Hanuman – An endearing blend of bhakti and shakti

Transcript

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On this auspicious occasion associated with Hanumanji, let’s contemplate on his special qualities. Hanuman embodies an enduring blend of Shakti and Bhakti. His Shakti is represented in his mace.
Quite a common pose of Hanumanji is with his hands folded, but with a very strong mace held in his hand, touching the ground in front of him. So, the mace represents Shakti and the folded hands represents Bhakti. So, Hanuman is an enduring blend of Shakti and Bhakti.
Many times people think that if I depend on God, if I practice Bhakti, that means I depend on God. And if I depend on God, then I will become weak, I will become effeminate, I will become powerless because I am depending on someone higher. So, they think that if we develop Bhakti, then we will lose Shakti.
On the other hand, if we want to assert our Shakti, we want to be strong, then we have to do two things. We cannot depend on some God and we cannot have Bhakti. So, people often think that Shakti and Bhakti are contradictory.
They think that we cannot have both because Shakti and Bhakti are not mutually conciliatory. But Hanuman is the paramount devotee of Lord Ram, Das Charas. And his heart is filled through and through with devotion.
And yet, at the same time, he is also a great warrior. Hanuman is the foremost warrior in Lord Ram’s army among the Vanaras. And he also does a feat which no other Vanaras are capable of doing.
That is, jumping all across the ocean to go to Lanka, single-handedly penetrate into the enemy camp on a reconnaissance mission and discover Sita and not only be successful in that mission, but then boldly go into Ravana’s court, issue him a warning and then wreak havoc in the whole of Lanka by burning nearly half of the city right in the presence of all its protector warriors. So, how is Hanuman able to embody this endearing, inspiring blend of Shakti and Bhakti? So, what he embodies is also demonstrated in an iconic depiction. The standard iconic depiction of Hanuman is, as I said, with a mace held in his hands, with the hands folded.
So, the point of Bhakti is not that we lose Shakti, but that we harmonize our Shakti with the Supreme Shakti of the Supreme Shaktimaan. So, Hanuman, when he is jumping across Lanka, across the ocean to go to Lanka, his thoughts are that, is it difficult to jump across this ocean? Actually, by remembering the name of Ram, people can jump across the entire ocean of material existence. So, what is the difficulty in jumping across this one small ocean? So, I can easily do that and he chants the name of Ram, remembers Ram and he jumps across the entire ocean.
So, the important point is to recognize that Ram is, that Hanuman is using his Kshatriya abilities, his fearsome strength in a mood of Bhakti. So, Bhakti does not mean giving up Shakti. It means using our Shakti in harmony with the Supreme Shakti of the Supreme Shaktimaan.
So, what I love, some of us may have physical Shakti, some of us may have intellectual Shakti, some of us may have financial Shakti, all of us have different kinds of abilities. And when we harmonize those abilities in the mood of Bhakti with the devotional service of the Lord, then we all can do wonderful things in the Lord’s service. So, rather than thinking that Bhakti will make us weak, we can realize by meditating on the example of Hanuman that Bhakti will make us strong, will make us enormously strong, stronger than what we would be otherwise on our own and thus we can march ahead in our journey towards living a fulfilling life in this world and attaining the Lord’s abode at the end.
So, Hanuman Ji ki Jai. Thank you.