Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a revered spiritual leader and guide, emphasizes the transformative power of divine love in his teachings. He often contrasts the intellectual path of yog with the heart-centered path of bhakti, urging devotees to develop a deep attachment to Krishn. In the discourse below, Swami Prakashanand Saraswati explains the two paths of God realization— yog and bhakti. He highlights how, through Their grace, Radha Krishn help souls achieve liberation in the current age of Kali Yuga.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati teaches that…
There are two paths of God realization. In simple terms, there is a path of ‘elimination’ and a path of ‘addition’, or bhakti. What to eliminate and what to add? Eliminate the attachments you have created with your own mind; that is one path. The other path is for those who cannot totally eliminate their attachments. So, add more attachment ie: attachment to God. It is called bhakti.
If you analyze any of your material attachments, you will find that they are not joyous by their own nature. It is your own favorable thinking towards them that makes you feel happy. Only your mental decision makes you feel attached to anyone or anything in the world. When you begin to believe that Krishn is your true friend and beloved of your heart, mind and soul, you do develop attachment for Him, and then, your attachment in the world slowly reduces. This is the path of ‘addition’, bhakti – developing your attachment to Krishn.
The path of ‘elimination’ is based purely on your own intellect.But in the path of ‘addition’ you have the Grace of Radha Krishn to help you. The path which is based solely on your own intellectual effort is called yog. It has three stages of evolution: (a) preparation (b) practice and (c)submission. Every stage has many steps. The first stage is hatha yog. It prescribes 84 asanas (postures), 24 mudras (advanced postures), 6 cleaning processes and 8 kinds of breathing exercises to fully purify your physical body and nervous system. You also try to become good on the basis of your own intellect. A practioner of yog should be young, healthy and single.
The second stage is called ashtang-yog, which means eight-foldyog: yam, niyam, asan, pranayam, pratyahar, dharna, dhyan and samadhi. Yam and niyam means to restrict your physical senses and mind from worldly attachment, concentrate yourself within, and don’t be disturbed with undesirable physical and social situations. Asan means the posture for meditation, and pranayam means the simple deep breathing exercise to help quieten the fickleness of the mind. Dharna, dhyan and samadhi are all internal. Dharna means to conceive the impersonal aspect of God and dhyan means to mentally perceive in your meditation. Samadhi means to submerge all the mental activities into nothingness by entering into the sattvic gun (pious state) of the mind.
A yogi guru teaches that the Divine energy is omnipresent, and it is also within your own soul. Thus, (a) the omnipresent Divine existence within your soul and (b) your own soul, both (being substantially one), are in total harmony. To conceive this harmony in your mind is called dharna.
Suppose, in a glass of water, there are 5000 drops. A drop is a ‘drop’, but it is also a part of the whole glass of water. Such a dharna (conception) demands a qualified detachment of worldly comforts and pleasures. However, when your conception is correct, only then you enter into meditation and samadhi. Dharna, dhyan and samadhi are practiced together. All of these practices have been described in the Patanjali-yog Darshan introduced by Sage Patanjali long, long ago, and to practice and perfect this second stage of eight-fold yog may take one to many lifetimes of perpetual practice.
The Patanjali-yog Darshan describes this path in great detail. At one point it says “Tasya vachakah pranavah”. There is a word (om) that represents the absolute omnipresence of the Divine. It is used for establishing dharna. If you cannot establish such dharna due to subtle worldly attachments of your mind, the Yog-sutra says, “Ishwarah pranidhanadva”. Which means surrender to a form of God, seek His help, and with the help of the worshipped form of God, you may succeed in entering into pious samadhi. But if you have any worldly desire, and you force your mind to enter into trance, your mind will enter into a hypnogogic state (between conscious and sub-conscious state). If you truly abandon all worldly desires and succeed in entering into samadhi, the Yog-sutra says that you shall have to faithfully practice it for a very long time- for your whole lifetime or for many lives perpetually until you perfect it.
That is the final teaching and limit of evolution in the Patanjali-yog Darshan. It takes you only up to mental purity but not God realization or liberation, which is called kaivalya moksh. This is the second stage of yog.
What should a pure yogi do then? He should enter into the third and last stage of yog, the ‘submission’. In the Gita, Krishn says “Brahmano hi pratishtha-ham”, which means that the impersonal aspect of God (nirakar brahm) represented by the word ‘om’ is only the radiance of My Divine personal form Krishn, and it is established in Me (Krishn). So, to receive the liberation from karmic and mayic (cosmic) bondage, the yogi must bring ‘Me’ into his dharna, and submittedly surrender his mind to Me. This is the third stage of yog as described in the Gita, “ornittekakcharam… mamanusmaran…” and “manyo ye prapadyante…”
“Thus, when a yogi surrenders to Me, with My Grace he receives liberation and enters into the formless Divine truth (where he experiences nothing). This is called ‘liberation’.”
Krishn says that the path of yog is not for Kali yug (the current age), because in this age it is very difficult to become totally detached from the world only on the intellectual basis and without the Grace of Krishn. It is easier to follow the path of bhakti. Feel love and attachment for Krishn, and develop divine-love-conscious- ness. This will slowly reduce your worldly desires, and you will come close to Krishn and experience His Divine-love. So the path of bhakti yog of the Gita is for all the souls of the world.
Conclusion
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati highlights the superiority of the bhakti path over yog in Kali Yug, emphasizing that divine love for Krishn gradually dissolves worldly attachments. Through bhakti, one attains the grace of Radha Krishn and true liberation.