Love and Happiness: Universal Fellowship Through Bhakti Marga

By Rashme Sehgal

Bhakti is founded in a spirit of universal fellowship and poetry is one more expression of this same fellowship. The verses of Mirabai, Tulsidas, Kabir, Ravidas and Tukaram are quoted frequently by people from all strata of life. Their poetry expresses concern about life: its difficulties, the loneliness, hypocrisy and pain. The bhakti poets seek God's help to sustain them on this difficult journey. So even today, through their poetry, the bhakti saints continue to influence our daily lives.

"Who could long for anything but you? My master, you are merciful to the poor; you have shielded my head with a regal parasol" sang Ravidas. A cobbler by profession, Ravidas was scorned at by members of the upper castes. Not that Kabir, a weaver by profession, received any better treatment at the hands of the powerful Brahmin community of Benaras. Extremely generous by nature, Kabir is known to have gone out of his way to help the needy. The result was that there was never enough money for his family, much to the chagrin of his mother and wife.

"I'm born a weaver,/ so what? /I've got the Lord in my heart./ Kabir/ Secure in the arms of Ram/ free from every snare," cried Kabir. Even today, Mirabai's songs are sung throughout India. Yet her life was one long struggle. Mira lost both her husband and father by the time she reached the age of 30. As a childless widow, she felt a tremendous sense of isolation. The Jodhpur branch of the family succeeded in sidelining the branch to which Mirabai's family belonged, only adding to her woes. She then turned to her "Giridhar Gopala" to rescue her from her problems.

"Life without Hari is no life, friend/ And though my mother-in-law fights,/ My sister-in-law teases, the Rana is angered,/ A guard is stationed outside/ Mira's Lord is the clever Mountain Lifter;/ Why should I want anyone else?" asked Mirabai.

The city of Benaras also produced Tulsidas, the author of Ramcharitmanas. As a young child, he faced tremendous odds and yet went on to affirm in his writing both the nirguna and saguna faces of the Lord. "I recognise/ Only one relationship: devotion/...Devotion is like a cloud without water", he sang.

Nanak preached the truth of God and the inadequacy of human institutions to capture his essence. Nanak's poems exude a deep tranquillity as he speaks about the Divine. Nanak says: "If the True Guru is gracious/ trust becomes complete./ If the True Guru is gracious/ no one ever wastes away./ If the True Guru is gracious/ trouble is something unknown./ If the True Guru is gracious/ one is painted with God's hue."

The poet-saints were looking to achieve an inner emancipation so compelling and generous in scope that all other concerns and for-ms of freedom must be reconsidered in relationship with it. Each of them longed for liberation. They longed to be free from the fetters forged by ignorance.

These liberated souls freed themselves from the shackles of the mind, from the incessant pull of the senses and severed themselves from the attachment that binds us to egoistic concepts. Every one of them was filled with a burning liberation to know God.

Swami Chidvilasananda of the Gurudev Siddha Peeth, Ganeshpuri, is no mean poet herself. Writing in the bhakti tradition, she says: "The purest love of all/ the feeling called devotion,/ is even more brilliant/ than the millions of stars/ scattered across the soft night sky."

The love of God, these poets maintain, helps tie the universe to its creation. No wonder the bhakti poets keep returning to this source of divine love for solace and to give expression to their strong egalitarian sentiments.

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See also: Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)