Devotee: Will bhakti lead to mukti?
Ramana Maharishi: Bhakti is not different from mukti. Bhakti is being as the Self (Swarupa). One is always that. He realises it by the means he adopts. What is bhakti? To think of God. That means: only one thought prevails to the exclusion of all other thoughts. That thought is of God which is the Self or it is the Self surrendered unto God. When He has taken you up nothing will assail you. The absence of thoughts is bhakti. It is also mukti. The jnana method is said to be vichara (enquiry). That is nothing but ‘supreme devotion’ (parabhakti). The difference is in words only. You think that bhakti is meditation on the Supreme Being. So long as there is vibhakti (the sense of separateness), bhakti (reunion) is sought. The process will lead to the ultimate goal as is said in Srimad Bhagavad Gita:
arto jignasuh artharthi jnani cha Bharatarshabha
tesham jnani nityayukta ekabhaktir visishyate — Ch. VII (l6, 17).
Any kind of meditation is good. But if the sense of separateness is lost and the object of meditation or the subject who meditates is alone left behind without anything else to know, it is jnana. Jnana is said to be ekabhakti (single-minded devotion). The Jnani is the finality because he has become the Self and there is nothing more to do. He is also perfect and so fearless, dwitiyat vai bhayam bhavati - only the existence of a second gives rise to fear. This is mukti. It is also bhakti.
Ramana Maharishi: Bhakti is not different from mukti. Bhakti is being as the Self (Swarupa). One is always that. He realises it by the means he adopts. What is bhakti? To think of God. That means: only one thought prevails to the exclusion of all other thoughts. That thought is of God which is the Self or it is the Self surrendered unto God. When He has taken you up nothing will assail you. The absence of thoughts is bhakti. It is also mukti. The jnana method is said to be vichara (enquiry). That is nothing but ‘supreme devotion’ (parabhakti). The difference is in words only. You think that bhakti is meditation on the Supreme Being. So long as there is vibhakti (the sense of separateness), bhakti (reunion) is sought. The process will lead to the ultimate goal as is said in Srimad Bhagavad Gita:
arto jignasuh artharthi jnani cha Bharatarshabha
tesham jnani nityayukta ekabhaktir visishyate — Ch. VII (l6, 17).
Any kind of meditation is good. But if the sense of separateness is lost and the object of meditation or the subject who meditates is alone left behind without anything else to know, it is jnana. Jnana is said to be ekabhakti (single-minded devotion). The Jnani is the finality because he has become the Self and there is nothing more to do. He is also perfect and so fearless, dwitiyat vai bhayam bhavati - only the existence of a second gives rise to fear. This is mukti. It is also bhakti.
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