A spiritual seeker asked a question "How to unify Bhakti and Jnaana in life?" Here is an attempt to answer the question.

First to start with, we have the example given by Sri Ramakrishna. "In the infinite ocean of Sat-Chit-Aananda, by the cooling effect of the Bhakti of a devotee, the ocean forms into an ice block taking the shape that is worshiped by the devotee. Again, by the rising Sun of Jnaana, the ice block melts into the formless water of the ocean."

Always the worshiper and the worshiped can be of the same nature only. When you are in a mood of Jnaana, you see yourself as the Pure Conscious Subject and being so is the way to worship the formless attributeless aspect of God. When you are in a mood where you are very much aware of your body and mind, you worship the Lord also in the form of your Ishta with qualities like love, compassion, etc. This is called Bhakti. Thus they don't contradict. They are just different ways to worship the Lord.

When talking about Bhakta in Gita, Krishna classifies them as four types. (7.16) The first two are lower types - aartha and arthaarti - seekers of worldly ends by means of worship of God. The third is of medium type - jijnaasu - one who seeks God as the Goal of life. The fourth is the highest type - jnaani - one who knows God. Thus Krishna talks about Jnaana as the highest form of Bhakti.

The Sat-Chit-Aananda that is "known" as the Self at the height of Jnaana is not different from the Ishta. In Gita, Krishna tells this at several places. "I am the string that runs through this wonderful maala of pearls that is the world." (7.7) "Know that I am the Self who knows himself as the Subject in all embodied beings." (13.2) Thus God is the Subject, the Conscious entity in you. This is the ParaaPrakriti nature of God. Jnaana is the way to worship Him thus.

God also has become the manifested Object or Nature or Prakriti. This is the AparaaPrakriti nature of God. Everything that you see as objects - living and non-living - tangible and intangible - they are all the manifestations of the Lord by his Maaya. Everything that happens is by this Maaya only. Krishna tell this in several places also. "Everything is done by Prakriti by its Gunaas. The egoistic deluded person thinks 'I am the doer'." (3.27) One way to overcome this egoism which is called Ignorance or Maaya is surrender to the Lord. God is everything. vaasudevah sarvam (7.19) And everything that happens is by His Will. Maaya is just another name for His Will. There is nothing that exists other than Him. And everything happens by His sweet Will. This is a variation of Bhakti where the Lord is worshiped as the world - Vishwarupa. The world is seen as the manifestation of the Lord.

Now, how to live everyday life with this attitude? Having known the Lord as everything, live a life treating everything and everyone as His aspects and every incident in life as a manifestation of His Will. Swami Chinmayananda puts it beautifully "Your life is a gift from the Lord. How you live is your gift to the Lord." Do whatever you do as an offering to the Lord. Krishna says "by worshiping Him by doing your duty" (18.46). And take whatever happens as his prasaada. This is also Bhakti - the Karma Yoga way. When you are outside the puja room or temple, this is the way to worship the Lord.

When your mind is extrovert, see the Lord as the manifested world. Take a position as the servant of the Lord, because the body and mind are His servants. When your mind is introvert and when you identify yourself with the Subject, see the Lord as the Eternal Conscious Existence that is your own Self. When your mind is neither very extrovert nor very introvert, you worship the Lord in the form of the Ishta with attributes. Thus depending on the identity you take for yourself, your view of the Lord changes and the way of worship also changes.

I had prepared a PowerPoint presentation on Karma Yoga sometime back and recently created one on Jnana Yoga. I have uploaded them at http://www.esnips.com/web/gokulmuthu-Presentations

The purpose of all "Yoga" is to take the practitioner one step closer towards developing the right identity. A gross person identifies himself with the body and other things physical things that are related to the body. The perfect person identifies himself with the Subject discarding everything that can be objectified. The Subject is the real Self.

As an engineer, I got curious on how the various Yogas work. After a few days of thinking and discussions with friends, here is what I infer.

There are three entities talked about in all philosophies and religions - self, world and God. All religions and philosophies are merely different models for these three entities and the relationship between them. Every person has a personal model of these three depending on his stage of spiritual evolution.

The idea of all these three always go together. The person who identifies himself with the physical body sees the world as a physical entity and also needs a physical symbol of God to relate to. A person who sees himself as the mind sees everyone and everything in the world as mental entities and sees God also as a formless being with virtuous qualities.

By working on one of these three - self, world and God - and changing the perception of that entity, the other two get automatically changed. This is the basis of the various Yogas.

What is being aimed for is infinite, eternal and beyond causation. Anything finite cannot be fulfilling. Anything which can be acquired can be lost. So this leaves us with only one possibility. Whatever needs to be "acheived" is already there with us. The search is only because of the ignorance of it. The only remedy for ignorance is knowledge. Thus the final step to perfection is essentially that of knowledge (Jnana Yoga). There cannot be any other process there.

All other Yogas are preparations of the mind to make itself eligible to Jnana Yoga. It is here that the Yogas can be broadly classified based on which of the triad - self, world and God - that is taken as the primary entity to be worked upon. Each Yoga refines the concept and perception of a particular entity.

To start with, the self identity is with the physical body. This is because the objects of the senses are the main focus of attention. The body is taken as the subject when the external objects are focussed upon. Ashtanga Yoga (Raja Yoga) first makes the body and breath as the object and thus the identity shifts to the mind. This is only the beginning. After this, various practices of concentration make the mind the object. This makes the practitioner start enquiring "Who am I?". He finds himself as the consciousness without any qualities. Going one step further, he finds that he himself exists and appears as a everything and everyone. This leads him to knowledge.

A gross person looks upon the world as an object of enjoyment and exploitation. He sees the world as physical objects. He looks upon all the non-living and living things in the world, including human beings as physical objects who can either bring him happiness or sorrow. By serving others without aiming at one's own happiness and sorrow, the attitude about others change. The person starts seeing others as thinking and feeling entities. This is called Karma Yoga. Then going one more step, he realizes that everyone is a part of the same whole. Then he sees that the whole is in the core of every part. This leads him to knowledge.

The beginner of Bhakti Yoga sees God as a bigger power, who has to be appeased to get things done and to avoid calamities in life. He needs a physical symbol of God in a human form or any abstract shape. He needs to do a lot of physical rituals to connect to God. As he keeps following these, he develops an idea of God as a person with a lot of good qualities like compassion, fairness, omniscience, etc. Thus God's "mental" qualities comes more into his focus than the physical symbols and forms. As he progresses, he starts developing deep love to God and he starts loving God irrespective of the qualities of God. The "mental" qualities of God vanishes and he considers God as without any qualities. Once qualities are gone, the distinction between individual objects and people in the world and God is gone. This leads him to knowledge.

Thus the different Yogas take the aspirant from physical to mental and beyond. In all cases, the final blow to the individuality is given by the realization that there is nothing called an "individual". Only changeless eternal homogenous partless infinite consciousness exists. All variety is just an appearance. With this knowledge comes fulfilment. He finds that there was nothing to be acheived. He has been the infinite eternally. It was just the ignorance that made him think that he was not whole.

Thus the Yogas work.

Recently a friend referred me to a website which had an impressive collection of different kinds of meditations. He had tried one of them - watching the breath - and found a deep inner peace. He was very surprised that such a simple technique can have such a profound effect on the mind.

We are usually extrovert. The mind is created so. So usually we are carried away by the noise of the external world and throw our mind on the various things we see outside. We desire for things, we hate things, we judge things, etc. The mind is thus scattered. When the mind is turned inwards it gets detached from the noise and activity. For a short period of time, the mind calms down. This results in an experience of peace.

There are two points to be noted here.
(1) The scattered mind is not powerful and so cannot do much harm to others and to the person. By this exercise, the person learns to concentrate the mind. A concentrated mind is very powerful. Unless the person has developed a good sense of values, the powerful mind will be like a nuclear bomb in the hands of a terrorist.
(2) The peace that the mind experienced is temporary. When the mind gets back to interact with the world, the peace will be lost.

Traditional Vedanta has three steps to the ultimate goal of human life, which is Jivanmukti.
(1) Karma Yoga - to purify the mind
(2) Upaasana Yoga - to make the mind calm and introvert
(3) Jnaana Yoga - to realize the Truth

Meditation is a part of Upaasana Yoga. It is neither the first step, nor is it the last step. There is a lot of misconception regarding this.

A person who has not purified the mind sufficiently before attempting meditation will land up in a lot of trouble. He can create a lot of harm to himself and to the society. A highly moral life is a prerequisite for meditation. Purity of mid is defined as "unidentification with the body". All impurities of the mind are because of identification with the body and other props that support it. This identification should be at least weakened to an extent before one attempts meditation. This is done by serving others selflessly. Doing one's duty without having attachment to the fruits will make the mind pure. A person who is attached to the fruits of his usual work should not attempt long periods of meditation. Social service, charity, discipline, etc are the activities that he should be involved in.

There is also the misconception that meditation is an end in itself. A person enjoys the peace of mind when it is introvert tends to get attached to it and wants to be in meditation always. Also, there are several cases that the person gets distracted by the various side effects of meditation like hearing sounds, seeing light, seeing visions, etc. Meditation is not an end in itself. It is more important how much peace the person and the people around him enjoy when he is not meditating.

Meditation is only a preparation of the mind. The mind should be made introvert and ready to think about things deeply. With this preparation, the person should proceed to hearing about the Truth, thinking about it and putting it into action. The final goal is to realize the Truth about the Jiva, World, God, Bondage and Liberation. When the Truth is realized, the person enjoys the peace of mind everywhere at all times. He enjoys the highest peace of mind when he is busily involved in all the activities of life. This is the final state of the Jivanmukta.