I can see why you would think it is boring to merge into Brahman and find the other practices like Jnana and Ashtanga to be bereft of feeling. I agree with you Bhakti seems like a much more human and loving path and I have no doubt it creates beautiful people that everybody adores, much more than the intellectuals whom only a few can appreciate. However, those who do enjoy abstract thinking and exploring their mental world do not find the prospect of 'merging into Brahman' boring. In fact it a very thrilling undertaking for them because they can realise the nature of reality and become ONE. I would consider myself a Jnani, and I have to say as much as I admire Bhakti and would bow before the saints, I have a very strong yearning for knowledge. I simply need to know. This is simply my svardharma.
Well, there is the idea that through jnana, the culmination of bhakti is inevitable. However, I do agree that it would be thrilling for some people who desire and have a thirst for knowledge. After all, the Gita speaks of true knowledge when it is done through acting for God without desires for fruitive results or materialistic rewards and in controlling the senses.
After all, the more one knows, the more one doesn't know. And this is because of the simple awe that God is infinite and fathomless. I do see though that there can be the danger of losing the whole point of Vedic teaching, which is to know God and love Him. Jnana can dangerously lead to a bland reality that becomes monotonous, bereft of the spiritual epiphanies resulting in pure ananda. While bhakti without any philosophical endeavour is mere sentimentality; a sahajiyic falsehood, if I may say.
"
By all the Vedas, I am to be known. Indeed, I am the compiler of Vedanta, and I am the knower of the Vedas."
Bhagavad Gita 15.15
Perhaps it is something that I can never understand, lol. I have always leaned towards the bhakti practices of all religions, whether it be Christian, Baha'i and Jewish mysticism, Sufism, Pure Land Buddhism and the like.
This is a question that willl always confound me. Do we as 'souls' have an independent existence or is it simply ignorance that breeds the notion of individuality. I cannot resolve this paradox, it does not agree with my logical analysis at all, which can only admit ONE non-dual and transcedental reality and no dualities. Yet, the problem is why is there a 'creation' and why is it not-like the ONE, can NOT ONE emerge from ONE?
To resolve this I have to accept a duality of Purush and Prakriti. This still does not resolve the problem how does something finite, imperfect(jivatman) emit from something infinite and perfect? Just as an orange cannot grow on an apple tree, a finite and imperfect thing cannot grow out of an infinite and perfect thing.
Next, if I consider the possibility of distinct individual souls which eternally exist and also an absolute being which eternally exists, the second problem emerges how can an infinite, perfect and supreme being be made out of finite, imperfect parts? You cannot have an infinity made out of parts or a whole made out of parts. And if the jivas are really eternal, then why are they changing, what changes cannot be eternal.
So in either case whether you adopt non-duality or duality you still have problems. What do you think?
The idea is that we were never created, but eternal, and thus 'part and parcel' of the transcendental body of God. This eternality of the soul - that is was never created in the first place but quantitatively different, yet qualitatively the same as God - can be derived from these verses:
"
Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be."
BG 2:12
"
For the soul there is neither birth nor death at any time. He has not come into being, does not come into being, and will not come into being. He is unborn, eternal, ever-existing and primeval. He is not slain when the body is slain."
BG 2:20
For example, the soul contains the very same qualities as God, such as tendencies to will, to love, beauty, strength, etc. However, these are quantitatively different, in that these virtues or partial personalities are manifested in total perfection in God, whilst these very same qualities are only minute in the spirit soul (jivatma). As a drop of water contains the same chemical composition as that of the ocean, the amount thereof differs between the two in that the drop of water is quantitatively different than that of the whole ocean. Or one can use the example of the spark and the fire - both of them emanate from the same source, and give out both heat and light. However, the potency and size of the spark can in no way be equal to that of the original fire, and the spark itself can never be independent of the fire.
"
The living entities in this conditioned world are My eternal fragmental parts. Due to conditioned life, they are struggling very hard with the six senses, which include the mind."
BG 15.7
Although the soul is in its original constitution, pure and immaculate, due to its consciousness becoming attached to the material desires, and wishing to become apart from its master to become its own, it 'descends' from this pure consciousness and takes birth. The spiritual soul is the only truth, and consciousness is a manifested symptom of the soul. Just as a finger exists to aid the whole body and can not be totally independent from the body, we are also part of that transcendental body of God and are eternally there. But due to the conditioning of material life, we falsely see the material manifestation as the spiritual truth and thus are further deluded by Yogamaya. Thus, bhakti enables the devotee to get away from this attachment to the material world.
The material world is not false - it is only a temporary, transient reality and the emanating external energy (bahiranga shakti) of God. We are actually part of the internal energy, the spiritual energy (antaranga shakti) of God, but our consciousness tends to be marginal in its position and association.
But as in the Gita, by surrender to the Supreme Person, the Purushottama, we gain jnana, and then bhakti, and with a purified consciousness, go back Home to God and never return.
"
Whoever knows Me as the Supreme Personality of Godhead, without doubting, is the knower of everything. He therefore engages himself in full devotional service to Me, O son of Bharata."
BG 15.19
"
And whoever, at the end of his life, quits his body, remembering Me alone, at once attains My nature. Of this there is no doubt."
BG 8.5
We call this one of the many aspects of
Acintya-bheda-abheda tattva, the philosophy of inconceivable oneness and difference. Another example is that God is everything, in that everything that we see in the material world are mere emanations of His energy (shakti). Otherwise, He is not part of this material manifestation, because He has His supreme Abode in the spiritual planets, the spiritual energy. Acintya-bheda-abheda-tattva balances both monistic and dualistic tendencies, although the differences between the individuality of the soul and the Supreme Soul are distinctly outlined.
The
Wikipedia article probably says it a lot clearer than I can.
But that's my understanding of the issue.
