Cannibalism in bhakti: Mutual Consumption When the Eater Is Eaten

Introduction

This reflection grew out of two early-morning songs that came unbidden—moments when devotion itself seemed to speak. Drawing on insights from A.K. Ramanujan, Francis X. Clooney, and Archana Venkatesan, the piece explores a daring bhakti idea: that God and devotee consume one another in love—that the singer is sung through, the eater is eaten, and the poem becomes a divine self-conversation. In this mystic exchange, heresy dissolves, and only intimacy remains.

Heresiology vs. bhakti

In the Christian tradition, “heresy” is a serious category—one that can make a believer anxious about whether their thoughts, prayers, or writings are “sound.” But in Hinduism, especially in the bhakti tradition, such fears simply do not arise. Hinduism has no formal heresiology. Opposites coexist; contradictions breathe freely; devotion takes many shapes.

This freedom allows a bhakta like me to express my love for the Lord—whether or not others find “heresies” in it. I have already been called a “heretic,” and I take it as a compliment. For Hinduism celebrates plurality, paradox, and poetic freedom.

This morning, that freedom took the shape of two songs, both born before dawn, both expressing a deeper insight into how the Lord and the bhakta interact.

What follows is a reflection on that experience—supported by the insights of scholars like A.K. Ramanujan, Francis X. Clooney, and Archana Venkatesan—who describe this divine–devotee relationship as a kind of mutual cannibalism, where the eater is eaten, the singer is sung through, and the devotee becomes the very voice of God.¹

The Morning Vision: God as Goal, God as Prize

Around 3:30 a.m., I lay awake, not wanting to read or write, but quietly thinking of the Lord. Out of that silent darkness, the first song began to echo in my mind. I resisted writing it down for a while, but after tea I surrendered and let the lines flow.

Song 1743 — “You Are the Goal”

This song captures a stunningly simple yet profound bhakti insight:

• We think we are running toward God, chasing a distant goal.
• But in truth, we have already reached Him.
• And the “prize” promised at the end of the spiritual race is God Himself.

A few lines bring this out clearly:

“Why should I run
to reach the One
I have already reached?”

And again:

“They say a prize

awaits the victor—
but they do not know
You Yourself are the prize.”

This is classic Tamil bhakti: the real journey is not toward God but with God. The Lord is not the destination; He is the companion in the running. This matches the Alvar tradition in which the bhakta’s experience is both the path and the fulfilment.

So the first song deepens the central argument:
There is no heresy in saying that the race is already complete—because God Himself is running with the bhakta.

The Second Vision: When God Uses the Devotee to Know Himself

After writing the first song and closing the notebook, I returned to quiet meditation. But soon the next song pushed itself into my mind—so forcefully that I had to open the book again. Within minutes, the second song was written.

Here I realized something:

What I wrote would be unacceptable to Christian theology, as it does not conform to “Muktiveda” categories.

But in Hinduism, especially Tamil Vaishnava bhakti, the idea is not only acceptable but celebrated:

God uses the devotee to write about Himself so that He may taste, hear, and enjoy His own beauty.

A.K. Ramanujan calls this “mutual cannibalism”—
a poetic exchange where:

“the eater is eaten, the container is contained… many times over.”¹

Song 1744 — “Your Song”

This song expresses this idea directly:

• The thoughts are God’s.
• The words are God’s.
• The devotee merely writes what God whispers within.

The song says:

“As a thought You entered me
to know Yourself through my mind.”

And again:

“What You spoke, I wrote—
exactly as You whispered.”

This mirrors the insight of Periyavaccan Pillai and the Sri Vaishnava commentators. Archana Venkatesan describes such moments as times when:

“The god embodies himself within the devotee to speak… their selves porous and permeable to each other.”²

And in moments of complete possession:

“The poet simply and uncomprehendingly repeats the words he is taught.”³

This is precisely what happened while writing the second song:

I became the Lord’s pen, His voice, His instrument.

From a Christian perspective, this could be “heresy.”
But from a bhakti perspective, it is the highest intimacy.

The Alvar Echo: God Singing His Own Praise

Clooney and Venkatesan translate Nammalvar’s verse:

“He makes me sing sweet songs with my own words—
with His own words
the Lord of illusion praises Himself.”⁴

This is exactly what my second song conveys.

Nammalvar becomes God’s mouthpiece.
God becomes Nammalvar’s inner voice.
And the poem becomes the space where the divine speaks to Himself through the human heart.

In that sense:

• My morning songs are not “my” songs.
• They are the Lord’s attempt to understand Himself—through me.
• I take responsibility only for the spelling mistakes.

This is the play (lila) of devotion.

Of course, this is not limited to Sri Vaishnavism. In one of his famous songs, Kopalakrishna Bharati sings பித்தம் தெளிய மருன்தொன்றிருக்குது பேரின்பமன்றத்துள்ளே….. பார்வதி என்றொரு சீமாட்டி அதில் பாதியை தின்றதுண்டு,2 which means “There is a medicine that cures spiritual madness in the hall of great bliss… Parvathi, the divine consort, has already eaten half of it.” This imagery shows that mutual cannibalism—the divine consumption and being consumed—is also common among deities, as Parvathi has playfully partaken of the sacred medicine available at Chidambaram.

Conclusion: Bhakti Needs No Heresy-Police

Unlike Christianity, Hindu bhakti has no “theological police.” There is no fear of being declared a heretic.
Devotional experience is allowed to be contradictory, emotional, experiential, and even outrageous.

The two songs I wrote this morning are small examples of that freedom:

• The first says the race is already won because God is both the goal and the prize.
• The second says God writes His own praise through the devotee, using the devotee to know Himself.

In a tradition that embraces paradox, symbols, metaphors, and divine play, these songs are not heresies.
They are simply bhakti—
raw, immediate, and utterly relational.

If this is “heresy,” then may bhakti continue to produce such heresies—for they reveal the living heartbeat of God within the devotee.

See more on Heresy versus bhakti: Heresiology vs. Bhakti

Ashram, December 3, 2025

Footnotes

¹ A.K. Ramanujan, “Afterword,” Hymns for the Drowning: Poems for Visnu by Nammalvar, Princeton University Press, 1981, pp. 144, 151.

² Archana Venkatesan, Nammalvar: A Hundred Measures of Time (Tiruviruttam), Penguin Books India, 2014, pp. 136–137.

³ Ibid., p. 138.

⁴ Francis X. Clooney & Archana Venkatesan (trans.), Tiruvaymoli, Penguin Classics (forthcoming), cited in Venkatesan, p. 136.

5 Quoted from memory