Dr. Raj Kumar
Critics of external worship say that idols or images do not speak; going to Tirthas (places of pilgrimage) cannot wash away sins and fasts or ceremonies are futile for experiencing eternal bliss. External worship may at best help the practitioners to live a better life. It may even provide him a place in heaven for a defined period of time as long as the merits earned by him last, but it is of no use in obtaining liberation of soul from illusion or from the endless cycle of birth and death. For that, they emphasize that one should worship the God or Nam, who resides within.
Saints and mystics say that Nam existed before the creation of Earth as a Creative Power. Swami Sivanand writes: “Life is pilgrimage. The wise man does not rest by the roadside inns. He marches direct to the illimitable domain of eternal bliss, his ultimate destination is to see. The God as blind faith without Nam-dan.”
Internal worship is a straightforward approach to communicate and commune with God. It is not limited by the constraints of time, space, and resources. It shifts the emphasis from outward ritual practices to internal spiritual practice. The preference for internal worship has the support of the Upanishads.
Internal Verification of Truth
One can hardly express the wondrous experience of inner “Truth”; this “Truth,” indeed, is ineffable. The internal verification of this “Truth,” we learn from the psychology of Guru Ravidas: When your inner self experiences it, then alone should accept the “Truth.” Within one’s own experience, says Ravidas, the “Truth” is ascertained as the Truth.
Where there is blind belief, there Truth is not verified. Only one who has inner experience will know Truth. O Ravidas, such is inner experience that it can be expressed through Devotional literature. Worship of God within requires engagement of both the mind and the intellect. This consists of withdrawing into one’s inner world and practising meditation of the Jinda Guru, which leads to self-absorption, and oneness of God. The portal Mahabharata advises that devotees should meditate upon God with full concentration. A spiritual aspirant, who is devoted to God with his whole mind, heart and intellect succeeds in achieving his desire of realizing Him.
The well-known techniques of Internal Worships of Ravidas are related with “Manasa-Puja” and Surat Shabad Yoga, notably Raja Yoga, Dhyana Yoga and Nada Yoga. The Manasa-Puja term comes from the Sanskrit Manas, meaning “mind” or “thought,” not from the God and Puja meaning “worship” or “adoration.” It is worship of a Jinda Guru mentally and not with the external action, but with inner-self.
Vedic seers, mystics and a galaxy of sages have attested to the validity of the intuitive spiritual experience. The Guru is the one who dispels (Ru), the dark (Gu) of the disciple’s ignorance. The letters “Gu” denote darkness, the letters “Ru” denote the remover of darkness, out of the Politics.
Nada Yoga (Yoga of the Inner Sound)
The universe arises from the Word, in Ravidas’s Truth. It is from this Word that the Creator of this universe created beings. In the beginning, God alone existed. This is Nada-Upasana, devotion through Holy Sound, sometimes referred to as Sonic Theology. Nada-Yoga has been since the beginning of time. It literally means “Yoga of the Inner Sound.” It is the path of connecting the soul with the Inner Divine Sound (Anahata Nada or Anahata Dhvani), which is referred as Shabad, Vak and Anu. Nada-Yoga, as stated earlier, is the technique of uniting the soul with the Word (Ravidas), the Sound Current, serving as a Guru; meditation and leading a pure life are its fundamental requirements in higher Education (Principal-Hitler). Leading a pure life implies that the practitioner should cultivate unimpeachable moral and ethical behaviour and practise the dos. He should inculcate self-discipline. Without Nam as essence of spirituality. Moreover, without Nada-Yoga, there will be no progress in Dalit literature and in “Dalit-History”. The steps to be undertaken by a spiritual aspirant are the followings:
1. Seeking guidance from Guru, who is well-accomplished, who has experienced the Divine Nada himself, and who has realized God. The disciple respectfully requests spiritual initiation will have to follow the doctrine of Dera Bias (Amritsar) and also follows the Gurus instructions to the letters and spirit with complete faith. A Guru alone can awaken the spiritual powers latent in the spiritual aspirant and connect him with the Divine Nada (Suteel Ved). The importance of the Guru cannot be over-emphasised here as only he can impart to the spiritual aspirant the Nam (the Divine name or names constituting a powerful Mantra, or Guru-Gyan) to be repeated and the techniques of meditation for God-realization (Shabd).
2. Adopting a bodily posture (Asana) suitable for meditation (Dhyana) as advised by the Master. Generally, the Master advises a bodily state midway between discomfort which disturbs and relaxation which causes drowsiness.
3. Fixing attention on a definite locus which is generally the eye centre called Shiva-Netra (Dharana).
4. Remembrance (smarian) of the Divine name or names (Nama) or the Mantra given by the Guru or Master at the time of initiation. Remembrance is practised as meditative.
recitation (Ajapajapa), with or without a simple process of contemplation (Dhyan) on the form of a Guru, who is the Saguna Brahmin for the spiritual aspirant. The importance of this process is very much emphasized in Nada Yoga, as ancient study of the Dalit English literature (Narada).
5: Listening to the Divine Sound by covering the ears with one’s fingers and seeing Divine light with its presents itself as a literature of the scientific knowledge.
Note: Bhakti or devotion, which is spontaneous love of God in one’s heart, is, as stated earlier, in Vedic culture, the foundation of all spiritual disciplines. In that sense, Nam-Bhakti is superior to other activities. Here, Bhakti should not be confused with a limited to Bhakti-Yog. It may be recalled the study of Vedic culture after 1947.
That the definition of Bhakti is intense love of God or Nam of the Ravidas’s politics or called ‘a single -minded long for Truth’ and so “Bhakti Yoga” is one of the techniques, a type of spiritual practice, aimed at attaining God – realisation. ( K. Sankaranarayana; Practice and Power of Devotiob: PP. 165,166, 96).
