– Sri Kamalakara Mishra
A question that is frequently asked: if the paśu or jīva is one with śiva, is it possible to talk meaningfully of Bhakti which presupposes difference or duality between the Bhakti and the Bhagavān? The answer is: Yes. So long as the jīva is paśu (that is, individualized consciousness or aṇu), he is different from the consciousness or śiva. When śiva has become the paśu, it is not that the śiva is lost. śiva remains śiva and also becomes the paśu so to say. When the paśu is there, śiva is also there in his own right, the paśu being like the wave and the śiva like the ocean. It is perfectly meaningful to talk of Bhakti, for the paśu is different from the śiva, just as the wave is different from the ocean, although in a sense it is perfectly one with the ocean. This position is clearly envisaged by Utpaladeva in his śivastotrāvalī.
This position is appreciated also by the Advaitin who is the champion of Brahma-jīva unity. There is a lot of wisdom in the famous verse which is ascribed to śaṅkara:
सत्यपि भेदापगमे नाथ तवाहं न मामकीनस्त्वम् |
सामुद्रो हि तरङ्गः क्वचन समुद्रो न तारङ्गः || [षट्पदी]
‘Though the difference between you and me does not exist at all, yet it is true that I am yours and not that you are mine; just as the wave belongs to the ocean and not that the ocean belongs to the wave’.
It should be noted that if Bhakti presupposes difference, it presupposes unity as well. There can be no Bhakti without unity; there can be no love and no relation of Bhakti between two substantially different persons. In fact, what is required in Bhakti is a real unity and an apparent difference between the Bhakta and Bhagavān, which is possible in the absolutist’s position. The object of my Bhakti must really be one with me and yet somehow different from me. The absolutist’s analogy of the wave and the ocean, or the spark (sphuliṅga) and the fire, is quite befitting, for the wave or the spark is one with the ocean or the fire, and different as well.
It should also be made clear that even this difference persists so long as the paśu (Bhakta) does not attain self-realization by shaking off his individuality. The culmination of Bhakti is the merger of the Bhakta in the Bhagavān.
What follows is the gist of this entire discussion is this: though ‘I am śiva’ or ‘śiva is my self’, yet it is meaningful to say that ‘I am the lower self and śiva is the higher self, śiva being the self of all the selves (viśvātmā), just as the ocean is to its waves. And the difference between the higher self (Bhagavān) and the lower self (Bhakta) persists only so long as the lower self is the individualized jīva (paśu).