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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
The Vaişņava Saints of ...
695
the achievement of release in their own ways and proportion. The knowledge of God can lead to God but it cannot ensure the actual living experience itself; it has to be actually felt. Love unites the two objects in one single whole, and hence, the real experience of union with the God cannot be attained by knowledge which only points out the object of knowledge just as one can take the horse to the water but cannot make it drink. The realisation of God, thus, depends on a living emotional experience of one's uniting with Him by subduing one's ego, losing pride, and assuming humility before Him.
But it is not exactly release or mukti that Narasimha seeks from God. He asks not for everlasting liberation for the soul by absorbing the individual soul into the Lord or Brahman, but he asks for eternal service and eternal vision of the Lord by constantly singing the songs of praise for Him. And this becomes possible by means of bhakti or devotion which is not obtained in the whole of the Brahmānda except on the earth. This devotion or the experience of bhakti is not known by all; a very few select persons like Samkara, S'uka, Yogins, and some Gopīs from Vraja can know its real essence. Bhakti is thus the actual experience of love (premarasa) that a woman bears for her beloved husband. Such an experience of real bhakti has been the rare possession of only some Gopis, the famale companions of Kļšņa. Narasimha says that the man who does not possess
i Desai I. C. (Editor) | Narasimha Mehtaksta Kāvyasaigraha, Song 1, p. 469.
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