After completing the Tantrik sadhana Sri Ramakrishna followed
the
Brahmani in the disciplines of Vaishnavism. The Vaishnavas are
worshippers
of Vishnu, the "All-pervading", the Supreme God, who is also known as
Hari and Narayana. Of Vishnu's various Incarnations the two with the
largest number of followers are Rama and Krishna.
Vaishnavism is exclusively a religion of bhakti. Bhakti is intense love
of
God, attachment to Him alone; it is of the nature of bliss and bestows
upon
the lover immortality and liberation. God, according to Vaishnavism,
cannot
be realized through logic or reason; and, without bhakti, all penances,
austerities and rites are futile. Man cannot realize God by
self-exertion alone.
For the vision of God His grace is absolutely necessary, and this grace
is felt
by the pure of heart. The mind is to be purified through bhakti. The
pure
mind then remains for ever immersed in the ecstasy of God-vision. It is
the
cultivation of this divine love that is the chief concern of the
Vaishnava
religion.
There are three kinds of formal devotion: tamasic, rajasic, and
sattvic.
If a person, while showing devotion, to God, is actuated by
malevolence,
arrogance, jealousy, or anger, then his devotion is tamasic, since it
is
influenced by tamas, the quality of inertia. If he worships God from a
desire
for fame or wealth, or from any other worldly ambition, then his
devotion is
rajasic, since it is influenced by rajas, the quality of activity. But
if a person
loves God without any thought of material gain, if he performs his
duties
to please God alone and maintains toward all created beings the
attitude
of friendship, then his devotion is called sattvic, since it is
influenced by
sattva, the quality of harmony. But the highest devotion transcends the
three gunas, or qualities, being a spontaneous, uninterrupted
inclination of
the mind toward God, the Inner Soul of all beings; and it wells up in
the
heart of a true devotee as soon as he hears the name of God or mention
of
God's attributes. A devotee possessed of this love would not accept the
happiness of heaven if it were offered him. His one desire is to love
God under
all conditions — in pleasure and pain, life and death, honour and
dishonour,
prosperity and adversity.
There are two stages of bhakti. The first is known as vaidhi-bhakti, or
love of God qualified by scriptural injunctions. For the devotees of
this stage
are prescribed regular and methodical worship, hymns, prayers, the
repetition
of God's name, and the chanting of His glories. This lower bhakti in
course of time matures into para-bhakti, or supreme devotion, known
also
as prema, the most intense form of divine love. Divine love is an end
in
itself. It exists potentially in all human hearts, but in the case of
bound
creatures it is misdirected to earthly objects.
To develop the devotee's love for God, Vaishnavism humanizes God. God
is to be regarded as the devotee's Parent, Master, Friend, Child,
Husband,
or Sweetheart, each succeeding relationship representing an
intensification
of love. These bhavas, or attitudes toward God, are known as santa,
dasya,
sakhya, vatsalya, and madhur. The rishis of the Vedas, Hanuman, the
cow-herd
boys of Vrindavan, Rama's mother Kausalya, and Radhika, Krishna's
sweetheart, exhibited, respectively, the most perfect examples of these
forms.
In the ascending scale the-glories of God are gradually forgotten and
the
devotee realizes more and more the intimacy of divine communion.
Finally
he regards himself as the mistress of his Beloved, and no artificial
barrier
remains to separate him from his Ideal. No social or moral obligation
can
bind to the earth his soaring spirit. He experiences perfect union with
the
Godhead. Unlike the Vedantist, who strives to transcend all varieties
of the
subject-object relationship, a devotee of the Vaishnava path wishes to
retain
both his own individuality and the personality of God. To him God is
not
an intangible Absolute, but the Purushottama, the Supreme Person.
While practising the discipline of the madhur bhava, the male devotee
often regards himself as a woman, in order to develop the most intense
form
of love for Sri Krishna, the only purusha, or man, in the universe.
This
assumption of the attitude of the opposite sex has a deep psychological
significance. It is a matter of common experience that an idea may be
cultivated to such an intense degree that every idea alien to it is
driven
from the mind. This peculiarity of the mind may be utilized for the
subjugation
of the lower desires and the development of the spiritual nature.
Now, the idea which is the basis of all desires and passions in a man
is the
conviction of his indissoluble association with a male body. If he can
inoculate
himself thoroughly with the idea that he is a woman, he can get rid of
the desires peculiar to his male body. Again, the idea that he is a
woman
may in turn be made to give way to another higher idea, namely, that he
is
neither man nor woman, but the Impersonal Spirit. The Impersonal Spirit
alone can enjoy real communion with the Impersonal God. Hence the
highest
est realization of the Vaishnava draws close to the transcendental
experience
of the Vedantist.
A beautiful expression of the Vaishnava worship of God through love is
to be found in the Vrindavan episode of the Bhagavata.
The gopis, or
milk-maids, of Vrindavan regarded the six-year-old Krishna as their
Beloved.
They sought no personal gain or happiness from this love. They
surrendered
to Krishna their bodies, minds, and souls. Of all the gopis, Radhika,
or
Radha, because of her intense love for Him, was the closest to Krishna.
She manifested mahabhava and was united with her Beloved. This union
represents, through sensuous language, a supersensuous experience.
Sri Chaitanya, also known as Gauranga, Gora, or Nimai, born in Bengal
in 1485 and regarded as an Incarnation of God, is a great prophet of
the
Vaishnava religion. Chaitanya declared the chanting of God's name to be
the most efficacious spiritual discipline for the Kaliyuga.
Sri Ramakrishna, as the monkey Hanuman, had already worshipped God
as his Master. Through his devotion to Kali he had worshipped God as
his
Mother. He was now to take up the other relationships prescribed by the
Vaishnava scriptures.