Narada Bhakti Sutra - Post 85

Sutra 81. Trisatyasya bhaktireva gareeyasee bhaktireva gareeyasee.

[Only love of the absolute, eternal truth is the greatest ; this love indeed, is the greatest.]

Trisatyasya: of the absolute, eternal truth

Bhakti: devotion

eva: alone

Gareeyasi: is greater

Bhakti: devotion

eva: only

Gareeyasee: is greater.

As per Devarishi Narada, in all the three periods of time, i.e. past, present, and future, devotion alone weighs heaviest (most glorious), devotion alone weighs heaviest (most glorious).

Of the three true paths, the path of devotion is greater than anything else; it is greater than anything else.

In this Sutra, Narada emphasized the value and importance of devotion. Divine love is eternal.

Repetition of the word “Gareeyasee” adds force. It glorifies devotion to the highest degree.

Bhakti alone is preferable to other paths, Bhakti alone is preferable.

The path of devotion is the highest path. Love of God is supreme. Devotion to God is devotion to Eternal Truth.

Trisatyam: The three eternal truths are 

(1) Jnana, 

(2) Karma and 

(3) Bhakti. 

God is love, goodness and truth. 

God is experienced by the devotee as love. 

God is experienced by the Karma Yogin as goodness. 

God is experienced by the Gyani as Truth. 

Narada says that the first is better than any other.

  

In the 12th chapter of Gita, Lord Krishna says, “The devotee is Yukta Tama” the best and highest among those who are united to Him.

“Among all Yogis, he who, full of faith, with his inner Self merged in Me, worships me, he is deemed by Me to be the most divine.” Gita, VI. 47. Thus the Bhakta is given the highest place.

Para Bhakti and Jnana are one. Para Bhakti is superior to Mukhya Bhakti even. 

In Para Bhakti, the devotee is one with his higher Self. The object of his love now is not the Personal God but the Absolute. 

The devotee now passes beyond time, space and causation, beyond the three Gunas, beyond the three states of waking, dream and deep sleep, even beyond the Triputi or subject-object relationship. He realises his oneness with the Lord.

Dear All,

As shared with you all, Swami put this author in the path of Bhakti in this birth from the age of 11 and held the devotee's hands and carried him in this noble path till he reached 47 years in his age in this birth.

In between, along with the path of Bhakti, Swami put him in service, made him zonal service coordinator in a zone in Delhi, made him take up an entire slum, get into service full time.

The path saw many ups and downs, he went through the roller coaster in life, attaching to Lord many a times and missing the Lord some times. 

In his 47th age, Swami willed and put him in the path of Jnana, about which he had no prior experience, though, he could pick up some portion from the Bhagwad Gita etc. and could give a decent talk.

But when he was put on the path of Jnana, there was no looking back and the next 6 months saw him reading and assimilating the main treatise in Jnana, the Upanishads and the related  treaties of Sankara, Sivananda, Chinmayananda, Krishnananda, Paramahamsa yogananda, Dattatreya and many more!!!

So, as a devotee and a sadhaka who has gone through all the three paths, not as a generalist but with intensity, with Swami's grace, the author can only say the following, out of his own life's experience, on this sutra.

"Even in Service / Path of Karma, in Wisdom, the path of Jnana, Dosage of Bhakti is very important and it adds strength and purpose in the other 2 paths.

Without Love for God, perhaps, all the author's learning in the path of Jnana might not have borne fruit to the extent it did, due to the fact that much of his past years saw him immersed in the path of devotion, singing Lord's glory from his childhood, again with Sai's grace.

Without Love, there is a string possibility that all the learning in Jnana might have been just a theoretical learning, adding knowledge to the head and adding more EGO to the strong head with more knowledge thrust into it.

Without Love, ritualistic Bhakti, his visits to Parthi, his bhajan singing etc. would have also become a routine, ritualistic. 

Thus, it is not only to say that only Bhakti is the greatest path, but out of author's own direct experience, he can say truthfully that it is devotion which helps, which adds fragrance to all the other path in spirituality too.

It is as though, pleased with his devotion only that the lord Himself chose to put him in the path of Jnana, otherwise, how and why one would  take up the difficult path of upanishads, meditating on TRUTH which has no form as such, after his 45 years of drinking the nectarine form of Sathya Sai.

So, Lord Himself takes care and decides the future of a devotee in his spiritual path, if the devotee submits himself to the Lord in pure love.

Love.