Narada

Qu'est-ce que l'Absolu ? Dieu existe-t-il ?

God is the beloved Lord to whom every act is consecrated

Un Dieu personnelIl le dit expressément

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not discuss God's existence: it takes it for granted and deals with how to love him. It defines devotion as supreme love directed to him (sūtra 2) and its sign as the surrender of all acts to the Lord and extreme anguish at the slightest forgetting (sūtra 19). This God is personal: he has qualities that are heard and sung (sūtra 37), he grants grace (sūtra 40) and he can be loved as master, friend, child or lover (sūtra 82). The model it proposes is the cowherd women of Vraja, in love with Kṛṣṇa (sūtra 21). The text does not deny ultimate unity, for it goes so far as to say that between God and his own there is no difference (sūtra 41), but the Absolute is reached here as a relationship of love, not as an abstract principle.

Qui suis-je ? Existe-t-il un vrai soi ?

He does not theorise the self: he describes how love of God transforms it

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not ask what the self is: its subject is devotion. It does describe what happens to one who attains it: he becomes perfect, immortal and satisfied (sūtra 4), ceases to desire, to grieve and to hate, and becomes intoxicated, still and delighting in himself (sūtra 6). The question appears more clearly elsewhere in the tradition, in the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, where Nārada is the disciple who confesses to Sanatkumāra that he knows the mantras but not the Self, and learns that the infinite is the ātman, the only source of happiness. But that passage presents him as a pupil, not as a teacher, and cannot be taken as his doctrine.

Pourquoi souffrons-nous ?

Forgetting God hurts, and bad company multiplies the passions

La séparation d'avec DieuCela se déduit de sa doctrine

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra offers no theory of suffering, but one can be deduced from its doctrine. The sign of true love is to feel extreme anguish at the slightest forgetting of God (sūtra 19), and full devotion is described as a state in which one no longer desires, grieves or hates (sūtra 5): ordinary pain thus comes from living turned towards something else. The text also points to its mechanism: bad company arouses desire, anger, confusion, forgetfulness of the goal, loss of judgement and ruin; the passions, which at first are ripples, become an ocean (sūtras 43–45). In the Chāndogya Upaniṣad, Nārada comes to his teacher in sorrow and learns that there is no happiness in the small.

Que se passe-t-il après la mort ?

The sūtra promises the immortality of love; it does not describe the beyond

Ne s'est pas prononcé

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra is not concerned with what happens after death. It says that devotion is immortal in nature (sūtra 3) and that one who attains it becomes perfect, immortal and satisfied (sūtra 4), but it does not clarify whether that immortality is a state of the soul after death, a life in God's presence, or the fullness that love already gives in this life, which is what the context suggests. Nor does it discuss rebirth, which the culture of its time took for granted. The Vaiṣṇava traditions that read it place the devotee, after death, in God's world and at his service; the Purāṇic stories about Nārada himself, who remembers a previous life, belong to legend, not to the sūtra.

Comment atteint-on la libération ou le salut ?

Devotion surpasses action, knowledge and yoga: it is its own fruit

Par la dévotion et l'abandonIl le dit expressément

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra places devotion above the other paths: it is greater than action, knowledge and yoga (sūtra 25), because it is not a means to anything else but its own fruit (sūtras 26 and 30). It reviews the opinions of other teachers —that knowledge is its means, or that the two support each other— and concludes that devotion needs no other foundation. Its means are renunciation of objects and of company, unbroken worship and the hearing and singing of God's qualities (sūtras 35–37), but the principal one is the grace of great souls or a drop of divine grace (sūtra 38). The goal is neither a knowledge nor an absorption but love itself, which leaves the devotee satisfied and immortal.

Faut-il un maître ?

The principal means is the company of great souls; flee bad company

La communauté et la traditionIl le dit expressément

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra speaks not of an individual guru but of the company of saints. It declares that the principal means of attaining devotion is the grace of great souls or a drop of divine grace (sūtra 38); that company is hard to obtain, unattainable by one's own effort and unfailing in its effects (sūtra 39), and is gained only by God's grace, since between him and his own there is no difference (sūtras 40–41). Hence the exhortation: seek that, seek that alone (sūtra 42). The reverse is equally sharp: bad company must always be avoided (sūtra 43). The text closes by invoking a long series of teachers of devotion, from the Kumāras and Vyāsa to Hanumān (sūtra 83), as guarantors of the tradition.

Le monde est-il réel ?

The world is not denied: it is offered to God with all it contains

Manifestation du divinCela se déduit de sa doctrine

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra has no cosmology, but neither does it treat the world as an illusion to escape from. It asks the devotee not to be troubled by worldly losses, since he has surrendered to God his own self, the world and the Veda (sūtra 61), and specifies that, once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced (sūtra 62). The world is thus the field in which love is exercised and consecrated. The Purāṇic literature associated with Nārada and the Vaiṣṇava theology in which the sūtra is read complete the picture: the universe is the Lord's work and manifestation, real and dependent on him, and not an appearance superimposed on an impersonal absolute.

Qu'est-ce que l'amour ?

Intense love for God, inexpressible like taste for a mute

Le désir ardent et l'unionIl le dit expressément

Love is the whole subject of the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra. It defines it as supreme love for God (sūtra 2), immortal in nature, and says it begins when all thoughts, words and deeds are surrendered to the Lord and the slightest forgetting brings extreme anguish (sūtra 19). Its nature is inexpressible: as the mute cannot say what he tastes, but his gestures betray it (sūtras 51–52). The model is the cowherd women of Vraja, who loved Kṛṣṇa without forgetting his greatness (sūtras 21–24). That love, though one, takes eleven forms, from servanthood and friendship to the love of a lover and the supreme pain of separation (sūtra 82). And it knows no human boundaries: among those who love thus there is no distinction of caste, learning, form or wealth (sūtra 72).

Sommes-nous libres ou tout est-il déterminé ?

Keep acting, renounce the fruit and surrender everything to God

Le karma et le choixCela se déduit de sa doctrine

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra does not pose the problem of determinism, but a position can be deduced from its counsels. The devotee goes on acting: once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced (sūtra 62), and even once conviction is firm the rules of scripture must be respected (sūtras 12–13). What is decisive is a sustained choice: to consecrate all acts to God (sūtra 19) and to direct towards him even desire, anger and pride (sūtra 65). At the same time, the principal means does not depend on one's own effort: it is the grace of great souls or of God (sūtras 38–40). Human freedom is real, but its highest use is to surrender to another.

Pourquoi méditer ou prier ?

Remembering unceasingly, hearing and singing the Beloved's qualities

L'amitié avec DieuCela se déduit de sa doctrine

For the Nārada Bhakti Sūtra spiritual practice is a form of loving intercourse with God. Its means are unbroken worship (sūtra 36) and, even amid ordinary life, the hearing and singing of the Lord's qualities (sūtra 37). The mark of true love is constant remembrance: consecrating all acts to him and suffering at the slightest forgetting (sūtra 19). The relationship can take eleven forms, from service to friendship, filial affection, the love of a lover and total absorption (sūtra 82), and the devotee who surrenders thus does not do so to obtain anything: devotion is its own fruit. To pray is neither to ask nor to train, but to keep alive a personal relationship that fills the whole of existence.

La raison peut-elle connaître l'ultime ?

One must not enter into disputes: love is not explained, it is tasted

L'ultime est au-delà du mentalIl le dit expressément

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra relativises discursive knowledge in two ways. First, it places devotion above knowledge (sūtra 25) and, against those who hold that knowledge is its means, affirms that it is its own fruit (sūtras 28–30), like a king or a banquet, which are enjoyed not by knowing about them but by having them (sūtras 31–32). Second, it advises against dispute: one should not resort to argument, because it leads to excess and has no end (sūtras 74–75). The nature of love is inexpressible, like taste for a mute (sūtras 51–52). Study is not excluded —the texts that nourish devotion are recommended (sūtra 76)— but the ultimate is known by loving.

Se retirer du monde ou le transformer ?

Not abandoning life in the world: renouncing the fruit and offering everything

La contemplation dans l'actionIl le dit expressément

The Nārada Bhakti Sūtra expressly rejects withdrawal as a condition of devotion. Once devotion is attained, activity in the world is not to be abandoned, but its fruit renounced, and the means that sustain it are to be kept up (sūtra 62); the devotee should not be troubled by worldly losses, since he has surrendered to God his self, the world and the Veda (sūtra 61). What it asks is to transform motivation: to direct towards God even desire, anger and pride (sūtra 65). Ordinary life thus becomes the place of love. The renunciation the sūtra does demand is of bad company and of talk about women, wealth, unbelievers and enemies (sūtras 43 and 63).