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, i_te., 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.