Like love and discipline, both bhakti (devotion) and buddhi (intellect) should go hand in hand. They should complement each other, not allowing one to dominate the other. At the same time, realizing the danger of over-intellectualization in many aspects of life, particularly bhakti, is crucial. Over-intellectualization can slowly erode our need for emotional experience in bhakti. I know the danger of placing too much importance on experience, particularly when it is based on emotion. However, I cannot think of a human being without any kind of emotion in life. As I already said, just as there exists no ‘tastelessness’ in food—because even ‘tastelessness’ is another kind of taste—‘emotionlessness’ is nothing but another kind of emotion. I like Warren’s honest confession when he writes to Hooker:
“But once again I know I’m theologizing. I’m not really trusting my feelings. I don’t know how it is with you, but I live far too much in the mind, far too little in the feelings. I greatly envy those who know tides of religious emotion. They’ve just never come my way. I suppose it is that never having plumbed the depths, I don’t know anything about the heights. I think I’m painfully ‘Anglican’!! I’m all ‘via media’.” — *Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims, and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker*, Graham Kings, New Delhi, Indian Edition, ISPCK, 2017, p. 186
The problem that I am facing is that I am tossed between both buddhi and emotional bhakti too much, and several times I get drifted rather than steered properly, keeping a balance between both. However, I would prefer the buddhi to subordinate to bhakti when it tries to overcome it. It is better to live as a foolish bhakta than as an arrogant intellectual. After meditating on this subject, I wrote BT Song 978.
Gurukulam, 7-6-2024
—
1. Love without discipline becomes very soft without having a backbone to stand; discipline without love becomes very hard, becoming regimental.
2. The via media (middle way or third way) between Rome and Geneva has become characteristic of Anglicanism. Warren’s use of it here may approach the meaning of ‘mediocrity’. (p. 186)
See also [Rationalizing Bhakti](https://dayanandbharati.in/rationalizing-bhakti/)
Like love and discipline, both bhakti (devotion) and buddhi (intellect) should go hand in hand. They should complement each other, not allowing one to dominate the other. At the same time, realizing the danger of over-intellectualization in many aspects of life, particularly bhakti, is crucial. Over-intellectualization can slowly erode our need for emotional experience in bhakti. I know the danger of placing too much importance on experience, particularly when it is based on emotion. However, I cannot think of a human being without any kind of emotion in life. As I already said, just as there exists no ‘tastelessness’ in food—because even ‘tastelessness’ is another kind of taste—‘emotionlessness’ is nothing but another kind of emotion. I like Warren’s honest confession when he writes to Hooker:
“But once again I know I’m theologizing. I’m not really trusting my feelings. I don’t know how it is with you, but I live far too much in the mind, far too little in the feelings. I greatly envy those who know tides of religious emotion. They’ve just never come my way. I suppose it is that never having plumbed the depths, I don’t know anything about the heights. I think I’m painfully ‘Anglican’!! I’m all ‘via media’.” — *Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims, and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker*, Graham Kings, New Delhi, Indian Edition, ISPCK, 2017, p. 186
The problem that I am facing is that I am tossed between both buddhi and emotional bhakti too much, and several times I get drifted rather than steered properly, keeping a balance between both. However, I would prefer the buddhi to subordinate to bhakti when it tries to overcome it. It is better to live as a foolish bhakta than as an arrogant intellectual. After meditating on this subject, I wrote BT Song 978.
Gurukulam, 7-6-2024
—
1. Love without discipline becomes very soft without having a backbone to stand; discipline without love becomes very hard, becoming regimental.
2. The via media (middle way or third way) between Rome and Geneva has become characteristic of Anglicanism. Warren’s use of it here may approach the meaning of ‘mediocrity’. (p. 186)
See also [Rationalizing Bhakti](https://dayanandbharati.in/rationalizing-bhakti/)
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