basis of aJl morality and religion.
It is the stuff out of which personality is formed.
It is quite reasonable that the Bhakta who seeks a personal relation between man and God should start with clear convictions on this matter.
If Bhakti is determined by karma for which we are not responsible, it cannot be the deep personal relation it ought to be.
A river ought to be pure at its source as well as all along its course.
If at the very source its waters are not clear and lucid but muddy, how can we expect it to become a refreshing stream?
Therefore the Johannine idea that from the
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very beginning Bhakti is man's genuine and voluntary— and therefore personal—response to God gives us a pure source.
Itis only such Bhakti that can deepen into a full and intimate life of fellowship with God.
OE in 11
THE LOVE OF GOD
Even as the Father hath loved me, I also have loved you: abide ye in my love. [It ye keep my commandments, ye shail abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled.
This ts my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his lite for his friends.
Ye are my vetinds, if ye do the things which I command you.
No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth : but I have called you friends ; for all things that I heard from my Father I have made known unto you.
Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your truit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
John xv. 9-16.
Tur KEEPING OF COMMANDMENTS
In the last chapter we saw that Bhakti is man's response to the God who works within the soul.
We must now try to understand the nature of this response.
In what way do we listen to the voice of
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God within and relate ourselves to His divine purpose which He reveals by His being in us ?
The words from the Fourth Gospel which form the basis of our meditation in this chapter are put into the mouth of Jesus.
When these words as well as any others in the Gospel are spoken of as the words of Jesus, it should always be remembered that they are not necessarily His words reported in the exact form in which they were uttered.
In this Gospel it is difficult to say how far we get the actual words of Jesus and how far the interpretation of them by the Evangelist.
It the picture of Jesus given in the Synoptic Gospels is like a pencil sketch, the picture given in this Gospel is like a painting.
In the first three Gospels we see the lineaments of Jesus sketched slightly, though with plenty of accuracy and feeling, but in the Fourth they are filled out and idealized by the Evangelist who did not hesitate to draw much from his own experience.
Jesus, then, as interpreted by the Evangelist, says :
"Abide ye in my love.'
It has been well pointed out that 'abide in' represents John's doctrine about 'the highest and ultimate relation of the believer to God,' * that relation which we are describing in this book as the mystical relation.
The verses immediately before our passage have spoken of the relation between Christ and His devotees in an impressive picture.
Those who believe in Christ are not to remain separate from Him, functioning as best as they can, but are to * Edwin A. Abbott, Jahannine Vocabulary, London, 1905 ; page 32.
THE LOVE OF GOD
be organically connected with Him.
Just as the stem of a vine is intimately related to its branches, its sap: and energy flowing into them, so is He closely connected with us in order that through such organic relation His life and energy may flow into us.
Such a picture of intimate relation leads us to ask how we can attain it: just this question is answered in our passage :
'If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.'
Again and again we are taught in the Johannine writings to keep the commandnuients.*
This means that our will should be directed so as to be in entire harmony with the will of God.
Though the Evangelist often speaks of keeping the commandments, "we cannot suppose that he was thinking punctiliously of a moral frame of mind which delights in obeying a law here and enforcing a prohibition there.
He was too deeply influenced by Jesus and His new era of freedom and love to be in bondage to the strict legalism of ancient Israel.
The Jews often supposed that religion consisted in the careful performance of a great number of duties based upon the Ten Commandments, which had been multiplied scores of times.
Even in Jesus' day, religious teachers were engaged in piling on the consciences of men this immense burden of restrictions and prohibitions.
But Jesus took it away and brought men under the light yoke of His own teaching.
They were no longer to harass their minds with meaningless restrictions and burdensome duties but to accept His law of love: 'his commandments
1 John xiv. 15, 21, 23, 24.
1 John ii, 3-6 ; v. 2.
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are not grievous.'
What we need is a renewed will which seeks the things from above.
If the ultimate source of our desires and actions—the will—is purified and set in its right relation to the Divine Will, then everything will be right.
Thus the keeping of commandments primarily implies a new kind of activity which begins as soon as the willis placed in its right relation.
If we seek to abide in God we must release the deepest energies of our soul and let them flow into the sphere of action, for as we do so we shall get nearer
'God.
It is in decisive act and purposeful deed that we can really respond to the stirrings of the God within.
But how do we keep His commandments? What are the decisive deeds in which we express our love and loyalty to Christ? 'If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.
Even as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love.'
We keep the commandments of Jesus by abiding in His love. In other words, it is in words and deeds of love that we keep His commandments.
After a digression, which we shall consider in a moment, the passage continues: 'This is my commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
Ye are my friends if ye do the things I command you.' The love of God, then, is not gushing emotion or rapturous feeling.
It is not to be measured by the mental or physical symptoms which may go along with it.
As Luther says with characteristic derision:
'It is sheer hypocrisy for a man to creep 11 John v. 3.
THE LOVE OF GOD
61. into a corner and think "'Oh, I will love God, Oh, how dearly I love God, He is my Father.
Oh, how affectionate I am to God," and so forth."
Whata slap on the face to the many who have measured the reality and the depth of their experience of God solely in terms of emotion!
All over the world there have been ecstatics—particularly are they abundant among Hindu Bhaktas—who have seen signs of the God within mainly in outbursts of extraordinary emotion.
If their bodies thrill with joy, their limbs move to the rhythm of music and their eyes shed copious tears, they think that God has really taken possession of them.
When Luther was stirring Europe with his powerful teaching, Chaitanya was spreading Vaisnavism in India by his magnetic personality and rapturous.
Bhakti.
Though an extreme case, his life offers a marked contrast to Luther's teaching in this respect.
On reciting a mystic verse, 'the Master fell down on the ground in a trance, senseless with the intensity of love.
Nityananda hurriedly took Him up in his arms.
Chaitanya rose weeping, and ran hither and thither in a transport of devotion, shouting, laughing, dancing and singing.
Oft did He repeat the first word of the stanza, His voice choked with emotion and tears running down His cheeks.
He trembled, perspired, wept with joy, stood still, changed colour—now showing remorse, now grief, now stupor, now pride or meekness.
The stanza opened the gate of His love.
The servitors of Gopinath gazed on the Master's outpour- .
1 Quoted in Herrmann, Communion with God, op. cit ; p. 280,
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ing of love.
But He came back to Himself on seeing a crowd gathering."* Such a method of showing one's love for God is utterly foreign to John.
He does value emotion as a means of approach to God, but it should not be of an extravagant character.
We need not at present discuss the larger question of the place which emotion occupies in religious experience, nor need we here ask what truth there is in the assertion of ecstatics that they see
God in joy, but let us simply try to understand John's teaching on the subject.
It is clear that with John the emotion that we experience in our life with God is not the rapture which is born of ecstatic worship but the. steady joy which is born of devout action. The constant and close connexion in the writings of John between loving Christ and keeping His commandments should be carefully noted.
This close connexion determines the character of both the factors.
On the one hand, the keeping of commandments ceases to be a heavy and irksome task and is filled with love. And, on the other, love does not remain sheer emotion, as its character and intensity are constantly tested in the deeds of everyday life.
The joy that comes from a steady endeavour to carry out the will of God day after day does not show itself always in paroxysms of excitement, but is mostly sober and rational.
On occasions there may be great joy in doing something which is felt to be in accordance with God's will or sorrow at failure to do so.
But this joy or sorrow never falls into the chaos » Chaitanya's Pilgrimages and Teachings, translated by.
J. N. Sarkar, Calcutta, 1913 ; p. 21,
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of emotion that accompanies ecstatic worship in song and dance.
Tue Mystic's Joy But are we correct in saying that John was no ecstatic?
Our very passage contains in an important digression the words: 'These things I have spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled.'
Let us first recognize the fact that this element of joy is not as prominent in the writings of John as it is in those of Paul and other
Christian mystics.
'There are indeed some passages in the Johannine writings which speak of joy,' but joy does not hold the important place in them that love does; how often does John come back to his theme of love!
Yet passages about joy do occur in his writings and their meaning ought to be grasped.
In India the great Bhakta and philosopher, Ramanuja, likewise did not emphasize joy.
The reason for his not doing so seems to be his realization of the difficulties which a life of rapture creates. Bhakti, with Ramanuja, is like a stream of steady flowing oil.
'There is no rapture, for rapture might later mean depression and gloom.
The Bhakta who seeks exaltation of feeling is caught in the whirlpool of emotion.
Moments of unutterable ecstacy lifting the soul to heights of bliss are followed by others which cast it down into depths of gloom.
A follower of Ramanuja 1 John iii. 29, xvi. 24, xvii. 13; 1 John i, 4; 2 John 12.
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points out that one means of attaining Bhakti is ' freedom from paroxysmal joy, for such joy is also a hindrance.'?
It is a striking proof of the clear insight of Ramanuja that he and his followers did not encourage the ebullitions of feeling which are so changeful and short-lived.
Though John takes up a similar position, his motive seems to be different.
He is afraid not so much of the rapid and ever-changing nature of emotion as of its empty character.
Joy is indeed a good thing, he would say, but it must be no empty feeling.
The joy that wells up in the heart of the devotee is the joy that lies in keeping the Father's commandments.
There is great delicacy of spiritual analysis in the passage.
The joy that is in us is perfected by the joy of God.
'These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be fulfilled.'
In India the nature of God as joy has been most clearly recognized.
He is deep and unutterable joy.
The whole of creation is the expression of His joy.
As Kabir says:
'The earth is His joy; His joy is the sky; His joy is the flashing of the sun and the moon;
His joy is the beginning, the middle and the end; His joy is eyes, darkness and light.
Oceans and waves are His joy:
His joy the Sarasvati, the Jumna, and the Ganges.
The Guru is one: and life and death, union and separation are all His plays of joy.' ?
1 Vatindra-Mata-Dipika, translated by A. Govindacharya Swamin, Madras, 1912; p. 110.
2 Songs of Kabir, op. cit; p. 120.
THE LOVE OF GOD
Unlike man's joy, the joy of God does not depend upon external facts; Then His joy would have to undergo constant change, for external facts do not always remain the same.
But His joy is the deep and unutterab'e bliss, like the calm that dwells in the bosom of the ocean, which is unaffected by any change.
While external objects do not affect His joy, His joy affects external objects.
All the joy which we experience from nature is really derived from Him by nature.
It is His joy, so spontaneous and free and surpassing all bonds, even the bonds of karma, which abides in nature and creates endless delight in the hearts of men.
The roots of this doctrine are many and cannot be discussed here.
But it would be safe to say that the general tendency in Hebrew thought is to think of God as a holy and stern being who carries on the government of the world in perfect righteousness.
But even against this severe background we have the idea that the sons of God shouted for joy at creation.+
Again, we are told in Genesis:
"And God saw everything that he had made, and, behold it was very good.'* And what joy was there in Jesus!
Whatever our idea of God's joy may be: from our study of the Old Testament or New Testament, we cannot but be impressed by the fact that joy was an outstanding characteristic of Jesus.
He fully shared in the joys of men and took part in their festivities; He was moved by the beauty of nature and the flowers spread on the Galilean hills filled His heart with poetry; His passion for friendship and His 1 Job xxxviii. 7.
2 Genesisi 31. iS
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life of continual service must have further increased His joy.
In Jesus we understand how the keeping of commandments could be a source of joy.
He ever lived in the spirit of oneness with the Father; to do the Father's will was His meat and drink and His whole being was filled with joy on that account.
There was nothing of the ecstatic in Jesus.
He was not filled with rapture one moment, struggling to let out the emotion which came in a flood from His inner self and in the next, feeling bitterly the drought which followed such a flood.
Neither were longer periods of joy followed by periods of despendency, when His soul sank in the darkness of the night.
But a calm and steady joy always lit up His countenance and helped Him to continue every moment His ministry to the men who were suffering in body and soul.
Now the joy of Jesus fulfils and perfects man's joy: 'That my joy may bein you and that your joy may be fulfilled,'
Jesus is an exalted being who insists on the highest purity and the utmost service from us, but He also dwells in us and if we abide in His love in word and deed, a steady and constant stream of His joy will flow into our hearts from moment to moment.
Our own joy will be flooded with this divine joy. *
THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE
Our passage continues:
'No longer do I call you servants; for the servant knoweth not what His Lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I heard from my Father I have made
1 cf, John xvii, 13.
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known unto you.'
We are to love one another because Christ has revealed unto us what He has heard from the Father and we know what our Lord doeth.
Our knowledge is not attained by a course of painful or severe reasoning; it is given to us.
Wedo not always grope in the dark nor do we arrive at conclusions only by putting together this with that; we are also told what we ought to know.
The Divine Christ illumines us and pours into our souls floods of light.
Weare not like servants who are simply bidden to serve but are not told why.
Their duty is simply to obey, not to understand.
If they ask questions or seek to understand why they are bidden to do certain things, they will be rebuked and regarded as impertinent.
And often they are not even interested in finding out the reasons for the commands given them.
Their loyalty is not deep enough to demand such a knowledge, for full understanding is asked for only when there is full love.
But Christ and His devotees are like friends who fully know each other's hearts.
God is beyond our understanding, and yet His love has unveiled His heart to us and we see some at least of its workings.
When there is genuine love, knowledge is imparted even before it is asked for.
And such knowledge, spontaneously given, has a fulness which is quite different from the poverty of the knowledge which is reached by the highest flight of the intellect.
This does not, however, mean that the intellect ceases to work.
For understanding and turning into practice this divine knowledge, which is so generously given, it has to put forthits utmost capacity.
Though put in
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an extreme form, there is a great deal of truth in the words of Ramakrishna Paramahathsa:
' Knowledge and love of God are ultimately one and the same.
There is no difference between pure knowledge and pure love.' *
THE RESPONSE OF THE WHOLE MAN To Gop
It will thus be seen that in responding to God we are taught fully to exercise our will, feeling and thought.
By this it is not implied that St.
John expresses in the passage quoted above exactly the ideas of a modern psychologist about the mind of man.
The account already given makes it sufficiently clear to us that if we are to abide in God and to respond effectively to the stirrings of His limitless grace within, we must do so with our entire being.
If our response is to be real, no part of our personality can be left out.
Only thus can our union with Christ become genuine.
When do we say that there is an ideal fellowship between a father and his son?
Itis only when the son conforms to the will of his father and does what his father bids him do.
So long as the son makes an effort to translate into action the wishes of his father, so long: will he be one with his father.
Such conformity in action is not,. however, everything.
Unless there is love, it might be external and mechanical.
It is only when the son is filled with love for his father and does with real joy what his father wants him to do, that he can be said to. be one with his father.
And such love is not possible unless there is knowledge with it.
In fact where there 1 F, Max Miiller, Ramakrishna:
His Lite and Sayings, .
London, 1899 ; p., ix.
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is love, there wili be knowledge also. A son instinctively understands his father if he loves him and the father also shows the workings of his heart to his son.
The fellowship of a son with his father, then, consists in obedience and love and knowledge.
Ifthe sonsays that he understands all that his father wants him to do and yet does not carry out in practice what he thus understands, or if he says that the thought of his father fills him with joy and yet does not seem really to understand him, we say that there is something wrong in the relationship between them, Only when he carries out the desires of his father, finding love and joy in suca conduct, and understanding the reasons for his father's wishes, can he be said to be one with his father.
Such an ideal relationship often breaks down in human life and raises all sorts of perplexing questions about personality and freedom and yet it is quite important to bear it in mind for we shall find in it the key which will unlock much of Johannine thought.'
The order of importance assigned in this passage to will, feeling and thought is evident throughout the Johannine writings.
Is it not the natural order? Let us take again John's favourite illustration of a father and his son. In extremely early life, the son is only taught to obey and he obeys, not knowing the reason why. Even if the father sought to explain the reason, it would be beyond the little boy's understanding.
Though he does not know why he has done a certain thing which his father has told him to do, he knows,
1 Cf, W. R. Inge, Faith and Its Psychology, New York, 1915; p.23. R.H. Strachan, The Fourth Gospel, lts Significance, and Environment, p. 14.
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however young he may be, that he has pleased his father by doing it and this knowledge gives him real joy. As the son grows in years and in understanding, the father explains to him the reasons for his asking him to do certain things and then loving obedience becomes intelligent conformity with the father's will.
This is repeated in the religious life—first obedience without understanding though with love and joy and then only the knowledge which explains and illumines.
Again, the emphasis laid in this passage on the willis thoroughly characteristic of John. Love and joy are in a sense determined by the will.
Our love consists in keeping the commandments of Jesus; it does not merely enjoy itself in ecstacy, but is connected with action.
Joy too is no aesthetic rapture but comes from keeping His commandments.
Yet again, the knowledge spoken of here is not. speculation but the knowledge which is necessary for the doing of our duty.
Thus a man's will, which is obedient to the Father's will, is like a sober charioteer driving the chariot of Bhakti and having well under control the powerful horses of feeling and reason.
Endless have been the instances in which, in the absence of the charioteer, emotion has gone out of control and brought the chariot to ruin.
Our own countty provides innumerable examples of Bhaktas who have been ruined by emotion.
To them a life in God has meant rich ecstacy and exuberant rapture. For this they have lived and worked in a world of their own, cutting themselves off from the terrible and urgent needs of the men around.
But when they have set out on their
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course the powerful animal they have yoked to their chariot has played havoc with them, and they have come down broken and exhausted.t There have been other Bhaktas who have been likewise led into trouble by reason.
They have had the mistaken notion that their life in God consists in study and meditation.
Study has become scholastic discipline and meditation has developed into speculation.
Instead of knowing any better the God whom they set out to reach, they spend their time in accumulating useless knowledge which only serves to fill their mind with pride but does not reveal the God whom they wish to worship.
With great wisdom, therefore, John insists upon bringing our feeling and reason under the strong and restraining influence of the Father's will.
PERSONALITY IN HinpU BHAKTI LITERATURE
In Hindu literature also Bhakti is the going forth of one's whole personality to God.
A great many Bhaktas have certainly been inclined to attach too much importance to the emotions, while a few have come too exclusively under the power of the intellect.
But, speaking in general terms, we may say that Bhakti is not merely intellectual meditation on God nor a rapturous emotional experience of Him nor a steadying of the will to draw near Him.
It is all these together, though necessarily the terms used by the 1 See M. T. Kennedy, The Chaitanya Movement, Calcutta,
1925; p. 50, 88, 244, cf. Robert Southey, Zhe Life of Wesley, Oxford, 1925 ; vol. i. pp. 189-217.
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Hindu writers do not wholly correspond to the western terms—thought, feeling and will.
The Bhaigavata-Purana thus lays down the ideal for a Bhakta:
' Whatever he does with the body or the tongue or the mind or the senses or the intellect or the nature which isin accordance with his self, he must consecrate it all to the Supreme Narayana.'"* The Bhagavad-Gita says:
"He who offers to me with Bhakti leaf, flower, fruit, water, that, offered with Bhakti, [ accept from the sure self, "Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you sacrifice, whatever you give, whatever penance you do,
O Kaunteya, do all that as an offering to me.""
The Tamil poet, Appar, sings:
'Our body is the shrine and the firm mind the devotee.
We have cleansed the shrine with truth.
And erected God, the jewel of our mind, as the image.
With love as ghee and milk made into a dainty dish, We have worshipped Him.' ® It is evident from these verses that Bhakti involves the whole man.
If we ask the early 'Tamil Bhaktas, who lived before Ramanuja and the BhagavataPurana, what they mean by Bhakti and what they do when they
1 Bhaigavata-Purana, xi. 2-36, ® Bhagavad-Gitaé ix. 26-27.
* Appar: ' Kayame Koyil.'
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practise Bhakti, they will not say that they simply wait until God enters their soul filling it with joy and bliss, mor will they say that they sing and dance until He enters them, but they will say: 'We havea longing to draw near Him. That longing is planted inoursouls by God himself.
With His help we think of Him, steadily and constantly and with deep love, in order to realize that longing.
As wedo so, He enters our souls.
We keep meditating on Him if He is to remainin us.
His - dwelling in cur hearts brings with it joy and light and freedom from impurity and release from the everrecurring cycle of births and deaths.
And we sing and dance filled with rapture because of this experience.'
Song and dance are not regarded as the means by which God is inducted into the souls of these Bhaktas as they were among the dervishes and the ancient Hebrew "sons of the prophets.'
If they had been so regarded we might suspect that the Bhaktas' experience of God was primarily an emotion; but they are rather the outward expression of that experience.
Thought certainly plays an important part in Bhakti.
The Tamil Bhaktas constantly tell us that they have "held Him fast with their minds.'
They speak of him sometimes as entering their will (cittam), their heart (nehjam), their innermost heart (ullam), but more often do they speak of Him as dwelling in their understanding
(unarvu), mind (cintai), intellect (pundi) or thought (ennam).* 2 It is very difficult to give the exact English equivalents of these Tamil psychological terms,
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The Bhaktas give feeling its due weight.
The term Tévaram, the name applied to the collection of Tamil Saiva Hymns by Jhanasambandar, Appar and Sundarar, has by some been interpreted to mean 'that which awakens love for God.' ' Nothing matters but love ' says
Appar ina significant hymn.' Here is a striking passage recalling St. Paul's hymn on love in Ist Corinthians
Xlii:
"The bones may he used as firewood and the flesh cut up and roasted on fire until it becomes aglow like gold.
'Yet except for those who melt with love and are stirred in the depths of their soul, the Jewel, resplendent like the Sun, is impossible of attainment.' * In Hindu Bhakti literature we do not find many references to what may be termed the activities of the will.
This is no doubt to be explained by the deeprooted Hindu conviction that the will is to be entirely suppressed as it is the creator of desires and consequently of actions and so of births in which the actions are to be enjoyed.
And yet in their endeavour to draw near to God the Bhaktas do seek to steady their thoughts, to control their senses and to eliminate their passions.
In spite of frequent failures they pursue the mystic quest, and this implies that their will has been educated and that they are not always helplessly driven to and fro. by their strong mystic feelings.
| 1 *Tanalatu ulaga milai.'
2 Tirumular, ' Enbé Virahdai.'
THE LOVE OF GOD
PERSONALITY BUT NOT EGoISM
In the religious books of our country the danger of egotism is frequently and forcibly asserted.
It is often pointed out that the root of many of our troubles is this 'sense of 'I' and 'mine.'
Now if Bhakti means an exercise of our personality in our communion with God, the result may be the strengthening of this sense of the ego. If we respond to God using our will, feeling and thought, as John asks us to do, we may be led to develop our ego, which will be a grave mistake. But the passage which we are studying points out three different ways in which the sense of personality may be kept under discipline and not allowed to develop into an ego in the ignoble sense.
It is necessary to draw near to God using fully all the will, feeling and thought we have, but this does not mean that we are to be slaves to them.
The first way is explained in the words :' This is my commandment that ye love one another even as I have loved you.
Greater love hath no man than this thata man lay down his life for his friends.'
There are occasions when even love, the greatest and highest of human achievements, can degenerate into something ignoble.
Love can become self-love.
We may love because of the joy which it gives us.
But selfish love will be impossible if we lay to heart the profound teaching of Jesus.
A man should even lay down his life for his friends as Jesus Himself did.
When we realize this, we shall find that love will be purified of all selfish taint.
If we can impress upon our
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minds the teaching of Jesus, repeated all through the New Testament, that love's end is not selfish enjoyment but its readiness to help and suffer and even die, there will never be any danger of its strengthening the claims of a false ego.
The next way is through the conviction that our call comes, not from any special merit on our part, but from God's working in the soul.
'Ye did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that ye should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.'
If there is any reason for us to think that it is we who first awoke out of the lethargy or indifference and resolved to seek God, unlike millions who are sunk in worldly life, we may easily begin to have a false sense of our own importance.
But the real truth must be writ large in our souls that it is God's grace which awakens in us a love for Himself.
Then we shall be constantly led to contemplate the grace of God, who has loved us without any thought of our own worthiness or goodness.
A _ constant recollection of this fact will fill our souls with a humility which will purge us of everything thatis ignoble or selfish.
The third way is also explained here. 'Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.'
There is a natural and logical development of thought in our passage which reaches its climax in this verse.
The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of John seems to make the bearing of
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fruit the great end of the life in Christ.
With such graphic power is this truth unfolded that we are led to think that the bearing of fruit is the final bliss of the life that is lived in Christ.
But this verse seems to point to something higher still.
We have been chosen to bear fruit in order that our fruit may abide and that whatsoever we ask of the Father He may giveitto us,
There seems to be then something beyond and higher than the bearing of fruit and that is the readiness to ask of God and to receive from Him whatsoever we want.
In the theory and practice of Mysticism petition has always been regarded as belonging to a lower stage of spiritual developmentthan communion.
With remarkable unanimity mystics have taught that to ask God for this gift and that is not of the highest form of religion,
If we have a friend we should not think of troubling him with requests everytime we met him.
He would get tired of us and our friendship with him would evaporate for we should always be thinking of what we could get from him and not of him.
Itis only when we can find joy in God, apart from anything He may give us or do for us, that our life with Him can be of the highest type. This experience of the mystics seems to need some such correction as that of John who teaches that even in the highest stage of mystic experience, we have to realize the infinite difference that exists between us and God, and to depend on Him for what we need.
'This dependence appears to be the mark of all the stages of the religious life including the highest.
There have been some mystics who have looked forward to absorption in God, But here we are
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taught that on the contrary the distinction between God and man continues with full force, especially in the form of man's dependence on God,
THE CONTINUATION OF PERSONALITY NECESSARY
Suppose we are travelling to a city which we have never seen, we begin to make inferences about its soil, its climate, its vegetation and so forth from what we see on the way.
Even before we actually get into the city, we come to have some knowledge of what it will be like from an observation of what its immediate neighbourhood is.
An exact knowledge of the city can be obtained only within its limits, but even from data collected on the way we may come to know some teliable facts about it.
So from the nature of Bhakti we can make inferences about the final bliss to which it will lead us, though they can be tested and confirmed only by experience.
Bhakti, as we have seen, is the offering of our whole personality to God.
It is not a cult of personality.
We do not follow it in order to develop our thought, enrich our feeling or strengthen our will.
But in practising Bhakti we are enriched and strengthened along all these lines.
This development and enrichment is not a momentary experience but is continuous with every act of Bhakti.
Now we ask:
Will this development suddenly stop?
Is it possible that this personality, which has been developing so gradually and steadily, will cease to be ina moment?
Is it not rather possible that so long as Bhakti continues, |
THE LOVE OF GOD
the development of the personality will also continue ?
And every devotee is convinced that the movement of his soul towards God in love and service implied in Bhakti will always continue.
With characteristic fervour Hindu saints have prayed that their Bhakti should continue in all the births and deaths through which their souls may pass. And Christian saints pray that they may love God and continue to be in communion with Him through all eternity.
But it may be said: We know that the body develops day by day.
Stores of inexhaustible strength seem to be laid up in it; we sometimes almost marvel at the vitality which it contains.
But there comes a day when the strongest man begins to fail and the stores of his energy disappear.
Something similar may happen to personality.
Though it is true that with every act of Bhakti, our personality becomes richer and stronger, yet after reaching a certain stage it may disappear.
The answer to this is that it is not reasonable to apply to the soul all that we know of the body.
In several matters, which are within the range of our immediate and definite knowledge, the soul differs widely from the body.
We need not, then, suppose that after a certain stage personality will rather mysteriously cease to be, as physical strength does.
Even if this argument may appear to some to be of doubtful value, the question remains:
What is the object of following God with all that we have?
As has been just pointed out, we do not aim at the sheer exercise of our personality.
The supreme concern of the mystical life is the realization of God.
Itis in
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order that this realization may be complete that we offer all we have.
There is no merit attached to such wholesale surrender of ourselves.
It is only when we bring to God all we have that we can possibly experience Him to the full and not when we lose our personality or anything attached to it.
If it is true that here and now our enjoyment of God is possible only after a full devotion of our personality, can it possibly be that there will come a stage when such experience will be possible with anything less?
Day by day we experience the living Christ, this experience determining all the manifold activities of our being.
Our thoughts are continually enriched and purified with the vision which He unfolds of God's unutterable glory.
This vision changes all life for us and teaches us its: real meaning.
And we are provided with the moral energy which we need to overcome sin and to live a life of purity and service.
The world loses its charm and we are constantly being led away from its strange deceits to the realm of character.
And such a life fills us with joy and love and peace that are unspeak- 'ably beautiful.
Beginning to serve God and man,. our hearts are lifted up and our souls are garrisoned with the peace that comes from on high.
It cannot. therefore be that the personality which is necessary even in the initial stages of our experience can ever cease to be.
Even in final bliss we shall continue to be separate from God and to depend upon Him for all that we need in humility and helplessness and_ whatsoever we ask of him in his name he will give it us.'
CHAPTER IV
THE LOVE OF MAN
Beloved, let us love one another : tor love ts of God ; and every one that loveth ts begoiten of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God zs love.
Herein was the love of God manifested in us, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, tf God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No man hath beheld God al any time ; tf we love one another, God abideth in us, and his love ts pertected in us + hereby know we that we abide in him, and hein us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.
And we have beheld and bear witness that the Father hath sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.
Whosoever shall confess that Jesus ts the Son of God, God abideth in him, and hein God.
And we know and have believed the love which God hathin us.
God is love: and he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him.
Herein is love made pertect with us, that we may have boldness in the day of judgement ; because as he ts, even so ave we tn this world.
There ts no fear in love : but pertect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment : and he that feareth is not made perfect in love.
We love, because he first loved us.
If a man say, I love God, and hateih his brother, he ts a