Food for Thought - 25.12.2021
"Bhakthi is the fire which burns all desires"
We often talk about bhakthi and desires in separate instances, but the two are connected, you may ask how?
Here is my thought process:
Similarity between the two
1. Bhakthi and desire have the same parents - manam and karma
2. Bhakthi and desire are present in the same substrate - the body
3. Bhakthi and desire, decide the path the human life has to take
4. Bhakthi and desire are forces of creation and destruction.
Now let us look at the Differences between Bhakthi and Deaire:
Bhakthi is unidirectional but desire is multidirectional
Bhakthi is satvik while desires is rajasic and tamasic
Desire is the stepping stone of bhakthi; bhakthi is the effect of the cause which is desire
Bhakthi is gnanagni but desire is kamagni
Bhakthi is white and pure ; Desire is multicoloured
Bhakthi leads human athma to wards mukthi; desire leads the athmainto cycle of births and deaths.
So from the above discussion it becomes clear that bhakthi and desire are interconnected and present in the same body.
Bhakthi and Deaire are like the devas and asuras present together and fighting against each other within us.
Let me explain how this whole thing works and how we can understand and use them to our advantage ie mukthi
If you take the example of churning of parkadal
Asuras - desires
Devas - bhakthi
Vasuki the serpent - experiences and incidents in life
Mandara mountain used to churn the ocean -
Parkadal - our life going through the turmoils
Kurma avatar of vishnu - God helping us to churn our life
When the churning of life happens, we understand and reflect and churn it even more when we start seeing results like the gifts from the parkadal.
The gifts that we get on churning our inner self are the siddhis, buddhis, peace, knowledge.
On acquiring them bhakthi is like the devas who get the opportunity to drink the amrutham and become immortal never to die whereas the desire like the asuras does not attain immortality , so bhakthi rises much above the desires and our heart is full of peace and tranquillity. There is satisfaction and we are able to distinguish between the right and the wrong, real and unreal; The thirst for desire is quenched forever by the attainment of gnanam through gnanagni.
The question on everybody’s mind is why does desire arise?
Desire arises out of ignorance,
ignorance arises out of a sense of imperfection ;
this means that sense of imperfection is in direct contact with the external influence
( it can be something outside one’s self other than himself).
So when one realises god through bhakthi then he loses himself , focusing only on God due to which his desires fade away.
Let us now find ways to attain this state
As we attain the state of understanding, let us follow the path of bhakthi and let bhakthi burn down the desires inside us.
Very profound and inspiring 🙏🙏