Why do I need God-knowledge? It alleviates ignorance—the cause of suffering—and it insures us against it. It promotes healthy habits such as gratitude and the ability to let go; two of this world’s best remedies for relieving stress. We could argue all day and night whether or not God exists or what God is, but you cannot deny your experience, even if you are oblivious to it, that everything you’re witnessing right now is being simultaneously created, maintained, and recycled by a power greater than you. Call it nature, the Field, or Life, if you will; it makes no difference.
Vedanta is neither for nor against any religion. As the science of Consciousness, Vedanta provides us with a valid and independent means of knowledge for both ‘small’ self (our personal identity or conditioning) and ‘big’ Self-inquiry (our true nature). It removes ignorance of our true nature as Consciousness and produces the ability to discriminate between the two orders of reality: duality (always changing) and nonduality (never changes). It ends existential suffering because it removes all doubt about who you are, how you relate to and need to function in the Field of Existence, and how to manage your mind.
A Religious Attitude
Vedanta advocates the need for a ‘religious attitude’ to life as essential to happiness and a meaningful life. This attitude is not blind faith like religion requires of us. It is worshipping God, not for God’s benefit, but for our benefit. It is knowledge based worship. Worshipping God is not about ritual or self-abnegation, it is about living intelligently because we understand the gift of life. It is about practicing gratitude in whichever way works for us. If that is lighting a candle, chanting, sitting in silence, walking in nature, surfing a wave, or reverence for a symbol of God meaningful to us, it does not matter. God is not fussy, because everything is God. Though we should definitely not fear God, we need to respect life and live in harmony with it because we aren’t in control. We can try to live without God, but how impoverished our lives are without appreciation for God’s bounty. How sad and joyless is a life without God!
Three Definitions of God According to Vedanta
We need to understand the definitions of God according to Vedanta gradually and systematically until we can see the full vision, or the whole Mandala of Existence. The way in which I define (or deny God) will determine my life experience and devotion. Each level of my understanding of God produces its own kind of devotional attitude. The first two stages are personal devotion and involve free will, which is why these stages are called dualistic worship. The purpose of these stages of worship is that these practices reduce subjectivity and neutralize likes and dislikes, as well as negating the doer and managing and negating the childish ego. The third and last stage of devotion, non-dual devotion, takes place once the egoic doer is permanently negated by Self-knowledge.
Stage 1: Dualistic Human or Worldly God Knowledge and Worship
As God worship involves love, we must first define love according to Vedanta. “Ordinary” love is called kama, and it is the nature of desire. A kami loves an object with desire and does not worship the object. The kami wants something from the object, which produces severely limited feelings constrained by the behaviour of the love object. This kind of love usually involves a person, but can apply to things too. It is high maintenance and requires the security of ownership. Kama is called love, but it is actually the antithesis of love, because real love is free and not object dependent but subject dependent. Love, if it is real, wants nothing and fears nothing. It is Self-referenced and therefore, Self-satisfied. Desire feels like love because when its needs and conditions are met, the mind is settled and blissful. When its needs and desires are not met, it is a veritable sea of storms. Kama, desire, is the coin in the realm of samsara.
In the discussion on love it is always difficult to understand the equation between Consciousness and love. This is because it seems like Consciousness is free of feelings; whereas love seems to be a feeling quite separate from Consciousness. But there is actually no difference because reality is non-dual and feelings are never apart from Consciousness; they arise out of it and are made up of Consciousness, like the spider’s web is made up of the spider. Although Consciousness is always free of feelings.
We love God as an Object
Stage one of God-knowledge is not essential, but it is a stepping-stone to the next stage of devotion. In the first level of understanding, where all religions originate, my understanding of God is as a personified and ‘personal’ deity, a HE usually; a father figure who takes care of me and listens to my problems. It is a parent/child relationship. In this stage, most believers are after God’s stuff, rather than God. As a devotee I want something, so I supplicate God to get the desired results.
My devotion to God is informal, undisciplined, emotional, subjective and “heart” based. My desire is to serve and worship according to the qualities (gunas) that condition the instrument of love: the mind and heart. If the heart/mind is dull (tamasic) superstition and fear inform one’s worship. For example, fear-based religious worship. If the heart/mind is passionate (rajasic), desire informs one’s worship. At its worst, it leads to sectarianism, fundamentalism, fanaticism, and dogmatism, giving rise to all religious wars. It makes people feel self-righteous, that they have “God on their side” and can act out whatever they believe “in His name,” that they are better than others and their way is the only way. On the other hand, it also offers the benefits of religion as mentioned previously, such as connection to others, the support of the community through the comfort of rituals, emotional/psychological support and coping systems, or therapy.
Stage 2 of God Worship: Karma Yoga
Bhakti, which comes from the Sanskrit word “bhaj” means to worship. Bhakti or worship is free of desire; other than to serve and worship the object of desire, kama. But like desire, kama, bhakta is object and not subject dependent. One appreciates the goodness of the object of worship, which seemingly ‘stands apart’. The bhakta (devotee) does not want to possess but rather to serve the object of desire. There is a feeling of gratitude born out of the understanding that one is privileged to experience this love.
At the second stage, my understanding has progressed somewhat beyond seeing God as a parent to seeing God in all of life. My devotional practice is emotional but also intellectual and I start to develop the desire for God, not so much God’s stuff anymore. I start to practice karma yoga—surrendering the results of actions to the Field (or God) with an attitude of consecration and gratitude because I have realized that the results of actions are not up to me, which helps neutralize the idea of doership. Karma yoga lessens the pressure of succeeding or failing and offers me the tools to objectify my thoughts/emotions.
If my heart/mind is pure (sattvic), I love for the sake of the object/beloved (God) and for the sake of love itself, such as the ecstatic rapture of saints and mystics, who are often found in this stage. But even a pure mind sees the beloved as an object—as ‘other than’. There is a doer, a lover. This doer/lover loves something or someone other than his or herself; even though in all cases, known or unknown, it is for the sake of the Self that one loves. A mature devotee knows that he or she is the Self and worships all as the Self. But a dull (tamasic) or extroverted (rajasic) devotee remains unaware of this fact because they feel incomplete and love an object in order to feel complete (God or some other symbol of divinity) because it makes him or her feel more secure, more complete, and ‘happier’. There is usually, however, a sense of separation from the object.
The advantage that a sattvic (pure) devotee enjoys over a tamasic/rajasic devotee is that the object of worship (God, in whatever way it is conceived) is always available to reciprocate. Whereas if you see God as a person or a thing, your love is not always available or receptive. But the lover of God as Consciousness/Self is never far from the beloved because God is Consciousness and Consciousness is unfailingly responsive. No matter how the Self is invoked, it responds lovingly because Consciousness is love. It does not matter whether you see Consciousness as the religious God or as another kind of symbol: an idol, a person, nature, a practice or ritual, or as life itself. Consciousness does not discriminate because it sees everything as itself. There is a beautiful saying in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna speaking to Arjuna says: “In whatever way you worship me (i.e. the Self or Consciousness) I will come to you to make your faith strong”.
Objective God Knowledge Begins
This stage is compulsory for self-inquiry; here devotion is still dualistic, but much less so. Vedanta calls this upasana yoga (meditation, contemplating, or keeping the mind focused on the Self). It is where worship of God becomes objective: purely impersonal and intellectual. Knowledge of God and the creation start to crystallize. There is still duality and you see God in special forms (for example, in icons or beauty) but gradually, as your knowledge becomes firm, this progresses into seeing and worshipping God in all forms, the good and the bad.
Stage 3: Impersonal God-Knowledge or Self-Knowledge
In the final stage of understanding, I transcend my idea of myself as merely a person. I see myself and God as the formless essence of all both manifest and unmanifest, as Consciousness. My devotion is non-dual and therefore non-personal, beyond subjectivity and objectivity, i.e., free from the limited small self, the person and their story. With non-dual vision, you see everything primarily as the Self and secondly as the person, never confusing the two again. You still live as the person obviously and follow dharma, your own, and universal dharma, which requires following the rules of the Field of Existence, or God, automatically. You continue with your devotional practice except it is no longer dualistic in that you know that everything is you, Consciousness. You have permanently discriminated between what is real, i.e., what is always present and unchanging, and what is apparently real, or what is not always present and always changing—the body and the world.
The final stage does not negate the previous three, it simply completes the full picture. When we appreciate God as both form and formless, and as sharing the same identity as ours, we can see God as a ‘personified’ deity if we choose to, or in any symbol that is meaningful to us. Or we can see God as the totality of nature, as the Field. It does not matter at this stage of understanding because my God-knowledge cannot be negated and has become firm Self-knowledge. Just as quantum physics does not displace Newtonian physics, both understandings are valid at their respective levels.
I Am Parabhakta
Once Self-knowledge is firm and has permanently removed the ignorance of your true nature as whole and complete, non-dual Consciousness, you now have parabhakti. Love is known to be you, your true nature, meaning Consciousness. God is known to be you. It is having all you could ever want and knowing it will never leave you. It is a feeling of limitless satisfaction. Parama sukka is the word used in the texts. The nature of the Self, Consciousness is parama prema svarupa. Parama means limitless; svarupa means nature and prema is reserved only for this kind of love or knowledge, which is the same thing. Even pure spiritual love is a pale reflection of prema because prema is the nature of the Self. When I know I am Consciousness, I am prema, limitless love. This love is knowledge because prema is intelligent and only happens when the doer has been fully negated by self-knowledge.
At this point, your entire life is an outpouring of love and everything in it is a reflection of you, Consciousness, and known to be such. Your life is a devotional practice. This does not mean that you will no longer have a devotional practice in the form of prayer, meditation, chanting etc. Any activity will be suitable as the bliss of the Self is the bliss of knowledge, which translates experientially as gratitude and peace. Devotion is undertaken as the Self, in the spirit of joyful union with all.
Very importantly, as the Self-actualised jiva, one has understood that although one’s nature is parama prema svarupa, the jiva or apparent entity still exists in the apparent reality. This is the lawful universe or dharmafield and it remains the domain of Isvara. Knowing that one is really the Self, one is beyond Isvara and the gunas, so therefore one is free of both. However, even though Maya no longer exists once avidya or personal ignorance is removed by Self-knowledge, this does not mean that one is no longer subject to the universal laws that govern the apparent reality. This is samanya dharma and it continues to function as it always has. One’s devotional practice is now a celebration of one-ness with Isvara; an attitude of gratitude. Karma yoga continues in the form of pure Self-knowledge, no longer to negate the doer.
Much love
Sundari
