Bhakti is the Path of Devotion
In this spiritual tradition, the adherent seeks union with the Divine through becoming absorbed in their chosen deity or aspect of God. It is also known as the path of love, devotion, service and surrender. Through cultivating Divine love of God, the seeker attains union with the Supreme.
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Jnana is the Path of Self Knowledge
In this spiritual tradition of Advaita, the adherent seeks Knowledge, wisdom, through introspection and contemplation. This path involves deep exploration of the nature of our being by systematically exploring and setting aside false identities.
Together, they form Radical Devotional Advaita
It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. They heard the music from the nahabat in the temple garden…
MASTER (to Keshab and the others):
“Do you hear how melodious that music is? One player is producing only a monotone on his flute, while another is creating waves of melodies in different ragas and raginis. That is my attitude. Why should I produce only a monotone when I have an instrument with seven holes? Why should I say nothing but, ‘I am He, I am He’? I want to play various melodies on my instrument with seven holes.
Why should I say only, ‘Brahma! Brahma!’? I want to call on God through all the moods-through santa, dasya, sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. I want to make merry with God. I want to sport with God.”
Keshab listened to these words with wonder in his eyes and said to the Brahmo devotees,
“I have never before heard such a wonderful and beautiful interpretation of Jnana and Bhakti.”
~ The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Confession of the Bhakti
by Ramakrishna
What is this, if not Divine Rapture?
Gauranga is an Ocean of Bliss.
In Ecstasy he laughs, weeps, dances, and sings.
Every wooded grove he sees as Vrindavan, and the Ocean as the Jamuna.
He places his head on his own Feet,
For he is Gaur without, but Sri Krsna within.
~ Song from Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
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Confession of the Jnani
by Robert Adams
For the Jnani who has realized the identity of his inner being
with the infinite Brahman,
there is no rebirth, no migration and no liberation.
He is beyond all this.
Hi is firmly established in his own Absolute,
Existence-Knowlegde-Bliss true nature.
The further existence of his body and the world
appears to the Jnani as an illusion,
which he cannot remove,
but which no longer deceives him.
After the death of this body, as in life,
he remains where and what he eternally is,
the first principle of all beings and things:
formless, nameless, unsoiled, timeless, dimensionless and utterly free.
Death cannot touch him, cravings cannot torture him,
sins do not stain him; he is free from all
desire and suffering.
He see the infinite Self in all, and all in the Infinite Self,
which is his Being.
The Jnani confesses his experience thus;
I am infinite, imperishable, self-luminous, self-existent.
I am without beginning or end.
I am birthless, deathless, without change or decay.
I am permeate and interpenetrate all things.
In the myriad universes of thought and creation,
I ALONE AM.
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Tasting Divine Bliss in Different Ways
“The whole of the teaching, the transmission, is contained in the bhajan” ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Morning Bhajan
Live with Ranjit Maharaj in Hawaii
For the text, see
http://www.sadguru.us/Bhajans/Morningbhajan.htm
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Afternoon/Night Bhajan
Live from Nisargadatta Maharaji’s apartment in Mumbai
For the text, see
http://www.sadguru.us/Bhajans/Aft-bhajan.htm
http://www.sadguru.us/Bhajans/Nightbhajan.htm
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“All are but parts of One Stupendous Whole, Whose body Nature is, And God the Soul.” ~ Alexander Pope
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