Advantages and disadvantages of Bhakti

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Advantages and disadvantages

 

The one great advantage of bhakti is that it is the easiest and

the most natural way to reach the great divine end in view; its

great disadvantage is that in its lower forms it oftentimes

degenerates into hideous fanaticism.

 

The fanatical crew in Hinduism, or Mohammedanism, or

Christianity, have always been almost exclusively recruited

from these worshippers on the lower planes of Bhakti. That

singleness of attachment (Nishtha) to a loved object, without

which no genuine love can grow, is very often also the cause of

the denunciation of everything else.

 

All the weak and undeveloped minds in every religion or country

have only one way of loving their own ideal, i.e. by hating

every other ideal. Herein is the explanation of why the same

man who is so lovingly attached to his own ideal of God, so

devoted to his own ideal of religion, becomes a howling fanatic

as soon as he sees or hears anything of any other ideal.

 

This kind of love is somewhat like the canine instinct of

guarding the master's property from intruders; only the

instinct of the dog is better than the reason of man, for the

dog never mistakes its master for an enemy in whatever dress he

may come before it.

 

Again, the fanatic loses all power of judgment. Personal

considerations are in his case of such absorbing interest that

to him it is no question at all of what a man says -- whether

it is right or wrong; but the one thing he is always

particularly careful to know is who says it. The same man who

is kind, good, honest, and loving to people of his own opinion,

will not hesitate to do the vilest deeds when they are directed

against persons beyond the pale of his own religious

brotherhood.

 

But this danger exists only in that stage of Bhakti which is

called the preparatory (Gauni). When Bhakti has become ripe and

has passed into that form which is called supreme (Para), no

more is there any fear of these hideous manifestations of

fanaticism; that soul which is overpowered by this higher form

of bhakti is too near the God of Love to become an instrument

for the diffusion of hatred.

 

Svami Vivekananda's complete works

 

Jaya Sri Radhey!

 

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