Edwin Byrant, a scholar of Hinduism
who spoke at the Bhakti Yoga conference based at Harvard in March 2025, discussed
the transcendence that is in bhukti devotion to a Hindu deity, such as
Krishna. Such transcendence can end a person’s transactional approach in trying
to please a deity in exchange from beneficial grace from the deity’s love. Both
the steps and definitions of bhakti reveal the salience of transcendence
in loving devotion to a deity.
The steps of Bhakti Yoga begin
with a person recognizing one’s own suffering. We want to put an end to our own
suffering. The first step is to recognize that there is a higher power: a power
higher than oneself. There is order in the cosmos, so there must be a higher
power that is ordering the universe. We are naturally self-centric, but we should
be able to recognize that we are not the cause of the order of the universe. Therefore,
the recognition of a higher power—an intelligence that is omnipotent—includes an
acknowledgement that none of us is that higher power. The next stage is surrendering
to it. Then, a person can look to the higher power manifesting in one’s life.
Ultimately, love is the gift that comes from the outside. When it is given,
then the transactional element is ended; the person forgets oneself in loving a
deity. The focus is on trying to attract the deity’s grace. As such grace is transcendent,
and thus beyond our power and knowledge, and thus our efforts to please, we can
only attempt to attract a deity’s attention and get lost in the loving itself.
Transcendence can be gleamed too
from definitions of Bhakti. The Sanskrit word, bhakti, is a verbal noun
(i.e., something you do): an action that connects. In the Bhakti Sutras,
several definitions are given. They boil down to seva, which loosely
translates as service. It is to try to please. It is not selfish. So, bhakti includes engaging in acts
to please the other. To purify the selfishness and please the beloved. Minds
can only manifest thoughts, and this is not sufficient to know how to please an
entity that is transcendent. Part of surrendering is acknowledging our limitations.
So, we look to religious experts, such
as gurus, and religious texts, such as the Puranas and the Bhagavad-Gita,
on which a guru should be based, for even gurus are human, all too human.
By its very nature, transcendence
goes beyond the limits of human cognition and perception, so even a succinct, well-organized
explanation or account of transcendence itself or that which is posited as
transcendent should be recognized as limited. For example, it may not be clear how
surrender to a higher power implies or even is compatible with devotional love,
at least from the perspective of the world in which we live. Such utter
dependence as a creature such as Man can recognize in one’s relation to the
Creator, which is the basis even of existence itself, may involve or admit a
distinctly theological love that is qualitatively different than interpersonal
love, which is based in social psychology. This is not to claim that the former
kind of love cannot relate to the latter—only that the former cannot be derived
from the latter. We may be so used to projecting the love we feel in our own
realm onto the love that a deity has and that we may direct to a deity that we
could scarcely recognize or even conceptualize of distinctly theological love. It
would follow that any definition of bhakti can only be provisional, and
yet any given definition is improvable. Transcending transactionalism,
for example, is just part of the process in coming to terms with what Hindu bhakti
really is, as sui generis rather than projected devotional
love.
