The power of blind faith

There are two aspects of devotion as I had discussed in the previous post. Bhakthi and Jnana. Karma generally isn't considered as devotion, as ignorance also falls under that bracket. But Bhakthi and Jnana are two forms which are often considered as paths to salvation by knowing the ultimate truth. God has brought about many examples, and avataras to suggest this path to the world.

The foremost example of this path are Rama-Lakshmana. Rama was the ultimate Gnana Yogi. Bound by knowledge and the way of living, he lived the life the ideal human being should. Lakshmana was more of a devotee. Or for that matter, so was Bharatha, or Guha. They tirelessly served Rama, in some measure knowing his godly qualities, they loved him with everything they could give for him, sleep, kingdom, years of their active life, and many other things. This is generally the case where Bhakthi and Jnana co-exist in personalities.

One such case was that of Namdev and Gnaneshwar. Both saints of the holy town of Pandharpura, they co-existed and together were responsible in a large way for the holiness of the town. In some sense, they brought out all the other divine people, who were part of Pandharpura in the form of masons, potters, jewellers and other occupations. This pair which revolutionised the Bhakti movement in India was in some sense a Bhakthi-Gnana pair. Gnaneshwar was said to be the epitome of Gnana. His knowledge gave him the insight to look into everything. He could say when the sanctity of the Vittal idol was present and when the sanctity had moved somewhere outside merely by looking at the idol. That was the power of his tapas. Whereas with Namdev, he was a childlike devotee. He cried when the lord refused to listen to him. He was ready to give his life for the lord on multiple occasions. He was in complete love with the lord that other things meant nothing to him when dealing with the lord.

But what was the most beautiful thing of this bhakthi was the co-existence of the two forms of worship, the duality and the non-duality. Jnaneshwar was a preaching Advaitin, while Namdev followed the Dvaita school of philosophy. But what the two great seers held for each other was a huge deal of mutual respect and they commonly held a love for the lord. To the extent that after Jnaneshwar attained Jivanasamadhi, Namdev sang Samadheeche Abhanga, talking about attainment of Samadhi dedicated to Jnaneshwar, one of his very few sets of Abhangas dedicated to someone other than the lord himself. This concept of Bhakthi versus Gnana led to various interesting discussions as part of the Varakari itself. It is very heartening to note that the symbiosis of the two schools of philosophy has existed at some point in history, whereas what we see in recent history and today is total intolerance of each other by these two great schools of philosophy. Of course in south Indian culture there is the third school of special-dualism philosophy, or Vishishta Dwaitam. I'm not making this post to compare any of these philosophies, but the general aim was to contemplate over the fact that it was one very beautiful coexisting scenario, which has taken drastic backward steps today!