Smt. Swapna Krishnamohan
Oct 2022
Bhakti – a perspective from a 21st century artist, a dancer, and a teacher
Bhakti is a topic that is personal and depends on one’s life, upbringing, atmosphere at home and their personal experiences in general. If I speak about the general perspective, we think of true Bhakta as a high achiever and sometimes even esoteric in nature. While studying the life of great saints and poets of the east, I found that many of them were first Bhaktas and later they wrote their hearts yearning for the divine, in their beautiful songs, poems, compositions and so on.
Bhakti, in Sanskrit is ‘bhaj sevayam’ which means ‘to give service’. Bhakti also means ‘Love’, ‘Surrender’,’ respect’, ‘devotion’.
During a choreography session, I wasn’t sure how I would make my young students understand the deep philosophical meaning of a composition that we were about to perform. And the deep devotion the poet felt while penning the composition.
To demystify, I asked some of my young students to define ‘devotion’ or ‘Bhakti’ in their own words. I was pleasantly surprised to hear some of them define ‘devotion’ in relation to things like sports, academics, social activities etc. For example, one of the students defined Devotion as “to be steadfast, using my time rightly towards my studies”; and another one, “to be devoted to my dance” and many more. This made me realize couple of things. One, the children of this era are much more wiser and deep thinkers. Secondly, they understand this concept so clearly and it’s only a matter of time that their devotion directed towards the Ultimate, if rightly guided.
All of a sudden, I wondered, as a teacher why I had not brought up such dialogue with them earlier. I might have presumed them being the gen alpha and may not be able to understand the poet’s perspective of devotion, which is few centuries old. This made me realize that our art is a way to channelize towards the entity, called GOD.
According to the Narada Bhakti sutra:
Saa twasmin paramaprema roopa|
Supreme love towards a (personal) God.
This Sutra clearly states what Bhakti is, and as we humans cannot conceive of this ‘parama prema’, it initially is directed towards material objects, things, ideals, ideas. And surely as Natya sastra says that the purpose of arts is to transport humans to another level of consciousness, to be able contemplate on the spiritual and moral aspects of human existence. Hence the art becomes a vehicle or a medium for transformation.
jagrah pathyamrigvedat saamabhyo geetameva cha
yajurvedadabhinayan rasanarthavanadapi (Natyashastra 1:17)
“He obtained the narratives from the Rigveda, the music and songs from the Samaveda, abhinaya from the Yajurveda and the rasas from the Atharva veda.”
na tajgyanam na tacchilpam na saa vidya na saa kalaa
naasao yogo na tatkarma natyesmin yanna drishyate
shrutismritisadachara parishesharthakalpanam
vinodajananam loke natyamestad bhavishyati (Natyashastra 1:117, 123)
“There is no knowledge, art, intellect, yoga that it not mentioned in this Natya Shastra. This will be a successful and entertaining technique that will propagate the Vedas, Shastras and good character”.
This unique experience with my students, transformed me to ensure I discuss deep philosophical ideas with my students, irrespective of their age. As it happened above, I am sure their wisdom will keep enlightening me, and help them grow as better citizens, contributing to Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam.
Bibliography
NARADHA BHAKTHI SUTHRAM - TAMIL UPANYASAM - OCT-11-2019 : Episode 05 - Parasakthi Family
NATYA SHASTRA – An Overview – From the world of Indian Classical Dance & Music (classicalclaps.com)