Theos-Talk Archives (January 2003 Message tt00653)

Dear Mr. Schueler,

"Bhakti Yoga as I understand it, is a very special type of yoga and 
is not all that popular. Probably its most famous proponent and 
practitioner was Ramakrishna during the late 19th century India. "

What is your qualification for this pronouncement? What is your 
source ? Have one read one book about the Kali Tantrist Ramakrishna 
and now think that this qualifies you? Do you know what Sahajiya and 
Tantra are ? These are NOT Bhakti Yoga. Only complete outsiders who 
know nothing about Vaishnavism or Sattvic Shaivism think that 
Ramakrishna practiced Bhakti Yoga. There are innumerable Vaishnava 
and Shaivite Saints who were on the sattvic Bhakti Path in India. 
You could have mentioned any of them. They are so famous that they 
are studied in universities all over the world. But you mention a 
Mayavadi Tantrist as an example of Bhakti Yoga! 

Mahatma Gandhi was a Pranami and Rama Vaishnava Bhakti Yogi, and he 
had hundreds of millions of followers who were also non-violent 
Bhakti Yogis. He left this world with the Name of Rama on his last 
breath. He, like most Vaishnava Bhaktas in India, recognised 
Theistic Shaivites, Christians, Muslims and any other devotees of God 
as being on the path of Bhakti Yoga. Where have you been all of this 
time ? I have traveled the world lecturing on Gandhi and never met an 
educated person who did not understand that Gandhi considered there 
to be ONE GOD WOPSHIPED BY HINDUS, MUSLIMS and CHRISTIANS. Worship is 
a generic Western term of course, but the 'worship' of Bhakti Yoga 
includes the rarest heights of Bridal Mysticim and popular devotions, 
or the simple love of a child as well. 

When say the above, you are 100% wrong, as the essence of Bhakti Yoga 
is Other-centered devotion. Ramakrishna was a Mayavadi, whose 
devotion was exoterically to Kali but esoterically to himself. He and 
his followers taught monist impersonalism, which means that they were 
not actually practicing Bhakti Yoga at all. Bhakti Yoga can not be 
self-centered. Such self-centered 'devotionalism' is not Bhakti, it 
is called impersonalist (mayavadi) Sahajiya Tantrism. Ramakrishna was 
not a sattvic Theistic Shaivite or a Vaishnava. 

Note that the Adherants site does not give a similar large number for 
Tantric Kali worship as for Shaivism and Vaishnavism. The Adherants 
web page charts (which pasted-in as lists in my previous mail) showed 
the number of persons identified as Vaishnavas and Shaivites. These 
hundreds of millions are people for whom God is Vishnu or Shiva. ALL 
THESE PEOPLE WOULD BE CLASSED AND TRADITIONALLY SELF-IDENTIFIED AS ON 
THE PATH OF BHAKTI YOGA. The Bhakti Yoga of these people can be 
simple enough for a little child, or as challenging as the greatest 
jnani wants it to be. The origin and basis of Bhakti is not our love 
for God, but God's love for us. God has reached out to humanity with 
a Self-revelation of Love, and pours-out His grace / love freely, 
which can be received by anyone with an honest (humble) open heart. 
There are no impediments to Bhakti except selfishness, impersonalism, 
dishonesty, pride and a closed heart. 

It is actually appalling that any educated person would know so 
little about the religions of India as to think that Ramakrishna was 
representative of mainstream Bhakti Yoga ! Sadly this is the case 
outside of India, and even among westerners who have gone there, but 
just stayed in the myopic elitist little self-involved world of 
Advaita Vedanta and Tantra. 

I was a member of the Executive Committee of the World Hindu 
Organization under the Patronage of the Late King of Nepal. In this 
capacity I met with governmental heads of state and the leaders of 
Vaishnavism, Shaivism and other traditions. I actually discussed 
religious demographics at length with government leaders in Nepal, 
India and Sri Lanka. If you read my biography posted here, you should 
know that I am currently the Interfaith Coordinator for the World 
Vaishnava Association. I am recognised as an expert on the world 
history of Bhakti Traditions and as a Master in one of the most 
venerated lineages of Vaishnavism. I was given the Sannyasi name 
BHAKTI Ananda because of my reputation as an 'adept' and a scholar of 
Bhakti Yoga. These are some of my qualifications for speaking on 
Bhakti Yoga in this forum.....and yet you continue to be arrogantly 
dismissive of what I say, and argumentative just for the sake of 
looking like an expert in front of your deluded followers. 

You made a preposterous statement and I corrected your misinformation 
by posting here the statistics from the Adherants web site. Now you 
are trying to dismiss what I have presented on the numbers of 
Vaishnavas and Shaivites with another equally uninformed statement, 
which is as outrageous and offensive as your last. 

I am sure that you are expert at some things, but you are misleading 
people by presenting yourself as knowledgeable about Hinduism and 
knowing very much of the various traditions and history of Buddhism 
on this forum. The historical core of MAHAYANA Buddhism is PURE LAND 
BUDDHISM. If you have no familiarity witheven the existance of Pure 
Land Buddhism, then you are unqualified to teach any general course 
on Buddhism. 


> Christians, Muslims, Jews, and so on know nothing of Bhakti Yoga. 

YOU obviously know nothing about Bhakti Yoga as a path /pada, or 
vehicle / vahaana, or Dharma Door / Dvara, or Yoga / yoke. Bhakti 
Yoga is not something that you "... try to practice it for awhile, ".

The goal of Bhakti Yoga is NOT about merging / 'union', as Advaitis 
want to merge with the Brahman ! This is exactly NOT what any form of 
traditional Bhakti Yoga is about. Such merging is a Sufi Advaiti, 
Shaivite Tantric Advaiti, Kali Tantric Advaiti and Sahajiya goal. 
Gnostics and 'Christian' practitioners of the extreme apophatic 
tradition, like Meister Eckhart, and many New Agers have confused the 
goal of such merging as some kind of Bhakti Yoga. There is no 
authentic Bhakti Tradition in India where a soul-self wants to BE 
their own lover / beloved or merge-into GOD. Merging is the anti-
thesis of Bhakti. 

> Mysticism, is union with God or even union with Godhead which is a 
> more impersonal perspective of one's personal God.


Advaiti Impersonal Mysticism is. 'Nature' pantheistic mysticism is. 
Godhead is only 'more impersonal' in the writings of such 
impersonalists as Meister Eckhart. In authentic Bhakti Yoga, there is 
no such 'more impersonal' Godhead. 

> Are you sugggesting that Theosophists should quit and become 
Christians or Muslims? If you want me to worship a god, then maybe 
you can tell me which one? And why should I chose one at the expense 
of the others? I love them all.


Why would I want you to "worship a god..." ? I wish you to be fully 
loved and to fully love, that is all.

God is not the same as a god or gods. There is only one Supreme 
Personality of Godhead, Who is infinite and has infinite 
relationships with the beings that He has manifest and created. 
Vaishnavas experience Him as Hari-Vasu-Atma To the Shaivites He has 
revealed Himself as Hara / Shiva. To the Jews and Christians, He has 
revealed Himself as Eli-Yahu-Adon and the Trinity. Do you really not 
get that Godhead is ONE, but infinite and infinitely revealed?

AND for those unable to establish a good relationship to GOD, there 
is ESS / ISHISH / ISIS Shekinah / Shakti !


> The Bhakti tradition, even when understood in the broad general 
> terms of anyone who prays to a god, functions under the assumption 
> of a personal self who seeks favors of a personal not-self. 

"seeks favors" ? This and the rest of your statements are all such 
nonsense that I can only conclude that you have surrounded yourself 
with people who know less that you, who have done you the disservice 
of encouraging you to make pronouncements on subjects that you have 
no grasp of. 

> Muslims, and most other religious folk would consider such a goal 
> as blasphemy, and this is why I did not include the world's 
> religions in the "Bhakti Tradition." Prayer and devotion and 
> worship to God with the intent of ultimate union or at-one-ment is 
> limited to only a small percentage of people.

Again the at-one-ment of merging that you are describing is NOT 
TRADITIONAL BHAKTI YOGA. IT IS ADVAITI. BHAKTI YOGA IS NOT ADVAITA 
VEDANTA. 

I am an expert on Bhakti Yoga from its history to its living, and 
what you have described is Advaiti impersonalism, the very opposite 
of Bhakti Yoga. This Advaita Vedanta is a purely a Jnana Path. 

Instead of accepting the clear evidence I presented, of the largest 
populations of devotees of GOD, including Catholics, Muslims, 
Vaishnavas and Shaivites, you have presented an attempt to disguise 
your great arrogant foolishness, by making yet another baseless 
argument, that Christianity etc. is not a Bhakti Path. 

It is one thing to be wrong, but quite another to be proud and 
incapable of correction. It is wrong to mislead people, and present 
yourself as an expert when you are not. Anyone who encourages you in 
this behavior is doing you a great disservice. 

Because I care about you and those your extremely wrong statements 
have misled, I am posting these strong words. However because of the 
prevailing attitude here, I doubt if they will do any good. 

Since it is apparently the Theosophical Society tradition to 
completely reject any kind of actual real-world expert testimony in 
favor of an unqualified Theosophist's opinion, I don't expect 
anything of value to come out of posting anything else in this forum, 
which is dominated by people like you, who cannot learn because you 
already think you know it all. I am now unsubscribing from this list.

Please stop misleading others with your proud misinformation. Your 
prejudice against Monotheism and Bhakti Yoga will not make billions 
of people go away. You may be able to mislead a few people here with 
your disinformation, but like it or not, there are still billions of 
people on the Bhakti Path. It is by all evidence the "Yuga Dharma".

wishing you all well, 

Bhakti Ananda Goswami 



--- In theos-talk@yahoogroups.com, "D. H. Caldwell <info@b...>" 
<info@b...> wrote:
> Mon, 27 Jan 2003 15:58:28 -0500 (EST)
> 
> Author: Gerald Schueler <gschueler@e...>
> 
> Subject: Bhakti Yoga
> 
> <<<The Bhakti salvific devotional traditions have ALWAYS been the 
> dominant ones.>>>
> 
> Only when defined broadly to include Christianity. Islam, etc. 
Bhakti 
> Yoga as I understand it, is a very special type of yoga and is not 
> all that popular. Probably its most famous proponent and 
practitioner 
> was Ramakrishna during the late 19th century India. Christians, 
> Muslims, Jews, and so on know nothing of Bhakti Yoga. Are you 
> sugggesting that Theosophists should quit and become Christians or 
> Muslims? If you want me to worship a god, then maybe you can tell 
me 
> which one? And why should I chose one at the expense of the others? 
I 
> love them all.
> 
> The Bhakti tradition, even when understood in the broad general 
terms 
> of anyone who prays to a god, functions under the assumption of a 
> personal self who seeks favors of a personal not-self. The Mind 
only 
> School of Tibetan Buddhism would call this assumption maya. The 
> Bhakti Tradition, in my view, is a lower school intended to help 
> humanity cope with life on the lower planes. And as such it does a 
> good job.
> 
> As I understand Bhakti Yoga, and I may be wrong even though I did 
try 
> to practice it for awhile, the ultimate goal, like Christian 
> Mysticism, is union with God or even union with Godhead which is a 
> more impersonal perspective of one's personal God. Christians, 
> Muslims, and most other religious folk would consider such a goal 
as 
> blasphemy, and this is why I did not include the world's religions 
in 
> the "Bhakti Tradition." Prayer and devotion and worship to God with 
> the intent of ultimate union or at-one-ment is limited to only a 
> small percentage of people.
> 
> Jerry S.