आगमे वैष्णवे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

Bhagavatas in the Padma-samhita

According to the Padma-samhita, Bhagavatas include Brahmins and non-Brahmins, both of whom receive diksha:

A [Brahmin] Bhagavata is one who, along with his devoted love of the Bhagavan, worships him five times a day at home or in a temple according to the scriptures, who is born in a Bhagavata family, and who has received consecration. While they must also maintain their private worship, [Brahmin] Bhagavatas are the only ones who are allowed to perform liturgies for the benefit of others in a village or town and should be employed in one’s home or in essential matters (svatantra). One [a non-Brahmin] who belongs to a non-Bhagavata lineage (vamsha) may be consecrated and maintain private worship, but may not perform worship for the benefit of others. Any Bhagavata [Brahmin or non-Brahmin]—whether by birth or consecration—is to be shown the highest respect and honor by all others. (PS 4.13–24, modifying Smith 1975: 236)

Brahmin Bhagavatas were to worship fives times daily: 1) they arise and go to the temple in the early morning (abhigamana); 2) they gather materials for worship at home (upadana); 3) they performa midday liturgical worship (ijya) after which they eat their main meal; 4) they study (svadhyaya); and 5) they practice yoga and pious acts of worship at home or in the temple at evening (yoga) (PS 4.13; Smith 1975: 232). The three periods of sunrise (abhigamana), midday (ijya), and evening (yoga) correspond to the Vedic ideal of worship at the three “junctures” (samdhya). On the vimana, the abhigamana period corresponds to the north-facing side, the upadana and ijya periods correspond to the east-facing side, and the svadhyaya and yoga periods correspond to the south-facing side.

Uddhava’s Description of Bhagavatas

When Uddhava stood before Krishna in Dvaraka (Panel S2, chapter 15), he divided worshipers into two groups (BP 11.6.45–48). One he called “servants” (dasa), the other he called seers and renouncers (rishi and sannyasin). The servants, Uddhava said, serve Krishna their whole life, whether sitting or lying, walking or standing, eating or playing. They wear Krishna’s leftover sandal paste, flower garlands, clothes, and decorations, and they eat his leftover food. All they possess they have offered to Krishna and belongs to him; like servants they live on the master’s leftovers. Unlike renouncers, servant Bhagavatas involve themselves in work (karma) and other people. They cross through the impenetrable darkness of samsara not through solitary absorption in the atman but rather through absorption in conversations with other devotees about Krishna—about his deeds, speech, and teaching, and about his world-enchanting manner as a human. Householders are refugees (prapanna) who give up reliance on all dharmas, as Krishna instructed Arjuna in Bhagavad-gita 18.65–66.

In contrast, seers and renouncers are essentially naked, clothed only in the directions (vatarashana), and through exertion on themselves (shramana) keep their semen “up high.” They are pacified, free of impurity, and attain the “home” called brahman (brahmakhya dhama).

Brahma and Shiva’s Description of Bhagavatas

Brahma and Shiva held a similar view. They said that it is less effective for those disposed toward evils to purify themselves through knowledge (vidya), study of scripture (shrutadhyayana), giving (dana), asceticism (tapas), and rites (kriya) than through faith in the “true” (satshraddhaya), which grows in those pure of self (sattvamana) listening to Krishna’s glory (BP 11.6.9). They listed six types of devotees in two categories (BP 11.6.10–11).1 The first is the renouncer, the muni who seeks Krishna’s feet in the seat of consciousness (hridaya) moist with love; he corresponds to Uddhava’s naked seers and renouncers. The second category corresponds to Uddhava’s householder “servant,” but divided into five kinds.

Of the five, Brahma and Shiva first mentioned the Satvatas, who are “prudent” or “judicious” (atmavat) and seek similarity to the vyuhas in their vibhuti (BP 11.6.10). They correspond to Uddhava’s “servants,” who rely entirely on Krishna as their master to provide for them as he pleases in response to their own ritual use of mantras for the sake of worldly and otherworldly prosperity, success, and well-being.2 Narada illustrates that type of person, and the description he gave Vyasa of bhaktiyoga described those devotees (BP 1.5.37–38). Disciplined devotees, Narada said, invoke the names of the four vyuhas when they perform an act (karma), one that will bear future results (phala); when they perform the act, they dedicate it to Krishna by extolling his qualities and names and by meditating on them. Specifically, they recite the prayer to the four vyuhas: “Veneration to Vasudeva the Bhagavan, and veneration to Pradyumna, to Aniruddha, and to Samkarshana.” By so dedicating all their acts they worship the formless Sacrifice as Person (Yajnapurusha) embodied in mantras and perceive things correctly. The Paushkara-samhita described that as the mantra-siddhanta system (shastra), not to be confused with the Mantrasiddhanta Path (Paushkara-samhita 38.297). In Smith’s condensation, “Bhagavan then says that that system [shastra] which deals with the mystic comprehension of the vyuhas, the murtis, the vibhavas and ganas through the initiation into the mantras and all that they signify and recall—that is called ‘mantra-siddhanta’ (297). He who comprehends and undertakes practice in accordance with this mantra system will have all benefits accrue to him” (Smith 1975: 291).

Brahma and Shiva’s second type consists of “thinkers” or “imaginers” (chitta). They worship at sunrise, midday, and evening in order to transcend heaven. They correspond to the ideal Bhagavatas of the Paushkara-samhita, whose sadhana requires skill in mentally visualizing (dhyana) the various forms of Vasudeva through the use of an icon (vigraha) while reciting mantras with mudras. The Paushkara-samhita (38.300) describes such devotees as employing the tantra-siddhanta system (shastra); and Krishna described its rites to Uddhava (BP 11.27).

The third type consists of sacrificers who offer oblations into the Vedic fire to Krishna’s feet. Only those born to classes qualified for Vedic rites can perform that homa ritual (primarily Brahmins), an elite subset of those who use icons; they add rites of the fire in accord with the tantra-siddhanta system (shastra) (BP 11.27.36–41; SS 6.132–190; 19.46–116; Smith 1975: 519–520; 529).

The fourth type consists of yogins who practice self-discipline to transcend maya and develop siddhis. Their yogic sadhana is based on the “lotus-tree” in the subtle body and its series of wheels (BP 11.12–15; “wheel-lotus tree”: 11.14.31–46, 11.12.17–24, and 11.15). The Paushkara-samhita (38.302) says such devotees employ the tantrantara system (shastra). In Smith’s words: “That system which enjoins yogic concentration on one or two or three or four of the vyuha-manifestations with or without their attendant deities—according to the person’s ability—that system is called ‘tantrantara’ (302)” (Smith 1975: 291–292). That matches tantrantara as meaning “the interior, contents, soul, heart” of the “tantra,” the essential part of worship. According to Monier-Williams (1964: 436b), tantrantariya referred to the samkhyan philosophers. After Krishna described Yoga, which leads to the awakened condition of the sant, he said it is the “secret of samkhya-yoga” (BP 11.13.38), suggesting that it is the tantrantara of the tantrantariya.

The fifth type consists of supreme Bhagavatas (paramabhagavata). Brahma and Shiva said nothing more about them. As we shall see, they correspond to sants.

Poykai’s Description of Bhagavatas

Brahma and Shiva began their list of five types of Satvatas with the most common type, the prudent. They ended it with the rarest and most valued type, the supreme Bhagavata or sant. They ranked the others in between. Poykai, a Tamil poet from the Pallava realm, listed five means for worshiping the Bhagavan, but reversed the order of ranking and began with the most valued.

In Mutal tiruvantati 70, Poykai said that five means for worshiping Goddess Shri with Vishnu (Tirumal) are tamam, velvi, tantira, mantira, and namam. Leaving tamam aside for the moment, the others are easily identifiable within the Pancharatra context. Velvi means “fire sacrifice” and corresponds to the homa ritual employed by Brahmins following the tantrasiddhanta system. Tantira is tantra and corresponds to the essential rites focussed on an icon using mudras, mantras, and offerings according to the tantra-siddhanta system. Mantira is mantra and corresponds to access to the Bhagavan’s multiplicity through mantras according to the mantra-siddhanta system.3 Namam means “name” and refers to reciting in contemplation Vishnu’s “thousand names” (sahasranama).

That leaves tamam. As the Sanskrit word dama it means “flower garland” or “necklace of beads”; later Sri Vaishnavas interpreted it in this stanza to mean worship with flower garlands.4 Yet as far as I know, the practice of worshiping Sri Vishnu with flower garlands does not represent a specific sadhana, whereas the other four in the list do. We therefore must look elsewhere for the meaning of tamam. The answer lies in interpreting it as the Sanskrit word dhamam.

Dhamam or dhama denotes Vasudeva’s “supreme realm”; Krishna referred to his “highest home” as the dhama parama. In Tamil useage it also means “body.” The double meaning of tamam as “supreme realm” and “body” points us to the yogin in the tantrantara-siddhanta system. The central part of its essential liturgy, in Smith’s summary, “enjoins yogic concentration on one or two or three or four of the vyuha-manifestations with or without their attendant deities—according to the person’s ability” (Smith 1975: 291–292). If we interpret Poykai’s use of tamam to refer to that yogic practice based on the “lotus-tree” in the body, tamam eventually leads the yogin to the condition of the sant. In Poykai’s list, tamam denotes the yogin and implies the sant, the supreme Bhagavata whose body is a home for Krishna (BP 11.20.29–37).

All the types of householder Bhagavatas described by Poykai, the Pauhskarasamhita, and Brahma and Shiva may be arranged in hierarchical order, with the most common type at the bottom and the supreme type at the top. The first five are Bhagavatas who received diksha; of them, only Brahmins normally employ homa. The sixth, recitation of Vishnu’s “thousand names,” may presumably be practiced prior to diksha.

THE HIERARCHY OF THE BHAGAVATA COMMUNITY

POYKAI’S METHODS

PAUSHKARA’S SYSTEMS

BRAHMA AND SHIVA’S TYPES

[Sant]

Supreme Bhagavata

Tamam

Tantrantara

Yogin siddhanta

Velvi

[Tantra-siddhanta with homa rites]

Fire sacrificer

Tantira

Tantra-siddhanta

Imaginer

Mantira

Mantra-siddhanta

The Prudent

Namam

[Thousand names]

The “Summary” Summarized

When Krishna began his “Summary of the Brahman Doctrine,” he immediately separated the category of radical renouncer from the category of servant. He called the renouncer rishi, sannyasin, and avadhuta, and told Uddhava stories about two; one story was adapted from Buddhist lore and one from Jaina lore. The temple designers caught those shramana allusions in their depiction of Dattatreya as avadhuta. Krishna described the category of servants as men and women of all ritual classes and castes who had “taken refuge in me” (BP 11.10.1–13). His categories acknowledge the validity of the hierarchical and segmented society based on Vedic prescriptions for each ritual class (varna), stage of life (ashrama), and caste or clan (kula), yet they observe the order of that society only insofar as it does not interfere with serving him.

Bhagavatas, he said, are not required to follow the Vedic injunctions for ritual action (karma)—indeed Bhagavatas who are Shudras, women, and “aliens” are not allowed to—but ideally they practice the disciplined way of life called yama. Yama consists of noninjury (ahimsa), truth (satya), noncovetousness (asteya), nonclinging (asanga), modesty (hri), nonhoarding (asamchaya), affirmation of Veda (astikya), sexual restraint (brahmacharya), moderation in speech (mauna), constancy (sthairya), forgiveness (kshama), and freedom from anxiety (abhaya) (BP 11.19.33). Presumably, all Bhagavatas of whatever caste or gender are to affirm those attitudes and practices.

Among Bhagavatas, however, there are the especially pious. They add activities called niyama to their basic yama way of life. For Krishna the devotee who serves him through niyama is a “holy” person (sadhu), and because the sadhu follows both niyama and yama, the holy person will attain whatever he or she wants (BP 11.19.35). Krishna’s sadhu corresponds to the sadhaka of the mantra-siddhanta system. Krishna also described the sadhu as the disciple of an acharya who knows Krishna and whose own desire is pacified, which implies that some acharyas do not meet that standard—for example, Durvasas. The sadhu regards the acharya as Krishna himself and serves Krishna by serving him (BP 11.10.5). Through “serving the acharya,” the disciple develops the perception of atman underlying everything. That perception enables him or her to develop a nonclinging attitude toward family, wealth, and property. Since knowledge of atman satisfies all desires, clinging to any “thing” disappears (BP 11.10.6–13).5

Importantly, the eleven elements of niyama (BP 11.19.34) correspond precisely to the practice taught in the “The Single-Yet-Many Consecration” described by Narada in the Satvata-samhita (16–22; Smith 1975: 526–531). Purification (saucha), the first niyama, corresponds to purification of the sadhaka either through the special ceremony of “The Man-lion Consecration” (nrisimha-diksha), or through the initial portion of the diksha itself (SS 18.160–174; Smith 1975: 528).6 The skills that the candidate must have acquired in preparation for diksha are the next three elements of niyama: the repetition of mantras to oneself (japa), ascetic practice (tapas or vrata), and, if a Brahmin male, the fire sacrifice (homa). The sadhaka will use those skills during the diksha ceremony and in puja the rest of his or her life.

The next seven niyamas describe the sadhana. The sadhaka lives with faith (shraddha) in the entire Agama system. The sadhaka gives hospitality (atithya) to the worthy, which means to scholars, Brahmins, renunciants, priests, acharyas, and other exemplars of Bhagavata Dharma. Using his or her own icons at home, or using visualized icons, or icons in a temple, the sadhaka pays regular ritual homage to Krishna and occasionally visits tirthas. The sadhaka serves other devotees and cultivates contentment. And throughout his or her life, the sadhaka serves the acharya who performed the diksha (BP 11.19.34; SS 21; Smith 1975: 530–531).

Krishna described the ideal holy person following those niyamas in some detail. The male patron (yajamana) of a temple with wealth to spend was an ideal sadhaka. He was a deviant householder, however, because his life as Krishna’s servant forced him on occasion to behave oddly; living by yama and niyama, he abandoned his own dharma (svadharma) in order to live with complete devotion to Krishna (BP 11.11.26–33). He knew, of course, that the dharma he abandoned was itself ordained by Krishna through Veda, and he knew full well the karmic consequences of abandoning it, yet he gave it up in order to live only for the Bhagavan. Above all, he viewed himself and all that was his, family included, as belonging to his master (BP 11.11.35). He saw himself as Krishna’s slave.

With single-minded devotion the pious sadhaka lived a life centered on the icons and rituals in home and temple (BP 11.11.34–49). He saw, touched, and worshiped Krishna’s symbols (linga) and Krishna’s devotees (bhaktajana). He sponsored festivals in Krishna’s “houses” with song, dance, instrumental music, and assemblies of Brahmins. He organized processions (yatra) and made great offerings (balividhana) at all yearly temple celebrations. He received diksha into the rituals of Veda and Tantra and observed vows pleasing to Krishna. Alone or with others he eagerly established Krishna’s icons with faith and provided flower gardens, groves of trees, recreation grounds, and shelters in town (puramandir) for their ritual service. As a servant, he swept and cleaned Krishna’s “house,” smearing cow dung water on its floor and drawing mandalas. He offered his master only “unused” articles and the most precious of everything, but never called attention to himself when doing so.

The sadhaka also tried to transform his sexual energy and intensity into meditative attentiveness (Krishna said nothing explicitly about females, but the male exemplar implies the female). He was expected to avoid any situation that stimulated sexual interest. Control over deep-rooted sexual desire, Krishna said, enabled the devotee to detach his mind from all objects of the senses, and control emerged when the sadhaka removed himself bodily from women, and from those who delight in women, to sit comfortably in a solitary place. There he disciplined his sexual energy by addressing it to Krishna through vivid attentiveness (BP 11.14.27–30; 11.26.22–24).

The sadhaka prepares for enlightened devotion, Krishna explained, by purifying the intellect (buddhi) and strengthening its material “thread of purity” (sattva guna) under the acharya’s guidance (11.13.1–3). Once the sattva guna conquers the “threads” of passion (rajas) and delusion (tamas), the intellect (buddhi) is pure. Ten liturgical elements strengthen the sattva guna and regulate the others: Agama, water, ascetics as the “progeny” of renunciation, solitary places for meditation, auspicious times to worship such as the brahmamuhurta, devotional acts performed without a fruit in mind, rebirth through diksha, practice of visualization (dhyana), recitation of mantras, and participation in sacramental rites (samskara) (BP 11.13.4–7).7 Through the strengthened and finally pacified sattva guna, the normal sense of “I” in the intellect disappears.8 The sadhaka will then live conscious of Vasudeva Krishna as his or her center, will dwell in samadhi, and will truly be “awake.” From that time on, all that “he” or “she” does is only previous karma working itself out (BP 11.13.30–37).

Among all those means for developing continuous remembrance of him, Krishna said the easiest by far is the “service of the holy” (sadhuseva), who in this case are the sants (BP 11.11.47). Clinging (sanga) to the “true” (sat) is the easy way to attain the “devotion of the true” (satbhakti). Satsanga leads to satbhakti, a supreme secret (parama guhya) Krishna revealed to Uddhava (BP 11.11.48–49). Krishna binds himself to those who cling to the sants (satsanga), because they cut away their attachments to anything else. Although Krishna’s entrance into consciousness as a permanent resident is a gradual process, opening the door for him is easy. Clinging to sants, Krishna said, is a method superior to yoga, samkhya, dharma, Veda study, tapas, renunciation, acts without desire for their fruits, gifts at sacrifices (dakshina), vows, fire sacrifices, the internal repetition of mantras, bathing places (tirtha), niyama, and yama (BP 11.12.1–2). It is a method suited to any refugee.

Clinging to sants was the method Krishna advised Uddhava to follow when he sent him to Badari, where the seer Nara clings to the seer Narayana as the paradigm of satsanga for the entire kalpa: “Ignore the prescriptions and prohibitions of Veda, renounce both acts that produce (pravritta) and acts that do not produce (nivritta), give up what you should learn and what you have already learned, and take refuge (sharana) in me alone. I am the atman in all embodied beings and because I am the origin of all atmans (sarvatmabhava), you will live without anxiety (abhaya) (BP 11.12.14–15).

Krishna then explained the basis for that “easy” development of enlightened consciousness as the “wheel and lotus tree” in the subtle body paralleling the spinal column (BP 11.12.17–24).9 The soul (jiva), he said, manifests itself in each person through the sequence of wheels (chakra) located in the subtle body (sukshmasharira). That sequence, from the root (muladhara) between the anus and genital region to the thousand-petal blossom (sahasrara) at the top of the head, parallels the spinal column of the gross body (BP 11.12.17–24; Tagare 1976–1979 2: 1978, note). The jiva embodied as a human is but a tiny replica of Brahma’s jiva embodied as spacetime; the human body is thus a microcosmic mode of the spacetime in which it lives.

Krishna invoked the metaphor of the ancient tree of samsara to describe Brahma’s cosmic body (BP 11.12.8–23). Two kinds of “birds” eat its fruits, he said, vultures in the villages and geese (hamsa) in the forest. The vultures are those who live for sensual and worldly gratification, the geese are renouncers seeking moksha. But whoever, through the service of the guru, knows that both forms are made of maya truly knows Veda. The tree of samsara repeats itself in the human body as the “wheel and lotus tree,” which the sadhaka transcends through diksha and the acharya’s guidance of a sadhana that operates like an axe: “Through service to a guru and through single-minded devotion, sharpen the axe of knowledge (vidyakuthara), chop down the tree within the body, free the soul (jiva), attain the atman, and throw away the weapon” (BP 11.12.24).

Any highly motivated sadhaka who, for reasons of economics or personality or gender or caste, was only minimally able to live the life of the pious elite had easy recourse to sants. While the sant viewed himself as Krishna’s slave, others viewed him as Krishna; pious devotees of any sort could easily serve the slave of God who embodied God for them. As the Tamil poet Nammalvar said, they “worship at the feet of his men who work at his feet” (Tiruvaymoli 8.102).10

Clinging to sants was an easy but powerful sadhana and involved the recitation of names (namam) cited by Poykai. Many kinds of beings dominated by passion (rajas) and delusion (tamas), Krishna said, had attained his feet through name recitation, including nonhumans from rakshasas to vidyadharas, and humans such as Vaishyas, Shudras, women, and members of the lowest castes (BP 11.12.3–4). Often their motives for clinging had been mixed and impure, but clinging to sants gradually purified them. For example, Krishna cited the gopis when he was a boy in Gokula; their initial motivation was erotic desire (kama), yet after he had left them for Mathura, desire caused them to think of him exclusively and they finally attained his realm, the supreme brahman (brahma parama) (BP 11.12.8–13).

That example is significant, for it identifies the sant as Krishna and devotees clinging to the sant as gopis. The desire motivating devotees to cling to the sant might indeed be “impure”; the male or female devotee may serve the sant for erotic reasons. Continued service of Krishna through serving the sant, the example tells us, will refine that “impure” desire, burn off its erotic nature, and let the soul’s complete satisfaction in Krishna manifest itself. The improper or unlawful can thus be a means to the purest of goals.

The example also reveals that in principle Krishna made enlightenment available to the vast majority of the Dravida population classified by Veda as either Shudra or polluted. Since devotion to Krishna would purify even naturally polluted “dog-eaters,” untouchables could also become sants (BP 11.14.21). If so, then high-caste devotees in eighth-centry Kanchipuram and elsewhere may have worshiped at the feet of formally polluted but now pure devotees. Nammalvar described the most extreme version of that possibility when he said, “Go down, far down, to the lowliest outcastes of outcastes: If they are the intimate henchmen of our lord … then even the slaves of their slaves are our masters” (Tiruvaymoli 3.7.9).11

Improper acts or thoughts as a means to continuous remembrance of Krishna means that devotees should behave as if they actually see Krishna in everything, whether externally in the most polluted of beings or internally in their own unclean desires and feelings. If they practice the perception of Krishna, the perception of Krishna will emerge (BP 11.29.8–16). They are to try to view all people—good and evil, Brahmin and tribal (pulkasa), tranquil and ferocious—as Krishna’s manifestations. Disregarding the ridicule of friends and relations, they are to prostrate like a stick before all beings, including dogs, corpse-burners, cattle, and donkeys.

Until perception of him in all things has been established permanently, Krishna said, sadhakas should worship him through disciplined words, thoughts, and body; exercising all three together is the best means to enlightenment (BP 11.19.17–22). Yet even imperfectly performed verbal, mental, and physical rites with him in mind are useful. Ordinary and fruitless acts normally against dharma, such as fleeing out of fear and weeping out of grief, are in fact dharma if Krishna is their focus. That recalls Kamsa who attained moksha by fearing him, the gopis who attained moksha by grieving at his absence, and Shishupala who attained moksha by hating him (BP 11.29.21; Tagare 1976–1979 5: 2107). Adharma used to attain the highest goal is a practical method Krishna advocated to conclude his “Summary”: “This is the perception of the intelligent and of the prudent, that here one attains true being by means of the unlawful, and by means of the body that will die attains the righteousness that is me” (BP 11.29.22).

The Sant

The sant may or may not be an acharya, but possesses an intellect (buddhi) that perceives Krishna and therefore knows brahman. Sants purify themselves by offering every sacrifice (yajna) to Krishna and eating only his leftovers (BG 3.13). But the sant’s spoken words purify others, as Krishna explained: “The intelligent person gives up clinging to the ‘evil’ and clings to the ‘true.’ Sants cut off clinging to the sensual mind with their words” (BP 11.26.26). In Tapasyananda’s translation, Krishna also said: “The holy ones [sants] are persons who depend on none except Me, who always think of Me, who are tranquil, same-sighted and egoless, who are above the pairs of opposites or contrary conditions of life, and who do not care to receive gifts or to accumulate riches.… Among them there will always be talks on My excellences and achievements, which have a very beneficial effect on all. Their talks eradicate the sinful tendencies in the minds of people who take them in through their ears.” Krishna then explained how sants’ words purify: “Those who respectfully hear such devotional talks, glorify them in songs and recitals, and feel delighted with them, become devoted to Me and develop firm faith in Me as also delight in My service and contemplation.… Holy men [sants] with knowledge of Brahman and established in tranquillity are the sole support of men struggling in the ocean of Samsara, just as a strong boat is for people shipwrecked on the sea” (BP 11.26.27–32; Tapasyananda 1980–1982 4: 135).

Sants tell the Krishna story to purify those who cling to them in satsanga because sound (shabda) manifests the brahman in their consciousness. Sound stimulates the listener’s consciousness through the ears; what is heard shapes what the listener thinks, feels, and sees. Like a mantra, the Krishna story told by a sant transforms the refugee’s consciousness, just as in the previous kalpa it transformed the five-year-old Shudra named Narada when he heard seers tell the Krishnakatha at a sacrifice. Because sants “stand” in brahman (BG 2.72) they “stand” in Krishna (BG 6.15) and perceive Krishna wherever they look, inside themselves or outside, and the words they speak out of that unified consciousness embody that perception and transform the consciousness of those who listen attentively. From mouth to ear through spoken words, Krishna in the consciousness of the speaker enters the consciousness of the listener and gradually takes it over. The Tamil poet Nammalvar described the process vividly in Tiruvaymoli (as translated by A. K. Ramanujan):

He who took the seven bulls

by the horns

he who devoured the seven worlds

made me his own cool place

in heaven

and thought of me

what I thought of him

and became my own thoughts (1.8.7)

My lord

who swept me away forever into joy that day,

made me over into himself

and sang in Tamil

his own songs

through me:

what shall I say

to the first of things, flame

standing there,

what shall I say to stop? (7.9.1)

Poets,

beware, your life is in danger:

the lord of gardens is a thief,

a cheat,

master of illusions;

he came to me,

a wizard with words,

sneaked into my body,

my breath,

with bystanders looking on

but seeing nothing,

he consumed me

life and limb,

and filled me,

made me over

into himself. (10.7.1)12

Listening to sants is letting oneself catch on fire (BP 11.10.12–13). The fire burns up the desires that flow through the gross and subtle body as sap flows through a tree, leaving only the purified soul’s innate desire for Krishna. Fire returns gold to its natural shining form by burning off impurities; similarly, devotion to Krishna purifies the jiva of karmic impurity and inevitably the jiva resorts to Krishna residing in the atman.

The holy person (sadhu) successful in cutting down the internal wheel and lotus tree with the axe of knowledge becomes a supreme Bhagavata, a sant, neither householder nor renouncer, neither of the village nor of the forest. With eyes now fully “open,” the center of the sant’s consciousness (hridi) is a sanctum (garbhagriha) housing Krishna, and his body is its vimana (BP 11.20.29–30). All “Vishnu-houses” coalesce in the sant: Vaikuntha, atman, and vimana. The sant is Krishna’s dhamam on earth, a walking temple, the body of God alive in our midst.

Sants participate in true being and thus have “true devotion” (satbhakti) (BP 11.14.12–30). Dwelling in brahman they experience freedom from all worldly desire, complete satisfaction, and a pleasure (sukha) unknown to normal consciousness. They perceive Krishna in the atman and are completely satisfied wherever they happen to be; they desire nothing, not even moksha. And their satbhakti attracts Krishna like nothing else: “Nothing becomes dearer to me, not [Brahma born of] my womb, not Shankara and not Samkarshana, not Shri and not even my own Self. To be purified by the dust of his feet, I walk with the muni who desires nothing, is at peace, has no enmity, and views everything equally” (BP 11.14.15). Sants experience a “melting” (drava) of thought (chitta), which produces “gooseflesh” (romaharsha) over the body, tears of joy, verbal stammering, weeping when they feel separated from Krishna, occasional loud laughs at the ways of maya, and uninhibited singing and dancing. Their consciousness is unified (yoga) through perceptual participation (bhakti) in Krishna, and such bhaktiyoga purifies polluted people and Goddess Earth herself (BP 11.14.23–24).