DivineCrunch - Pushtimarg: The Path of Grace

The activities of all creatures in this world, center around the wish to acquire pleasure and to avoid sorrows. The root cause of these activities is the self-delightment (atmarati) of ultimate power (Brahma). This very Atmarati, present in each being is a small fraction,which forces each one to make attempts to acquire the delightment (pleasure). Upanishads describe Brahman as “Atmarati Atmamithuna Atmananda” and speaks of creation as an expression of self-delightment, self-consciousness & self-dependence of Brahman. The bliss aspect (anand) of Brahman is concealed (tirohit) in partial expression of consciousness of Brahman i.e. the individual souls.

That self-delightment or bliss aspect of Brahman when gets outlet through the different layers of individual consciousness, internal mental functions, external sense/motor organs & finally through our physical body towards sensual objects or persons, it is to be understood as worldly attachment. In other words, when the soul forgets the divine act (krida) of Lord in the form of Name/figure/act and start searching pleasure in name, figure and acts only, the very same wish to acquire ultimate pleasure turns in to worldly attachments. This is the most extrovert expression of self-delightment of Brahman. Because of concealment of bliss aspect, none of sensual objects can ever delight us. Yet these objects can act like mirror reflection of the Brahmic self delightment, which gets outlet through the above said media. Thus worldly attachment is nothing but fake reflection of self delightment of the blissful Brahman. With this worldly attachment, the soul never gets an ultimate bliss but becomes unhappy because of his own self-centered/possessive attitudes. With this he is able to satisfy his body needs but not the needs of his conscious soul. To get the real bliss of soul, one has to understand the Lord & his Divine act (leela) in the proper perspective and to love him unconditionally. The direction of self delightment from Brahman to world is a direction of creation, while devotion (bhakti) involves just the opposite direction of it. The true nature of devotion is a practical and sincere involvement within the self delightsome God. This is the innermost core of devotion which through Brahmic angle is called Aatmarati or self delightment and through individual soul’s angle, it is called ‘Nirupadhi- bhav’ i.e unmotivated love for The Supreme Self.

The following Quotation of Shri Bhagwat illustrates the point

“Ahamaatmaatmanaam dhatah preshth san preysaamapi
Ato mayi ratim kuryaad dehadiryatkrute priyah”

Meaning, affection for self and body-house-belongings, is derived from the Self-delightment of Lord (atmarati). So the requirement of conscious soul is fulfilled by the affection for God only. All the individual souls love their physical bodies, their relation and the sensual objects too, not because these bodies etc have any power to delight their soul, but because there is a deep-rooted desire in every soul for the Brahmic Self- delightment. This deep-rooted desire remains unsatisfied till it finds it’s true object. All worldly desires for any other object are motivated by the unconscious search for this Brahmic Self-delightment. Love is not an ordinary want, as it can not be defined as want for pleasure; because a lover may sometime inflict pain on himself due to love. Therefore it is unique attribute of and for God. It is like divine knowledge and other Lorldly attributes of God. Due to introvert emotional proximity of God, it gets transmitted in our consciousness and through consciousness elsewhere also e.g as heat of fire gets transmitted to other objects when they are near fire. Unision with God with affection is termed as method of Devotion (bhaktiyog) . It is really a tragedy that a person never pays attention to satisfy the needs of his conscious eternal soul, instead he keeps on pampering the needs of his perishable body and belongings through out his life span and wastes his life. This is the very purpose of His Power of Ignorance (avidhyashakti). It has been established in Shruti/Smruti that Ultimate Reality(Par Brahma)-Ultimate Soul(Parmatama)-God(Bhagwan) are nothing but Shri Krisna.

God has stated in Bhagwad Gita that

“Sarva yonishu kointay murtayah sambhavanti yaaha
Tasaam Brahma mahadyonihi aham beejpradah pitaah ”

Meaning, in various wombs whatever varieties of bodies are born,’Prakruti’ is considered to be childbearing mother and I am (God) considered to be the cause of conceivement, as a father.

So everybody is a devotee/servant of God by nature and devoted service for Him is everybody’s duty, by nature. Whoever is not able to serve him is considered to be a weak person by himself. While explaining this necessity, Shri Acharya states in Pushti Pravah Maryda chapter, for Souls with God’s Grace

“Bhagwat roop sevartham tatsrushti” that is Pushti Sect is created only to serve Him. This is the reason for Shri Mahaprabhuji to indicate the main Siddhant of Grace sect (Pushtimarg) in Siddhant Muktavali (Pearl necklace of Doctrines) “Natva harim pravakshyami svasiddhant vinishchyam Krisnaseva sadaa kaaryaa maansi saa paraa mataa”

Shri Gusainji here tells in his commentary on this chapter, that Devotion/Service to Lord Krisna is nothing but fifth-(Goal)/purusharth which means Seva is goal in itself and it cannot become means to achieve any other goal.