Bharata’s Nema and Pema (Discipline and Love) By Bhavabhuti
MM Gopinath Kaviraj discusses the passing from the body of his Guru, Sh Paramahamsa Vishuddhananda Maharaj in this way-
Santānagaṇa ke bīc ek prakār kī virahāvasthā ke vikās hetu yah gopan kuch aṁś meṁ āvaśyak bhī thā (This concealment was partly necessary for the development of a certain state of separation among the [spiritual] offspring).
Desperation, vyākulatā is central in the otherwise terse and intellectual writing of Kaviraj. This desperation is tied up with an awareness of separation, which is key to understanding Bharata in Gosvami Tulsidas’s Shriramcharitmanas(Manas). The greatness of Bharata in the Manas is second only to Rama (indeed, at some points in the Ayodhyakanda, it seems that he is even more important than Rama); ‘Had Bharata, full of the nectar of love for Sita and Rama, not been born on this earth,’ writes Gosvami-ji, ‘who would have turned wretches like Tulsi forcibly towards Rama in the Kali Age?’
There are three movements in Bharata’s surrender which are described in a chronological progression by Tulsi, and Bharata is presented as a model for dealing with separation from the divine. The first stage occurs in Ayodhya and on the way to the forest. This is a desperation resulting from the first awareness of separation. When Bharata returned to Ayodhya, and Kaikeyi told him that Rama has been exiled, his pain made his grief over his father’s passing insignificant. At the court, upon being offered the throne, he declares that the only way for him to have any peace is to seek the feet of Rama. And yet, he cannot simply leave. Here, there is already an apparent contradiction, which is heightened throughout Bharata’s journey to the forest and his time with Rama in Chitrakoot (and yet never real); Bharata, the loving devotee, wants to be with his beloved Lord immediately. And yet, Bharata, the devotee in his mode as servant, must perform his duty towards the Lord first. So, before Bharata can leave, he must arrange for Rama’s kingdom and treasury to be well protected as he seeks Him. And yet, the two impulses are brought together in his refusal to get onto a chariot for the latter part of his journey to Chitrakoot—‘it would be right for me to walk on my head,’ he says, ‘[for] the dharma of the servant is hardest’.
Even as Bharata and Shatrughna walked the same path as Rama Lakshmana, even making the same stops as Rama, there was a difference, as some village women point out in the Manas—Rama was inherently joyous, and accompanied by the mother. So, the devotee pursues the Lord and seeks to find him in pilgrimage, knowing the devotees she meets on the way, and the marks of the Lord and his stops, to be His very embodiments. Even so, the devotee is removed and separated, and so marked by desperate yearning, unlike the Lord for whom there is neither meeting nor separation as He exists in all things at once. And the devotee’s virtue is precisely in the desperation of her yearning; as Bharata himself says, the chatak bird and the fish are known in the world for their ever- renewed nema and pema—discipline and love, the two forever intertwined in Bharata.
Bharata wasn’t yet convinced of how Rama would treat him when he reached Chitrakoot—he worried that Sita, Rama and Lakshmana might get up and leave when they see him. ‘Whatever they may do would be too little, if they consider me to be on my mother’s side,’ he thinks, ‘and they would treat me with regard, forgiving my sin and faults, knowing me to be on theirs’. The resolution of this is the beginning of the second movement in Bharata’s surrender—‘whether they abandon me knowing me to be of wretched mind, or regard me as a servant, my refuge is Rama’s slipper—Rama is a good Lord, all fault lies in the servant’.
Bharata had left Ayodhya with the conviction that he would bring Rama back, one way or the other. But once he had admitted that Rama is the Lord, who knows best, and who is to be sought regardless of what He decides to do, little scope remained to ask anything of Him.
Bharata’s time in the forest was marked by what commentators have come to call the three darbars held in Chitrakoot, and together they form the most moving and instructive parts of the Manas, as the relationship between the Lord and devotee is articulated through the exchanges between Rama, Bharata, the sage Vasishtha, and the royal sage Janaka.
Rama, of course, reflecting the devotee’s feelings perfectly as usual, did something virtually unprecedented in Ramayanas—He gave Bharata the power to decide the course of action. Placing Bharata’s wishes above even the word of His late father, He told Bharata that He would do as Bharata said. And Bharata, for his part, recognized the complete surrender of Rama to him, effected by faith in Bharata’s own surrender. He said that it is a great fault to speak too much before the Lord—‘now command me, Lord’. In the Manas alone, Bharata does not ask, and Rama does not deny him.
And having so surrendered his will, even his desire for Rama’s proximity, at His very feet, Bharata transitions into the final movement in his demonstration of surrender. He wandered in Chitrakoot for some days, with Rama’s permission, and meditated or performed japa at various spots in the forest under instruction from Atri, and upon return to Ayodhya, said to sage Vasishtha, ‘ayasu hohu ta rahahun sanema’ (if you permit, I shall live with discipline).
For fourteen years, Bharata remained in the constant presence of Rama, even in a state of physical removal, seeking instruction from his slippers. Living in Him, and for Him, he still sought the Lord with the same intensity as his initial movement from Ayodhya, but with a surrender that did not depend on acceptance or attainment.
‘This day, it is entirely up to my God to keep me or to abandon me, entirely up to my teacher in depths to teach me or leave me ignorant…’ -Swami Veda Bharati.
About the author: Bhavabhuti is a practicing initiate in the Himalayan tradition.