The Narada Bhakti Sutra · Part 1: The Nature of Bhakti

Narada sits with his veena in hand, and he begins where every serious shastra begins. The very first word is “now,” and that “now” holds a great deal within it. It is meant for the listener who has already accomplished something, whose mind is ready. Then he lays his hand straight on the root of bhakti. Bhakti is no ordinary attachment. It is the form of supreme love toward God, the highest love, which asks for nothing in return. And this love is deathless in essence, the kind that does not die and that makes the one who attains it immortal as well.

Now Narada tells what happens inside a person once this love is won. Whoever attains it becomes perfected, becomes immortal, and grows content to the very core. After that no desire rises in the mind, no grief, no hatred, no clinging to sense-objects; and, startlingly, even enthusiasm does not remain. Here the boil of religious fervor settles too, and only a quiet bhakti stays. Knowing it, a person turns intoxicated, falls still, and begins to delight within their own self.

Now Narada touches this love from another direction. This bhakti is not a form of desire, since its very nature is that of nirodha, a stilling. And what he means by nirodha he opens up at once. Nirodha is the renunciation of the affairs of both the world and the Veda, the worldly running-about and the Vedic ritual alike. Along with it comes such singleness toward that one that no other refuge is left, and indifference toward everything that would turn a person away from it.

Narada makes the meaning of singleness even clearer. To abandon every other refuge and to rest on that one support alone, this is singleness. Yet there is a balance to it. While living among the world and the Veda, act only in the ways that agree with that one, and stay indifferent to whatever opposes it. And here Narada adds a practical caution. Even after the resolve has grown firm, the observance of shastra should continue.

Narada also gives the reason for not abandoning shastra. Otherwise the danger of a fall remains, because when even a devotee who has risen high within is seen breaking an outward propriety, the sight breeds wrong conclusions in the minds of others. Then the chapter’s final sutra rests on this same practical note. Ordinary worldly conduct is just as fit to be given up, though with one allowance. Acts like eating that are necessary to keep the body going will carry on as long as the body lasts; they stand outside the reach of this renunciation.