Posted on: 16 Aug 2021
Śrī Ganesh V asked: Pādanamaskāraṃ Swāmiji, I believe that devotees who practice vāmācāra are climax devotees and are associated with God for many Janmās. If they are climax devotees, they do not expect anything in return from God. But You said that the divine Mother gives boons sooner to them rather than those who worship her through dakṣīṇācāra? At Your divine feet, Ganesh V.
Swāmi replied:- Worship means love to God. Love is the life of worship. There may be different types of love. God may be loved as Father, Mother, Brother, Son, Husband, Darling etc. One shall not think that loving God as husband or darling (Madhura Bhakti) is greatest unless all other worldly bonds are sacrificed. Draupadī loved God as brother and excelled all the wives confined to sweet devotion. When Kṛṣṇa’s finger was cut, all the wives ran to get a piece of old cloth for bandage. Draupadī tore her new saree for bandage. The type of love is not important but the intensity and purity of love is important. ‘Dakṣiṇa’ means right side husband and ‘Vāma’ means left side wife. The sweet devotion belongs to the left side female part and other types of devotion belong to right side male part. The females worshipping God as Father, brother etc., also come under the right part only. The sweet devotion (Madhura bhakti) is treated to be the left side, but, treating God as justified husband also comes under the right side only. Treating God as darling through unjust way strictly comes to the left side called Vāmācāra.
The Vāmācāra is treated as wrong path by Dakṣiṇācāra. The Vāmācāra is injustice and sin as per Pravṛtti. But, this Vāmācāra is called Madhura Bhakti when devotees like Gopikas did not fear even to go to hell for the sake of God. In this way Vāmācāra turned to Madhura Bhakti, occupied top most place since the devotee is prepared to accept the punishment of sin for the sake of God. But, Madhura Bhakti becomes successful only when all the other worldly bonds are also sacrificed for the sake of God. The bond with justified life partner alone is not sacrificed unlike the case of prostitute, who sacrifices the bond with life partner to earn money. This Vāmācāra is turned in course of time to mere attraction to body only in which God disappeared. Such Vāmācāra is really a sin giving horrible punishment in the hell. Gopikas are pure devotees of God following Madhura Bhakti, in which all the worldly bonds are sacrificed and bond with life-partner is just one bond among all the worldly bonds. This Madhura Bhakti has deep spiritual knowledge as basis and this is invented by sages. The Veda says (Striyaḥ satīḥ puṃsaḥ) that all souls are females and wives of God, who is the only male (Puruṣa). The sages tried to become females and hug Rāma with sweet devotion. In the next birth, Kṛṣṇa tested the sacrifice of all worldly bonds for the sake of God including sweet devotion.
In this way, Madhura Bhakti and Vāmācāra are overlapped in some angles and one shall carefully separate these two. Vāmācāra without Madhura Bhakti is the greatest sin and Madhura Bhakti including Vāmācāra is the greatest spiritual path as proved by Gopikas. In Madhura Bhakti, there is the total surrender of everything including the body to God. The soul shall be very careful in this line because any slip will lead the soul to the liquid fire in the hell. This path will take the soul to the highest fruit if everywhere the soul is very careful avoiding slips. This path sees that any soul can reach the highest fruit called Brahma loka, but, through Madhura Bhakti the soul can go to higher than highest fruit (Goloka) due to the total surrender.
This love is theoretical or practical. The practical love is the life and proof of the theoretical love. In Vāmācāra, the love is oriented towards the beauty of this external body, which is the external personality. The internal qualities like love are related to the internal personality. The dress, jewels etc., are related to the superficial personality. The superficial personality is very much temporary. The external personality, which is temporary limited to this birth, is greater than superficial personality, which changes every day. The internal personality is the real and permanent beauty that follows soul in every birth. The love related to internal personality is also checked to be real or false by practice or karma yoga, which consists of practical service and practical sacrifice of fruit of work. Dakṣiṇācāra is considered to be more dignified and sacred than the Vāmācāra. But, the value depends on the proof given by practice. In fact, Vāmācāra was followed by sages born as Gopikas. The value of worship does not depend upon whether the worship is Dakṣiṇācāra or Vāmācāra. The value depends upon the proof of worship. Gopikas went to Bṛndāvanam in the midnight to dance with God Kṛṣṇa, which is Vāmācāra worship. Gopikas were not given the highest Goloka simply based on their mere participation in the Vāmācāra worship done in the dance at Bṛndāvanam. Those Gopikas, who proved their love in the test of stealing butter preserved for their issues, along with Vāmācāra worship alone went to Goloka. These three bonds (wealth, issues and life partner) are the strongest worldly bonds. If these three strongest worldly bonds are defeated for the sake of God, all the worldly bonds are defeated before God. Hence, Gopikas, who passed these two tests (stealing butter and dancing in Bṛndāvanam) alone went to Goloka. In stealing butter, both bonds with wealth and issues were defeated and in dancing with Kṛṣṇa, the bond with life partner was defeated. Hence, mere dance with Kṛṣṇa cannot decide that whether such bond is having real love or false love. If the dance was done based on the external beauty of the body of Kṛṣṇa, such love is not real. If the internal love is real, Gopikas could have passed the test of stealing butter also. One may worship God through Dakṣiṇācāra by holy prayers and devotional loving mind and the same devotee may worship God even through Vāmācāra also side by side, the reality of the love to God is not proved by these two types of theoretical worship. Once the reality of love proved by service and sacrifice exists, whether the worship is Dakṣiṇācāra or Vāmācāra or both together, God is pleased with the reality of love and not mere love expressed. This is reason that why God Datta always enters straight in testing the reality of love that can be proved by practice (Karma yoga) alone.