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418 Jiva Gosvāmi and Baladeva Vidyābhūsaņa [CH. to be worshipped. Since bhakti is in itself identical with emancipation, our ultimate object of attainment is bhakti (bhaktir evābhidheyam vastu). A man who is on the path of bhakti has no need to undergo troublous efforts for self-concentration; for the very devotion would by itself produce self-concentration in a natural and easy manner through the force of the devotional emotion. The place of bhakti is so high that even those who have attained saintliness or the stage of jīvan-mukti and whose sins have been burnt away may have their fall, and their sins may re-grow through the will of God, if they are disrespectful to God!. Even when through bhakti the bondage of karma has been destroyed, there is scope for a still higher extension of bhakti, through which one attains a still purer form of his nature. Thus bhakti is a state of eternal realizations which may subsist even when the impurities of bondage are entirely removed. God is the supreme dispenser of all things; through His will even the lowest of men may be transformed into a god, and the gods also may be transformed into the lowest of men. The existence of bhakti is regarded as the universal dispeller of all evils; thus bhakti not only removes all kinds of defects, but even the impending evils of karmas which are on the point of fructification (prārabdha-karma) are destroyed through its power?. A true devotee therefore wants neither ordinary emancipation nor anything else, but is anxious only to pursue the path of bhakti.
To a devotee there is nothing so desired as God. This devotion to God may be absolutely qualityless (nirguna). The true knowledge of God must be the knowledge of the qualityless (nirguna), and therefore true devotion to Him must also be qualityless (nirguņa); for, in whatever way bhakti may manifest itself, its sole object is the qualityless God. The meaning of the word "qualityless” (or nirguna) is that in itself it is beyond the guņas. It has been explained before that bhakti is nothing but a manifestation of God's essential power, and as such it has God only as its constituent, and it must therefore be regarded as beyond the guņas; but in its expression bhakti may appear both as within or without the guņas. Knowledge of Brahman may also be regarded as occurring in a twofold form;
jivan-muktā api punar bandhanam yanti karmabhih yady acintya-mahā-saktau bhagavaty aparādhinah.
Sat-sandarbha, p. 505. Ibid. p. 516.
