How does bhakti compare with vipashana?

From Raja Parikshit Prabhu

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna Question from Raj Parichit Pragu The process of Vipassana is said to take us inwards so how does the process of bhakti compare with that so yes Vipassana is the process for silencing ourselves it focuses a lot on silence and also focuses on seclusion so it focuses in general on shutting out external stimuli so in a broad sense if we want to compare with the yogic paths then Vipassana is like Pratyahara Pratyahara involves shutting out the external sense objects shutting out not just sense objects just in general all sense perceptions so Vipassana also involves something similar now we cannot shut out all sense perception so the only the sattvic sense perception in terms of simple food non agitating silent environment and things like that can be provided so as to facilitate the shutting out as much as possible of external stimuli and then one can think about oneself more one can think what is truly important for me what are the way my thoughts are going what are the emotions that are desirable what are undesirable so for many people such a experience of seclusion and solid simplicity and silence can be very illuminating because our culture is so passionate at best if not Tamasic so Rajasic and Tamasic that people are caught in externals and often people are caught in external trivialities so although Rajoguna gives some pleasure but Rajoguna also gives a lot of anxiety Krishna characterizes Rajoguna Rajasastra phalam dukkham the phala of Rajoguna is dukkham so Vipassana by cutting us off from the Rajasic environment to some extent forces us to come to Satvaguna and in that sense it can be a great relief for people who are agitated by Rajoguna and Tamoguna of course but just by silence and seclusion and simplicity one cannot attain transcendence per se because transcendence requires us to rise beyond the realm of matter just like if we are in a building and there is flood all around in the building and because of the flood there is chaos or we could say instead of flood there is fire so we climb from the lower floor to the upper floor as compared to the agitation and anxiety that was there because of the flood or fire in the upper floor there is not so much agitation or anxiety but still we are in that same area but if a helicopter comes and it drops a rescue rope and air lifts us out then that is going out of the danger zone entirely so Bhakti Yoga is like that air lifting for those people I become the deliverer swift easily without much delay and for whom those whose consciousness is strongly fixed on me now Bhakti at one level seems to be filled with many external activities but Bhakti focuses not just on random external stimuli but it focuses on the manifestations of Krishna in the external world and in that way Bhakti connects us with the spiritual level so that means that although to some extent Bhakti may not involve silence or seclusion we have kirtans which can seem quite noisy to some people and we go for programs where there is a lot of crowd but then if Bhakti were now we will see that there is noise and crowd in so many other places there can be noise and crowd in cricket stadium, there can be noise and crowd in a local, there can be noise and crowd in markets but do people become spiritually uplifted by that noise and crowd? No but when we are participating in kirtan or hearing katha, then although there is noise over there, there is crowd over there but participants get spiritually uplifted because there Krishna manifests Krishna tells Narayana Muni that where my devotees glorify me there I manifest myself in a very accessible way. In fact in this verse itself Krishna says so these two which Krishna talks about that I don’t reside in Vaikuntha.
So what does this mean? Krishna does reside in Vaikuntha but the point which Krishna is making here is that I am not easily accessible to everyone when I am in Vaikuntha and similarly yes I am there in the hearts of the yogis but how many people can practice yoga by renouncing the world, going to a forest mastering asanas and then going inwards to meditate on the lord so in these places Krishna is there but here Krishna is using a rhetorical statement to emphasize that he is not accessible in these places whereas where my devotees glorify me I am accessible easily so bhakti takes us inward in a very accessible and relishable way so yes Vipassana can provide relief by taking us towards goodness and bhakti can take us beyond goodness towards transcendence and bhakti can help us to do it in a much more much easier and more accessible way at the same time especially for some devotees who are more introvert who are more inclined towards introspection then for them in some situations the the externals of Vipassana might be helpful in going inwards externals of Vipassana doesn’t mean that that the devotees practice Vipassana but we see that sometimes usually Prabhupada would if he wanted to write his books he would just go to secluded place or some devotees may want to chant some intense round on some day so they may go to go to some place where there is lot of silence and where there is lot of peace and they may chant over there so it’s not that the silence, solitude and simplicity these are characteristics of Satyakuna and devotees can also adopt this if it is unequal to the bhakti but the glory of bhakti is that whereas Vipassana cannot take us inwards without these externals, bhakti can take us inwards even without these externals because bhakti can take us towards the innermost reality that is Krishna through his manifestations in the external world and yes for some people Vipassana may be may be very illuminating but for for people in general you know just being alone and being silent and doing the other activities may be very laborious and many people just give this up and go away half way because they find they just can’t do it so again are all those people meant to be deprived of spiritual illumination? No they can also be spiritually illuminated through the process of bhakti so bhakti in that sense offers us what Vipassana offers and offers us more as Krishna says in the we are giving all that and more 8th chapter that we will get the paramsthana the supreme destination also so in that sense bhakti offers us what Vipassana offers and also offers more and bhakti also offers it to us more easily thank you