Gita 15.19 Bhakti is not non-intellectual or anti-intellectual – it is trans-intellectual

Transcript

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eternal love Krishna speaking in his penultimate verse of the Bhagavad Gita 15th chapter that how he is the highest object of the human head and the human heart and those who understand him in truth will direct all their faculties towards him those who in this way without delusion they understand him know him supreme person those people become the knowers of everything and they worship him with all the emotions of their heart so here Krishna is saying how the turning of the heart is a fruit of the turning of the head with our head, using our intelligence when we understand that Krishna is the all attractive supreme person the source of whatever it is that we find attractive in this world the embodiment and fulfillment of all our aspirations when we thus understand Krishna to be the supreme person we actually feel inspired to direct our life and our heart towards him so bhakti is not non-intellectual or anti-intellectual it is trans-intellectual non-intellectual means that we don’t think much about philosophy, we don’t think much about various aspects of the deeper metaphysical truths of life we just work according to whatever is necessary or whatever feels good that’s we could say a functionalist approach to life Krishna is not talking about bhakti bhakti as a merely functionalist approach to life for those who anyway have a lot of sentiments people argue that those who have sentiments they can practice the path of bhakti Krishna however is telling here that the fullest aturest, richest sentiments result after one has matured in philosophical conviction it is only when we have learned to direct our hearts it is only when our head has been convinced that Krishna is the highest reality that we feel inspired to invest all our emotions in him and to emphasize that this emotional investment is not due to any residual conditioning or residual material emotionality the claim that bhakti is intellectual is even more contradictory to the facts because Krishna speaks the whole philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita to encourage Arjuna to elevate his consciousness and therein his whole focus is on persuading Arjuna intellectually and towards the end also the Gita does not end with a call for faith it ends with a call for deliberation Vimrishshayita dasheshiyene ethejshidha kuru so deliberate and decide what you want to do the Bhagavad Gita is definitely no way calling us to act against our intelligence rather it is asking us to use our intelligence positively by serious deliberation on the truth that it is giving us now moving forwards we can look at another section in the Gita which talks about a similar theme that Krishna in the Chathashloki Bhagavad Gita says that aham sarvasya prabho matah sarvam pravartate iti matva bhajante ma budha bhava samanvitaha so he says that aham sarvasya prabho that all living beings all of existence all of existence comes from me and iti matva bhajante ma those who know this they become devoted to me but they are budha they are in knowledge bhava samanvitaha they are filled with emotion but that emotion is not isolated from practical action or intellection it is the fruit of intellection it is because they become intelligent it is because they become enlightened that they are devoted to Krishna so that same theme is philosophically established repeatedly through the Bhagavad Gita that it is our heart that is meant to be attracted to Krishna but Krishna wants the part of the heart to go through the head and that is why he gives so much philosophy and there is serious philosophical deliberation which leads to the conclusion of the supremacy of devotion Krishna’s usage of the word asammoha here that actually there is no illusion over here that illusion has been removed and that’s why janati purushottama that they understand him to be the supreme person and they are sarva ved they know everything that means that they know what life is essentially about and what life’s purpose is no one becomes omniscient except God but we all can gain adequate knowledge by which we can know what needs to be known and thereby move towards a fulfilling life intellectually and devotionally fulfilling life so the use of sarva ved is similar to what Krishna had talked about in 7.2 when he said gyanam te hamsa gyanam idam vakshaam ya shesha taha gyan tvaane bhuvyo anyaj kya tabhya pavashishyate that having known this there is nothing more to be known clearly nothing more to be known doesn’t mean omniscience it means nothing more to be known in terms of essential truths of existence we if we have a computer and we know enough in the computer to make it function and to work with it for our purpose we know what the purpose of the computer is that is all that we need to know to do our job similarly for us to further our purpose of spiritual evolution what we need to know is provided by Krishna and that knowledge is what kindles and strengthens our devotion such is the import of this verse