BHAYA BHAKTI AND SAI BABA (By B.V.N.Swamy)

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BHAYA BHAKTI AND SAI BABA

(By B.V.N.Swamy)

Adverting to one more species of devotion included in

the well known Bhagavata verse

 

we may note first the common features of all of them.

Lust, Fear. Hatred, Kinsmanship, Friendship, and

Devotion are the six ways in which one's mind (i.e.,

one self) is drawn to a God form or God-man's form.

The Dehatmabuddhi is patently predominent ,in the mind

of the person, who thus regards his body as his self.

The God form or God-man's form approaches (or is

approached by) such a person. In nature when two

individuals or entities meet, they are either

attracted to or repelled by each other i.e., they meet

as friends or foes. Their respective strength,

position, powers, sympathies and attitude towards

external objects will determine the question of

friendship or enmity. In the case of Divine beings

these are superior power, vast strength and protection

or help to all creatures. So normally fear and awe

will first be aroused in, then gratitude and service

will be offered by the creature who may next rise or

be raised to the level of friendship and Love

accompained by the spirit of perfect unreserved

surrender ending in Merger. In the nine' forms of

Bhakti, Sravana, Keertana, and Smarana are the means

of contact or approach. Then comes Padasevana,

Archana. and Vandana.—i.e.,the ways by which the

crea­ture impressed with awe and fear of God shows his

humility, fear, dependence and solicitude to please

the superior power. Service to God, Dasyam is the

creature*s attitude at that stage. God and God-men are

so pleased to protect, and help such a creature that

blessings of all sorts are showered with the result

that the fearing, praying and worshipping creature is

filled first with gratitude and then (as it gets more

familiar with the Divine object) with Love.

God and God gurus raise the humble devotee doing

service (Dasaym} to their own level, endowing him with

more and more of Divine grace and divine qualities.

This familiarity takes the shape of friendship or

kinship, and.finally of Love, which ultimately seeks

and achieves unity by surrender, Atma nivedana. These

three are the last three forms of Nava Vidha Bhakti.

The intermediate achievements are called the first

three forms of Mukti. viz. Salokya i. e., (being

near or co-sphered with the Divine), Sarupya (i, e,,

being filled with Divine graces and qualities and even

external divine marks) and Sameepya (i. e., being

drawn into very close contact with the Divine).

These end in the fourth and final form of Mukti or

Salvation, viz. Sayujya (i. e,, being with­drawn into

or merger with the Supreme).

This well-known ladder of ascent to Salvation is thus

seen to begin with fear and humility and end with

transmutation of the fearing and separate individual

self into the Supreme Self.

This is the normal approach to God. The abnormal

appro­aches are where the creature turns its internal

power, virility or vitality into channels of lust for

the divine form or hatred of the divine form. As long

as the divine is kept in mind constantly and

vigorously by the Kamukhi or Vyree creature, the way

in which the contact has thus turned abnormal does not

matter. Divine Love conquers all the vicious and

unsatwic material and turns it all into pure Love,

that merges by surrender.

At first, it may seem that fear or Bhaya Bhakti is

nobler and should not be classed with lust and anger.

But really it is of the same class and works in the

same way. Fear and Hatred are different responses to

the same stimulus, the differences being caused by the

position and disposition of the creature, A strong

creature like Hiranya "Kasipu or Satan can hate and

spend its strength and power in hatred, sustaining

itself for some time in a moderately high position (at

least in its own estimation). '

But a weak creature cannot do so and at once crouches

and prostrates and offers worship and abject surrender

like Daksha whose implorations to Rudra in the Rudra

mantra (e.g., save me, do not kill me, my babies, my

animals; give me grains, water, stones to grind, and

fire to cook. &c.,) furnish such a glaring contrast to

the speeches of Hiranya Kasipu and Satan.

Fear, like many other emotions is seen to be a

transient phase. It is a necessary ingredient of all

animal nature, A creature notes the approach of

another object with superior power that might

seriously hurt it or even destroy it. Hence nature

gives it fear and makes it either run away or crouch

and try to make the best out of the situation by

avoidance of futile resistance. This phase must end

yery soon by a creature being badly mauled, disabled

or even killed or saved from such dangers. If it

survives, depend-ance and worship are the

consequences. Where the object approach­ed does no

harm, being divine, gratitude, familiarity, and love

are the results. Fear though natural at the first or

early stages of contact must pass or be changed into

higher sentiments and emo­tions. Fear of God is the

beginning of Wisdom and Religion, But it cannot, even

in the-lowest forms, remain unalloyed fear. In higher

cultures especially, it is seen to be soon

transformed. Fear that is the mark of the brute stage

passes off. Awe which recognises the sublimity of

Divine Power marks a distinct cultu­ral advance.

Even awe must be transient. It is unhealthy for any

organism to remain long in the awe stage which for

one thing must stunt its growth. Divine grace leads

that creature by its boons to tread on the golden

realms of gratitude and Love. Awe keeps the creature

at a great distance from God. Gratitude draws it

nearer and Love draws it into close contact ending in

perfect surrender and unity. Fear or Awe is the

child stage or stage of weakness. Gratitude and Love

impart strength and other graces, befitting the

creature to be cosphered, contacted and drawn into the

Divine, i.e., the highest stage.

As fear is the most common, almost normal beginning

of Devotion, it is held to be a virtue. But really

it is a virtue only at one stage. Bkaya Bhakti is

after all a teething ring or a rattle. If a person in

his teens should still use the teething ring or

rattle, it will be perfectly useless'to him, nay

harmful and will escite just ridicule. Similarly the

growing devotion of individuals and communities

makes them throw off their spiritual toys and

go-carts and adopt more suitable ways and

means of approaching God and God-men. God-men and

Gurus then point out that fear ia the purely animal

reaction and its persistense will lead to degradation

and rebirth in animal forms, Bhaya, ite., cowardice,

i.e., a persistent habit of fear, and Vyra, i.e.,

irrational and violent hatred of other creatures are

equally degrading, and result in retrogression of the

soul in its rebirths. JSri Sai Baba pointed this

out when he narrated how Basappa a coward, and

Veerabadrappa, a fierce bully with aggressive, nay,

murderous Covetousness were both at death degraded

into lower forms of life. The coward was born a

frog, and the murderous hater of the coward

was born a cobra, in their next janma; and in that

janma, the cobra Veerabadrappa chased and seized in

its mouth the frog Basappa. It was the promise

made by Sai Baba to-Basappa in his human birth that

brought him just at the nick of time to save the life

of Basappa the frog and the soul of Veera­badrappa

the cobra, by advising him (V) to give up hatred of a

fellow creature—so ruinous to the spiritual health of

any person. Baba was very emphatic in dissuading his

Bhaktas from hatred of any sort—or even from wordy

fight. He would say; “If any one speaks ten words at

us, put up with it and if you reply at all, reply with

one word. As for enmity, he rebuked Das Ganu Maharaj

who felt injured and slighted by not being invited to

a feast and told Baba ;—" So and so is my enemy and he

did not invite me and give me sweetmeat."

Baba'a reply was—" What is this sweetmeat ? Who eats

it ? Do not say of any one that he is your enemy." To

Chandrabai Borker, Baba said " We should not harbour

hatred, envy, rivalry or combative disposition towards

others. If others hate us let us simply take to

Namajapa and avoid them."

Baba again narrated how hatred reacts on one's rebirth

and forms a strange rinanubhanda :—He said " At

Shirdi, near the Takia, a blind man lived. He was

murdered, A hangman carried out the villagers'

sentence that the murderer should be hanged. But be

did so out of spite or enmity towards the murderer. So

the executed man was1 born as the hangman's son (to

wreak bis revenge)."

Baba pointed out that the jiva in its essence is the

Satchit Ananda. Its real nature is Life, Love and

Consciousness. Each jiva is a manifestation of this

supreme Love and Wisdom. . The plan of Providence is

to make Love and Wisdom develop in eacb Jiva till it

reaches the perfection of Bliss-consciousness. Hatred

and Fear and Lust work in the opposite direction and

tend to separate warp and dwarf the soul. So Sai Baba

helped his devotees to overcome fear, lust and hatred

and develop and, perfect their love to God and to him

(Baba) as the reflection of God to them. Baba never

encouraged any to develop Vyree Bhakti, Kamukhi Bhakti

and even Bhaya Bhakti, Sometimes he had to start a

man's proper contact with him, through fear. This

seems to have been the case with Balasahib Bhate and

Mr. P. R. Avaste. Both were in terror of him at their

first personal contact with1 him. But that was soon

changed into admiration and worship, i e., —real

Bhakti free from fear.

The subject of fear is a separate topic in books on

the Psychology of Religion and even in History of

Religions. No attempt has been made here to touch even

the main outlines of that topic—not even with

reference to Sai Baba. That would call for a separate

treatise. We have just jotted down a few stray notes

on this vast subject with special reference to Baba's

sayings and activities. The conclusion we have to draw

about Bhaya Bhakti is nearly but not wholly the same

as in the other forms of Bhakti. Fear, after all, is

to be shunned and conquered, though it may be the

beginning of one's contact with God or God forms. Let

it be a beginning but only a beginning. Take good

care that you do not stop long at this rudimentary

stage or form of Bhakti. Fear is at the animal level

and its continuance must degrade the soul and not

raise it as true Bhakti does. Fear is a vice in the

individual and in the community or nation—Baba

discountenanced it in the individual and in the

community and nation. Baba waa fearless and gave

Abhayam. Let us all be free and fearles devotees like

Sai Baba.

 

 

 

 

 

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