March 22, 2025
From Form to Formless: Transcending Duality in Devotion
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Bhakti yoga involves transcending the forms we worship to reach the formless divine essence; persistent duality becomes an obstacle when it creates a new ego identity based on being "the devotee."
• The ultimate goal is to dissolve the separation between worshipper and worshipped
• Emotional highs in devotional practices can be beautiful but shouldn't become attachments
• Fear of ego death prevents many devotees from complete surrender
• Even identifying as a "servant of God" can become a subtle form of spiritual pride
• True surrender is not emotional declaration but dissolution of identity
• Devotional activities without self-inquiry become distractions
• Bhakti without knowledge (jnana) leads to stagnation
• True devotion matures from "I love God" to "What am I?" to "I am this formless awareness"
• Jnana and bhakti are two wings of the same bird - both essential for spiritual freedom
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Chapters
00:38 - Introduction to Nirgun Bhakti
01:31 - Persistent Duality: The Devotee Trap
04:06 - Emotional Highs vs. True Devotion
06:48 - Fear of Ego Death in Bhakti
08:59 - Identity as a Devotee: A Subtle Trap
12:24 - The Illusion of Surrender
18:44 - Devotional Distractions and Inner Work
22:48 - Bhakti and Jnana: Two Wings of Freedom
Transcript
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Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded Mystic Podcast, and I'm your host, rahul N Singh.
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Thank you for taking out the time today to either watch or listen to this podcast episode Today.
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It's an important episode because I talked about it the other day and we talked about how we would look at some of the pitfalls in bhakti and how we can get to nirgun bhakti.
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The whole point of bhakti is not to stay stuck on the form, but to get us to transcend the form, and that form can be anything that we find a close affinity to, where we find divinity just emanates so easily from that form.
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And that can be your guru, that can be your Ish Devta, that can be your Gul Devta, that can be any of the devis and devtas, it can even be the elements you know, like surya devata and so on.
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So we can have that, we can have Ishvara, we can have Saguna Brahman.
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That's all good, and we will look into each of things where people can get stuck and we'll look at how Advaita Vedanta deals with it.
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So we will start.
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The first point is persistent duality.
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Now, you know, we have this constant feeling of well, I'm the devotee, you are God, or you are my Ishtiv, you are the form that I worship, and what happens is that that then becomes an ego thing of.
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One, gets identified as, oh, I'm the devotee, and that's God.
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Only God can do it.
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I can't do it, and that is obviously.
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If you look at Advaita Vedanta, that's a big no-no In the one can entertain this because you know one's building up confidence in spirituality, so it's needed, but the ego should not be surviving here.
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So what happens is we then become the worshiper has a new, like a renewed ego where it's like oh well, I'm the devotee, only you know, I've got to seek blessings, I've got, yeah, and I've got to seek forgiveness, I've got, and you know that.
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Not that that's bad, but it's certainly not advantageous eventually, because are we going to keep being in the victim mode in bhakti or are we actually going to go into full-on worship where there's oneness in that worship?
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You're going to go into full-on worship where there's oneness in that worship.
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So with Advaita we would ask the question well, who is the I that is devoted?
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When someone says I am the devotee, who's the I am here, and we would explore that and we'll find out what is actually devoted, and then we'll see that both the devotee, the idea of the devotee, the concept of the devotee and God will arise in awareness and we'll realize.
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Actually, you know, there is no difference between me and God, it's oneness.
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We're not separate, it's not two here.
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And this devotion actually kind of transcends the duality and transcends mere identity when we understand our true nature.
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So bhakti can get us to do that.
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So, instead of you persisting with this duality and being consistent with this duality of I'm the devotee and you are God, eventually we've got to merge the two together and that will bring oneness and that is non-duality and that's Parabhakti, parabhakti, the highest bhakti.
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Now, as I mentioned, you know, when we say that I'm the devotee and you are God, we can get stuck in the names, the forms, the rituals and the emotional heights.
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And definitely, if you've ever been part of an arati, whenever you've been part of a jagran where they do a jagrata for the whole night, there's a whole night of Mahashivratri.
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There's a whole intense energy that's accumulated in that moment.
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You go to a Sufi, sangeet or anything where there is praises of the divine.
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That can get you emotionally high and that is an amazing feeling.
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It's beautiful.
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But should that get us stuck.
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Should that make us feel?
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Should we keep chasing those emotional highs or should we be trying to find this emotional high in our life now?
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It's an inner state, this bliss that we achieve when we or feel, when we are meditating on the divine, contemplating on the divine, worshiping the divine.
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It does bring an immense energy to it, but at the same time, are we just chasing the energy or are we merging with the energy?
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That's one thing we have to see.
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So here, if we're constantly just thinking this is the image that I worship and my image is better than that, or the name and form that I worship as a guru that's better than yours, that then becomes a problem, because we have to understand that any image, any name, any ritual, any emotional high, these are all mental states or physical states and therefore it's ultimately just maya, a projection of maya.
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But these what we could say higher states of maya are there to kind of get us into the mode of devotion.
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They're not meant to be the full, highest form of devotion.
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This is meant to be a stepping stone into the nirgun, into the formless.
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So we have to turn our attention to that formless substratum, the fund, the underlying substance that's there.
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That's formless and that's the witness of all names and forms.
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So what happens is you're worshipping, but you're being aware of the worshipper and the worshipped and that's what you capture.
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So that's where bhakti matures, when you're just from loving the form to actually the formless.
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And when there's the formless, think can there be any boundary to your devotion?
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Can there be any boundary to your devotion?
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Can there be any boundary to your love?
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Can there be any condition to your love?
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No, it grows and grows and grows.
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And sometimes we get so stuck on the forms we forget what they're representing, which is the formless.
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Yeah, and that's very important.
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Then, you know, bhakti can also, strangely enough, create a fear of ego, death.
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Now, we may have this resistance to just not existing.
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Imagine if I don't exist, and how can I worship god?
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And if I, or if I disappear, then my worship to God disappears and we, you know, cling to that personal God because we want to protect this I-ness that we have this Humgada, that we have.
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The Humgada cannot have devotion.
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Yeah, that can never have devotion.
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The Humgada would make that devotion into a game that it in order for it to survive.
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But Bhakti, true Bhakti, is about getting rid of the Hama Gada, getting rid of the ego.
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So what would happen here is that we would say look, ego, death is not the end, it's your freedom, don't be scared to lose yourself in devotion, it's okay, remove your existence.
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Then what will remain?
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Only god will remain, and that's the highest form of devotion.
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So what happens here and the funny thing is it's not that you disappear or you dissolve away.
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No, the I dissolves away, the false I, the false self, and only Satchitananda alone remains, because that's our true nature, that's the true nature of Brahman, that's who we are, and so we should never shy away from that.
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So what happens here is that if you feel in that moment of bhakti that if I go any further, it's going to remove my whole existence and I may die, just remember that you will remain after this.
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You will not physically die, you will not even have a full on ego death, because ego still has a function.
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But what will happen is you will no longer identify with the ego.
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The jiva identifies with Satchitananda, and that's the true essence of bhakti.
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I've alluded to this before, but let's go a bit deeper into this.
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One Is when we identify as a bhakti, as a devotee.
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You know we cling to this self-image, that you know I'm a Das of this Prabhu, I'm a Das of this Bhagavan.
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And what happens?
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There is a subtle ego.
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You know, I'm the Das and that Das can become an ego, that Das can become an issue where we just say the words but we don't actually feel that we are.
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So imagine if you say that you are a das, then are you a das just for a particular clan, community, people, or are you a das for everyone in existence?
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See, you can't be a das for, uh, one person, you have to be adast for all.
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Then there's no high and low.
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But if you are a servant of this Prabhu, this Nirakar, this Shiva, whatever you worship, narayan, then you have to see everyone as that form.
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So even being ad Das is very difficult, but it should not become our ego and we get stuck in.
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Well, I'm a servant of the Lord and a Guru comes to you and says you are the Lord and you say, no, I'm the servant of the Lord.
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The Guru is pointing you to the highest and we are saying, no, I'm the Das, I'm the Das.
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What's happened?
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Identity, so even the identity, the idea that I'm a bhakti, is a thought.
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So we have to drop all these roles and we have to investigate well, what is saying that I am a das?
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Who is the das here?
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And yes, if you are truly the divine, you will worship all, because all is the divine.
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There is nothing but the divine.
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It's the omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient.
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It's the only one here.
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But for that we have to dissolve every self-image that we have, even the one that I am a devotee, I am the servant of the Lord, even that.
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And what should remain for us is just this pure, formless consciousness.
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And from there we do bhakti.
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My guru often says and it's a very important line she says that bhakti begins once you know what God is, once you attain God, godliness, then you know, then bhakti begins.
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And this is very deep, because can we do bhakti in ignorance?
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No, if there's a deal going on, then it's not bhakti.
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Bhakti is not a deal with the divine.
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Bhakti is beyond that.
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Bhakti is where the divine only is, where we get so lost in this fervor of devotion that we lose ourself and we never return the ego.
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I'm talking about the Om Gara.
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I'm talking about that is devotion, this other one that you know.
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I often hear people say this and they may claim to be Jnanis and all this.
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And, frankly, the Brahma Kumaris say this a lot.
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They say everything is a drama, a lila, a play, and therefore they don't want to deal with the actual problem of duality, which is the real problem, but they rather deal with the whole, kind of not dealing with it properly, without going beyond.
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Well, what is behind this play?
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What is behind this drama?
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You know, they just keep saying everything is a drama.
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Is it really?
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You know somebody in abject poverty?
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You say that their poverty is a drama that the Lord has put onto them.
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What?
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How is that even Justifiable, you know?
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Or, instead of actually people dealing with their problems, you say everything is drama, it's a leela, it's the Lord's leela, it's the Lord's drama.
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But Does that really work?
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Does it actually help us transcend our emotions, our body and mind identification?
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Does it help us to rest in formless awareness?
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No, because there's still something.
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But actually we're double layering it.
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First we're saying there's a God that's separate to me, then there's a play that God, god that is separate to me, then there is a play that God has written that is separate to me.
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So the question is Do we even have free will in this matter.
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So then, can you have free will to even do bhakti?
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Is it your choice to do bhakti?
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So, yes, you can honour that.
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Somewhat the world looks like a stage.
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Yeah, you can honor that.
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You can definitely say you know, some part of it is a lila, but go deeper.
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What's the reality behind all this play?
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Is this play even happening?
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It's like a beautiful example that Advaita uses that when the wave realizes it's the water, leela continues.
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What happens?
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The wave no longer fears dissolution, it knows that it's going to keep appearing as a wave and that's fine, but its substance is the same it's water.
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So therefore, we're that same one reality, and this drama of the world is just a wave in the whole Leela.
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It's a wave in the reality.
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That's what the Leela is and that's the way to see it.
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And then another point, and this is the last point, one of the last points we're going to be making is actually there's a few more points.
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One is when we surrender, we think we've done it, that's it, this is the end, we're finished, we're done.
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I've surrendered to the Almighty.
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How many people I've heard say to me oh, I've surrendered to the divine?
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No, they haven't.
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If you surrendered to the divine, you would actually go with the flow of life.
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And I'm telling you, none of them go with the flow of the divine.
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They have one little desire.
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They're impulsive and they chase that desire.
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But they say they're surrendered, nothing of surrender.
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And when you say emotionally that you surrender or you know, I've given up on life, does that mean you've surrendered to the actual divine?
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No, or you say, god, I'm so upset I surrender everything to you.
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But when you get happy, what happened to your God in your surrender?
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And this happens, so true surrender is not, oh, I give myself to God.
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It's true surrender is the dissolution, the disappearance, the annihilation of the I-ness, of the I-making, the Ahamkara, because that is what surrenders when you surrender the true I, when you say I have no identity, that is of a name and form, or body and mind.
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I am this pure consciousness.
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I surrender to this, I surrender to Aham Brahmasmi.
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That's the true meaning of I am brahman.
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When you surrender all identity and only aham brahmastmi remains, not as a statement to be made, but an ex, but the continuous uh, you could say experience to be lived, because that's the only experience we actually are living, that's the only reality you're living in Is Aham, brahmasmi.
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We just create layers Instead of being Aham, brahmasmi or Tatva Masi or whatever, mahavakya or Shivoham.
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So it's only when that surrender becomes total, when we totally surrender our body and mind and our identity, only then is that surrender, because only Brahman should remain, only this Nirakara, this Shiva should remain, nothing else.
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That is true surrender, not an emotional one.
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Oh, I give myself to God, I give myself to God, but I will harm the humanity as much as I can.
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I keep hold of my power.
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Imagine there's a priest who runs a church or runs a temple and he says oh, I've given myself to God, I've given myself to Dharma.
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And they do such acts which make you think how can they?
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How have they given themselves to God?
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They're the most corrupt people on the planet.
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But people will say that I'm being devoted, that's what they will call.
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So these little things we have to be very alert of.
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And then there's devotional distraction, and this is a big one.
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Actually.
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You know, we constantly would go to satsang, to kirtan, to do seva, to do rituals, just to keep our mind engaged outwardly.
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But are we doing any work internally?
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That's the question.
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And sometimes that's not happening.
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We are not going for that, that.
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We are just doing the actions.
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We can week out.
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We can week out and we're not thinking who is the one behind all these actions, who is the one that's the witness of all these actions?
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In which awareness is this occurring in?
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Where is this Brahman?
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How is this Brah Brahman?
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Am I this Brahman?
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That inquiry has not begun, but we keep doing the run of the mill.
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Yeah, I keep going to satsang, I keep doing seva, I keep doing the rituals, I keep going to kirtan, I keep going to the temple.
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But is anything happening?
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Are we learning anything?
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Are we progressing?
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Are we moving forward?
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See, you can't call this bhakti.
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Bhakti is a true is when you are fully into this.
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It's not based on external circumstances, it's on the internal circumstance.
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How much of the mind are you analysing and checking these little things?
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And this is for the beginner of the path.
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I'm not talking about people who've reached the end of the path.
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This is for the beginner.
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This episode is for the beginner.
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I've been there, all the things that I mentioned today.
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I've been there and I've had to deal with it.
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So it's not like and I know it can be done.
00:20:30.997 --> 00:20:34.923
It can be done and it will be done.
00:20:34.923 --> 00:20:38.795
So that's one thing you know.
00:20:39.916 --> 00:21:09.584
Devotion leads you and this is a really, really important point it leads you to an immense silence where, when there's oneness with Brahman, when you understand, there is nothing but formless awareness and you feel that ananda, you feel that bliss, you're in that continuous, constant flow of bliss, shall I say.
00:21:09.584 --> 00:21:12.884
Silence is there.
00:21:12.884 --> 00:21:20.882
Neither do you need to confirm anything, neither do you need to deny anything, neither do you need to attain anything, neither do you need to surrender anything.
00:21:20.882 --> 00:21:27.566
There's just this equipoise, centeredness that you have.
00:21:27.566 --> 00:21:31.205
That is experienced in true devotion.
00:21:32.756 --> 00:21:36.145
True devotion is a dissolution of all pairs of opposites.
00:21:36.145 --> 00:21:38.779
That's true devotion.
00:21:38.779 --> 00:21:50.642
So if you want to do the highest seva, the highest satsang, the highest girtan, then abide as Brahman, abide as Formless Awareness.
00:21:50.642 --> 00:21:55.115
That is the most sacred one you want to.
00:21:55.115 --> 00:22:04.665
You want to listen to the best girtan, then listen to the inner sound of silence, listen to the Aum that is there in the background all the time.
00:22:04.665 --> 00:22:08.325
Wake up at 3am in the morning, 4am, and you'll hear it.
00:22:08.325 --> 00:22:20.101
When you hear that, no worldly music can come close, no lyrics can come close, it can be experienced.
00:22:20.101 --> 00:22:30.520
And these are just good signs to say keep on going in this bhakti, keep dissolving yourself, remove yourself as much as possible.
00:22:33.236 --> 00:22:48.169
And the conclusion of this is and the massive point of why there is this blindness that can come with bhakti is that there's an absence of jnana.
00:22:48.169 --> 00:22:52.965
Jnana and bhakti are two wings of the same bird.
00:22:52.965 --> 00:22:56.724
You get rid of one, it can't fly.
00:22:56.724 --> 00:23:19.584
That's what I've learned in my devotional and jnani practice is that one has to have both, and karma is the bird that is flying in between, because your actions must reflect your bhakti and your jnani, your knowledge.
00:23:19.584 --> 00:23:26.613
So devotion.
00:23:26.673 --> 00:23:37.605
Without that inner self, inquiry into that inquiry into what am I, what is this awareness, what is Brahman?
00:23:37.605 --> 00:23:39.602
It only leads to stagnation.
00:23:39.602 --> 00:23:42.303
You'll be doing the same thing again and again.
00:23:42.303 --> 00:23:58.434
You'll do good karma for sure, you'll probably get a nice, favorable birth in the future, but it won't lead you to Jivan Mukti, which is a point of Bhakti and Jnana, both.
00:23:58.434 --> 00:24:01.815
Jivan Mukti is the solution, sorry, is the end goal.
00:24:01.815 --> 00:24:07.690
That is the point of Bhakti.
00:24:07.690 --> 00:24:08.352
That is the point.
00:24:08.875 --> 00:24:10.904
So, combine Bhakti with your Jnnana, do not let go of either of them.
00:24:10.904 --> 00:24:17.095
And, you know, let that devotion, that emotional ride that bhakti brings.
00:24:17.095 --> 00:24:21.384
Put that into the inquiry into what is real, what is here, what is now?
00:24:21.384 --> 00:24:22.835
What is this awareness?
00:24:22.835 --> 00:24:23.934
What is this witness?
00:24:23.934 --> 00:24:25.079
What's this sakshi?
00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:54.708
Get absorbed in this Seek, that union when there is no way you can unmerge, you combine completely, like sugar into water, salt into water, where the salt Cannot be seen anymore, the sugar granules Cannot be seen anymore, the sugar granules cannot be seen anymore.
00:24:54.708 --> 00:24:56.390
Don't be like oil and water.
00:24:56.390 --> 00:25:01.669
That is not devotion.
00:25:01.669 --> 00:25:10.881
So that union disappears, that two-ness, that remains, only oneness remains, and that's true bhakti, that's true jnana.
00:25:12.460 --> 00:25:22.723
So what you could say is, in the beginning, bhakti begins with oh, I love God, I love my guru, I love my ishtivta, beautiful, amazing, good.
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Then it matures into what am I?
00:25:27.202 --> 00:25:31.711
You know, this formless, this nirakara.
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Then it matures into a what am I?
00:25:32.375 --> 00:25:36.170
This formless, this nirakara, this God is amazing.
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Only this remains.
00:25:36.575 --> 00:25:46.912
And then it ends with I am this formless awareness, I am Brahman, I am God, but not as an ego.
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