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450 The Philosophy of I ijñāna Bhikṣu [CH. brings about liberation, yet epithets of omnipotence, all-pervasiveness and other personal characteristics are attributed to Him because it is through an approach to God as a super-personal Being that devotion is possible, and it is through devotion and personal attachment that true knowledge can arise. It is said in the scriptures that God cannot be realized by tapas, gifts or sacrifices, but only by bhakti'. The highest devotion is of the nature of love (attyuttamā bhaktiḥ prema-laksaņā).
God remains within all as the inner controller and everything is revealed to His super-consciousness without the mediation of sense-consciousness. God is called all-pervasive because He is the cause of all and also because He is the inner controller.
Bhakti consists in the whole process of listening to God's name, describing His virtues, adoration to Ilim, and meditation ultimately leading to true knowledge. These are all to be designated as the service of God. These processes of operations constituting bhakti are all to be performed with love. Bhikṣu quotes Garuda purāņa to prove that the root "bhaj” is used in the sense of service. Ile also refers to the Bhāgavata to show that the true bhakti is associated with an emotion which brings tears to the eyes, melts the heart and raises the hairs of the body. Through the emotion of bhakti one dissolves oneself as it were and merges into God's existence, just as the river Ganges does into the ocean.
It will be seen from the above that Bhikṣu urges on the doctrine of bhakti as love, as a way to the highest realization. The metaphysical views that he propounded give but small scope for the indulgence of such an attitude towards divinity. For, if the Ultimate Reality be of the nature of pure consciousness, we cannot h: any personal relations with such a Being. The ultimate state of realization is also the entrance into a state of non-difference with this Ultimate Being, who is not Himself a person, and therefore no personal relations ought to be possible with Him. In the l'ijñānāmrta-bhāsya, iv. 1. 3, Bhiksu says that at the time of dissolution or emancipation the individuals are not associated with any content of knowledge, and are therefore devoid of any consciousness, and being of the nature of unconscious entities like wood or stone they
aham prakrstah bhaktito'anyaiḥ sādhanaih drașțum na
sakyah, bhaktir eva ketalā mad-darsane sādhanam. Isvara-gita-tīkā (MS. borrowed from N. N. Gopinātha Kavirāja, late
Principal, Queen's College, Benares).
