Asserted Topics:
What is true Rasikta (amorousness)?
Key Points:
- It is a great loss, if a Rasik Bhakta has interest in anything other than God.
- Love towards God is only love which can bestow Mōkṣha (salvation).
- It is false Rasikta, if one has an attachment towards God and materialistic objects.
Explanation
This Vachanāmrut is about a Rasik Bhakta (having amorous love for God). Māharāj explains the meaning of true Rasikta (amorousness). Rasa means the taste or character of a work, the feeling or sentiment prevailing in it.
There are nine kinds of Rasas (taste) in Sanskrit literature, generally enumerated, e.g. Beautiful/Love, funny, compassion, brave, heroic, horrible, nasty, wonderful, calm. The word, Ras means the nine types of feelings, yet the word rasik is very much used in literature in reference to amorous love. Māharāj said that many have fallen from Bhakti by the path of Rasik–marg (amorous love), and very rarely were people liberated.
Rasik means a person who knows or experiences shrungar-rasa (amorous love). This Rasikta (amorousness) is also related to male-female, and also related to the transcendental Supreme God. God is the ultimate source of all Ras (feeling or sentiment). Śhruṅgār Ras (amorous love) laid in God is divine and transcendental, and is the provider of both bhakti (devotion) and Mukti (salvation). Therefore, who is really a Rasik Bhakta? This is discussed in this Vachanāmrut.
There are two kinds of Rasikta. One leads to Mukti, and the other leads to Hell. Rasikta related to materialistic objects is the provider of hell, while Rasikta related to God is the provider of Mukti. Rasikta also provides Rasa and is placed in all humans and animals as well. When there is a chance of ālamban and uddipan (contact) it becomes activated. Rasikta does not have discretion that this would take me to hell or attain God. this is the flaw of rasikta. One’s own rasikta leads one to hell then how come it can be called as favarable? Māharāj says that a true Rasik devotee is one who has love towards God only otherwise they are false devotees. Why? If the fruit of Rasikta is favourable it should be called a true Rasikta, and if the result is sorrow it should be said as a false Rasikta.
Māharāj says in the Vachanāmrut that the Gopies have loved Lord Krishna through Rasikbhav (amorousness), and attained the divine abode of God because their field of Rasikbhav was towards God. While innumerable females have loved their respective husbands through Rasikbhav, they did not attain Mōkṣha.
Therefore, The true Rasikta is one experiences the taste of Ras, also leads to liberation by the attainment of God. This rasikta can only be achieved through God.
Furthermore, Māharāj has explained how to distinguish between the different types of Rasikta such as Rasa towards God, and towards materialistic objects. When Rasa is towards materialistic objects, The experience of Ras in God is not complete unless it is reciprocated. The extent to which other tastes are reversed after experiencing Ras in God determines whether Ras has truly manifested in God or not. If there is still affection towards worldly objects alongside God, it means there is no true affection for God. The same does not applies to wordely Ras. When worldly Ras does exists with a slight Rasa in God, the initial relishing does not become rooted. Wordely Rasa can be with sligest of Gods Rasa but God’s Rass cannot be.
Hence, Māharāj says in this Vachanāmrut that if “one is equally interested in the words of the song and the musical instruments as well as in the sweet voices of women as much as he is interested in the words of the devotional songs of God, we must consider such a devotee to be lacking discretion.” It is ignorant of a devotee to not know the difference in fruit of different Rasa. To renounce such foolishness and find joy in only the words of God is the essence. Such a devotee can be called a true devotee. Same applies to the sense of touch. For example, a true Rasik Devotee is pleased by the touch of God, but feels like they are touched by a serpent or hot fire if they come in contact with any other object. Against the beauty of God, these devotees feel content, but feel rotten by the sight of another object. Against the taste and smell related to God they feel unpleasant and uncomfortable around taste and smells from objects other than God. When one behaves like this then his Rasikta is true and it leads to ultimate salvation.
Māharāj says that “A devotee, who gets pleasure in those objects that have come in contact with God and also finds pleasure from sound, sight, smell, touch, and taste related to other worldly objects, is not a true Rasik Bhakta”. Therefore, that type of devotion and Upāsanā should be considered as false, because one finds God in a way he finds other wordely objects. Therefore his emotion and knowledge are both wrong.
Another special topic Māharāj has explained is that there is discrimination between Rasikta and affection in Jagrat (awaken state of mind) and Swapna (dreamful state of mind).
It is a false Rasikta, if a devotee becomes happy in a dream state by visualising God’s Murti as well as worldly objects. And one who, even in a dream, becomes happy just by the divine darshan of God and dislikes the sight of other objects is a true Rasik devotee. If one sees God in a dream, it is true, but the understanding of the devotee is not true. Tempting towards God but not to objects other than God is the true understanding.
It is important to note that whether we worship wholeheartedly to Pratyaksh God, or to His Murti externally or in our mind (including dream-state), we will be blessed for our worship. It’s not the subject of fantasy. Whereas pleasures of wordely objects are always temporary, distructive and insignificant even experienced for a single moment in an awakened or dreamful state.
Another important point is that worshiping God with true devotion and wholeheartedness, whether through physical worship (Pratyaksh) or mental worship (Mansipuja), bestows the same results. Even though the objects in the mind during mental worship are not real but mere imaginary objects, the fruits of the worship will be the same as in physical worship. Although the objects in dreams are false, experiencing worldly objects even in dreams will not spare one from the consequences. One has to suffer the consequences in the form of sins. Objects are real in the physical world but not in dreams, yet attachment to and experiencing worldly objects, whether in the awakened state or dream state, will result in sins.
Furthermore, Māharāj says that God is always a provider of salvation, whether He is visualised as a Pratyaksh or in a dream-state. Such understanding or discrimination sense is the real Rasikta, and anything other than that is wrong. Māharāj says that When you sing amorous songs, I close my eyes and meditate and think along the lines. And though I may ponder even for a short while nothing except God can stay in my mind, I am sure that anything that comes in the way of my love for God is immediately annihilated. So powerful is my discretion.
Māharāj says “My thought is little, but it is like this as shown here. And as you compose devotional songs, I have also composed this devotional song in the form of My discourse and revealed it before you.” Furthermore, Māharāj says that One can only have a correct understanding if he only loves God and nothing else. When a devotee meditates upon the Murti of God, he feels like he is in a vacuum. In this vacuum, he only sees God’s image and nothing else. He does not even see his own body or the universe around him. While he focuses on the image of God, a divine bright light dawns around him and God’s image can be seen clearly in the midst of that light. His love will remain only for God like the love of a chaste and devoted woman. This is the devotion of Rasikta like – It’s the Upasana (way of worshiping God). Which is true and else is false.
-Swaminarayan Chintan