Who is a bhakta? Were saints like Tukaram Tulsidas Kabir bhaktas?

From: gagan

Transcript

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Question from Gagan Prabhu.
Who is a Bhakta? Are saints like Tukaram, Kabir, Tulsidas devotees or not? Answer. Bhakta is anyone who has bhakti or practices bhakti. Bhakti is the feeling of devotional attraction to Krishna or to God in general.
So in the 12th chapter of the Bhagavad Gita as well as in the 9th chapter from 12.13 to 29th chapter verses 13 and 14, Krishna describes characteristics of bhakti. Similarly, characteristics of bhakta rather. So basically he describes how such a person is constantly devoted to him.
Such a person Krishna calls as a Mahatma and such a person has taken shelter of Krishna. He has taken shelter of Krishna through the divine nature, through the bhakti potency of Krishna. Such a person is bhajanti ananya manaso.
Such a person actually worships Krishna without any distraction to any other object. Such a person knows that Krishna is bhoota dim, is the source of everyone and avyaya is imperishable. So this actually describes the inner understanding, the inner thoughts, the inner conceptions, the inner understanding of a devotee.
And next verse 9.14 describes the outer characteristics. He is always chanting Krishna’s glories, he is always engaged in Krishna’s service, trying to glorify Krishna and share the glories of the Lord with others. Such a person is determined, not lazy, not escapist.
Endeavoring constantly, tirelessly. Offers obeisances to Krishna and worships Krishna. So basically such a person from these two verses, we can understand is addicted to Krishna internally and externally.
We can actually look at the various saints that we see within the Vedic tradition and outside the Vedic tradition. And if they have these characteristics, then they are definitely devotees, saints, bhaktas. So now specifically regarding Tukaram Maharaj, who is definitely a great devotee as we can make out from his writings.
And so is Tulsidas. I have talked about Tukaram and Tulsidas elsewhere on the website. You can give a search and you will find it.
Now regarding Kabir, he certainly had some ideas which seem similar to the ideas of bhakti. But he was what is in the Vedic philosophical parlance called as Mayavad. He made verses like, Patthar pooje to mile ram, to main to pooju pahad.
So the idea was that if by worshipping a stone one can get God, then I will worship a mountain. So he had no clear understanding of the notion of deity worship, the philosophy behind it and the omnipotence of God by which he can manifest through the deities. So there was at that time an excessive ritualism which had robbed bhakti of it, robbed religion and spirituality in general of its devotional essence.
And there are many people, intelligent in their own ways, who rebelled against this excessive ritualism. But during the rebellion against the excessive ritualism, sometimes they just went overboard and they rejected not just the ritualism. Ritualism means just feverish, almost fanatical adherence to rituals without understanding their purpose and the philosophy underlying them.
So they not only rejected the ritualism, but they rejected the rituals themselves. So the rejection of deity worship in practice and the rejection of the form of God in principle that is not the characteristic of a bhakta. A devotee understands that God has his own all-attractive form spiritually as Krishna describes in the Bhagavad Gita.
He says in 7.24 that one who thinks that his form is temporary is abdayaha, is unintelligent. So there are some people who might, who have been in their own ways great poets and they may have done some social reform and they may have been influential also. But if we look at their first characteristic, in the 9.13, then they don’t really consider Krishna to be yatvabhutadhimavyayam.
They consider Krishna not to be the source of everything, bhutadi. They consider Krishna to have come from something else. That is the impersonal, all-pervading spirit, pervasive spirit known as Brahman.
And this conception is a serious misconception. So even if somebody is doing the external activities of bhakti, that means they may be singing the glories of God in some ways, writing poems about God. But if that person is having an internal conception that God’s form is temporary and one has to go beyond that form to merge in the impersonal Brahman, then those people are not bhaktas as per the definition of the Bhagavad Gita.
So we should not just, while deciding who is a bhakta, not just look at their external activities, but also look at their internal conceptions. And those internal conceptions are expressed through their writings and their talks. And we should look at what a person is saying and then look at what the scriptures are saying and see if what the person is saying is according to the scriptures, then that person’s understandings are correct.
Otherwise, those understandings need revision in the light of scripture. So in this way, by looking at the external and internal characteristics of a person, we can decide who is a bhakta.