Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness

By Pranada Comtois

2019 Winner the Montaigne Medal, Eric Hoffer Book Awards.

2018 Winner Spirituality, National Indie Excellence Awards.

2018 Finalist Spirituality, Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

2018 Finalist Book of the Year Body/Mind/Spirit Foreword Indies.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Chandra Media
• Release date: Mar 31, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999665442

Book preview

Wise_Love_cover.jpg

Bhakti and the Search for the

Soul of Consciousness

Pranada Comtois

Copyright © 2018 Pranada L. Comtois

www.pranadacomtois.com

Published in the United States by Chandra Media

www.chandramedia.com

Printed by Inword Publishers

www.inwordpublishers.com

ISBN 978-0-9996654-3-5

PCN: 2018930197

Cover and text design by Raghu Consbruck

www.raghudesigns.com

Montaigne Medal Winner

"For the most thought-provoking

books that illuminate progress, or redirect thought."

Praise for Wise-Love

Wise-Love is the perfect companion for someone seeking to understand the true nature of love. Love comes in many shades and degrees. With Wise-Love Pranada Comtois offers an exploration of love as devotion to something that’s beyond us and yet is us. That devotion or bhakti leads us into the eternal, true love that our hearts seek. This book is for those who may feel disillusioned by the more materialistic types of love and yearn to delve into the Divine.

– Debra Moffitt, 

Author of Garden of Bliss and Awake in the World

Pranada has made a real contribution to anyone who is interested in diving deeper into a Bhakti path – the Way of Love and Devotion – offering us a gateway into the universal heart and the power of love that transforms us all, our very nature, and source of realization.

– Shiva Rea,

author of Tending the Heart Fire

and founder Global School for Living Yoga

and Global Mala Project

In Wise-Love, Pranada Comtois shows us that cultivating awakened consciousness and perfect joy is not only possible, but is our birthright. Claim the treasure with which the mystics of all traditions tease us: a transformational encounter between lover and Beloved, in which the individual soul melts into the luminous sea of Love.

– Mirabai Starr, 

author of God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam 

and Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation

How refreshing to find a well-written book that presents the Bhakti path in a practical way that anyone can apply in our modern world.

– Tosha Silver, 

author of Outrageous Openness and Change Me Prayers

Do not underestimate this book. Wise-Love delivers both wisdom and deep emotion. This is Zen Bhakti Yoga. It is bright, concise and juicy.

– Jeffrey Armstrong, 

Author, Philosopher, Vedic scholar, and Poet

In her groundbreaking work Wise-Love, teacher-practitioner Pranada Comtois offers readers a rare combination of textual exegesis and common sense insights about the journey to self-awareness. In tracking consciousness – the fundamental core self that is both the subject and object of contemplative practice – too often writers gravitate to extremes, favoring either a detached analysis of source texts or an indulgent exposition of personal insights. Readers are consequently presented with bits and pieces of the spiritual journey, but no clear picture of where it leads. We can be grateful that Pranada has taken such care to ground her very readable work in a scholarly yet simple exposition of classical Vedanta. Here at last is a practical guidebook for all sincere seekers, to be savored and celebrated.

– Joshua M. Greene, 

Adjunct Professor, Religious Studies, Hofstra University

Wise-Love unfolds as a sublime threshold into a new order of being – the realm of ananda, or spiritual bliss, in relationship with the Divine. It carries the reader into a most secret and confidential understanding of loving exchange that exists beyond the limited concepts available within our ordinary everyday linear ways of thinking. Practical approaches compliment the beautiful philosophical framework making this an inspiring addition to any seeker’s spiritual library.

– Richard Whitehurst, 

author of Mahamantra Yoga: Chanting to Anchor the Mind and Access the Divine

In her debut book, Pranada Comtois offers us a colorful cornucopia of heart exercises for the modern mystic. Creatively juxtaposing ancient, Bhakti wisdom from the East, with familiar views of Western thinkers, Pranada weaves together philosophy, psychology and her own personal insights to broaden our definition of love. Wise-Love promises to unveil the nature of awakened consciousness, inspire our spirits and nourish our hearts in the most profound ways.

– Catherine Ghosh, 

co-author of Yoga in the Gita,

teacher at The Secret Yoga Institute

We have come a long way since the Hare Krishnas, as they were known, sang and danced across the Western cultural landscape, drawing ridicule from mainstream culture – and often from the counterculture as well. Five decades ago, few understood that those ecstatic chanters represented a venerable spiritual tradition backed by an esteemed body of sacred literature. Now, thousands attend kirtan festivals and yoga studios host regular kirtan evenings. Still, little is known about the conceptual, philosophical and pragmatic underpinnings of the Bhakti path. Wise-Love is a much-needed corrective. Combining rigorous research and accessible prose, it is a welcome addition to the ever-expanding, ever-deepening transmission of Vedic wisdom to the West.

– Philip Goldberg, 

author of American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation,

How Indian Spirituality Changed the West

The imperative need now for us, as a species, is to move from our heads to our hearts, to learn to live differently, to love in a more profound and complete way. This beautiful and transformative book takes us from the concept of love as generally understood to the experience of love as an exalted state of being, a permanent state of ecstatic devotion and union with the Divine. Wise-Love is a priceless gift that can act as a guide in these distressed and distressing times.

– Anne Baring, 

author of The Dream of the Cosmos, a Quest for the Soul

Wise-Love is a beautiful journey into the wisdom of the heart by Pranada! Wise-Love effortlessly invites the reader to the path of love and surrender with supreme insight. . . . This book shall reach the hearts of many and open the hearts of even more. A gripping tale of love and light.

– Indu Arora, 

author of Mudra: The Sacred Secret and Ayurveda

and Yoga Therapist

Pranada leads her readers on a practical journey into the deepest regions of the heart while engaging both an interreligious and nonsectarian spiritual component. This is not a sentimental book that panders to our common need for affection. In defining our true identity we’re led to discover the highest realms of spiritual love. Using eloquent and yet simple language, Pranada brings us where we need to go: into the sweet center of own being where the most profound love naturally awaits us. Highly recommended for anyone seeking to nurture their soul.

– Steven J. Rosen (Satyaraja Dasa), 

author of 31 books on Vaishnava spirituality,

senior editor of the Journal of Vaishnava Studies

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

Prologue: A Genesis

Rising Consciousness

The Feeling Self

The Miracle of Us: Being, Knowing, Loving

The Realm of the Mind

Who Will Fell the False Self?

The Small My and the Big I

Peering Over the Horizon

Virtual Reality

Intractable Karma – or Not?

Karma and Lila: Forced Action and the Freedom to Play

Horizontal and Vertical Development

Faith, Not Belief

Everybody Loves a Mystic

Layers of Luminosity

An Inconceivable Dualism and Nondualism

What’s Your Ideal?

Life After Enlightenment

The Yoga of Love

Exercises of the Heart

Stellar Light

Seeing With Your Ears

Sacred Sound

Mantra

Mantra of Names

Theology of the Name

Prema-Kirtan

Bhakti Revivalist, Ecstatic Mystic

Compass Rays

Wise-Love

The Culture of Giving

Love’s Morals

Humility

Compassion’s Play on Love’s Scale

Depth Compassion

Waterfall of Moonbeams

Independence from the Constraints of Our Humanness

A Home-knowing Person

Lifestyle of the Bhakta

Two Inches

Full Orb of Consciousness

The Charming Form of the Absolute

The Absolute’s Life

God’s Existential Crisis

She Whom He Worships

Above the Ceiling of the Sky

Afterword: The Feminine Divine

Glossary

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Journey into the Heart of Bhakti

Born Abhay Charan

fearless in the shelter of the Supreme

my friend, guide

life of my life

a cascade of bhakti

from your butter-soft heart

swept me into the flood of wise-love.

At seventy years, you took out to sea

barely survived two heart attacks

on the black cargo ship plying

to the land of the brave

where sometimes you went hungry.

With fierce intellect

and fine scholarship

emboldened by Sri Rupa and ancient Vedanta

you, in the middle of the night,

translated the Bhagavata

and other bhakti texts

never before available in English

welcomed and appreciated by scholars, philosophers

and the ’60s youth hungry for substance.

As a consummate Swami

you renounced personal desire yet eagerly

accepted all things in service to your Beloved.

You arrived as a pauper of pocket

not of heart

thus your humble kirtan ignited

the Krishna bhakti explosion.

O Prabhupada!

Thousands were drawn to you

who nurtured heads and hearts

into reason and beyond

to the land of love.

Composed in celebration of the 50th anniversary of

A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami’s establishing

the first bhakti temple in the United States in 1966.

Bhakti’s distinguished emissary landed penniless

accompanied only by a few trunks of his English

translation of the Srimad-Bhagavatam (Bhagavata Purana)

and his determination to carry out the orders of his guru.

Foreword

This life is not a dress rehearsal, Pranada concluded with quiet urgency. The deep emotion of her voice created a gravitas that even my distracted teenage mind could not ignore. She spoke at a ceremony honoring her guru, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami. Most of the youngsters and I hung about in clusters at a distance from where she spoke. I was a junior in college interacting with the real world for the first time and actively distancing myself from the faith I’d grown up with. Perhaps, therefore, Pranada’s solemn words made an impression. They alluded to Shakespeare’s famous line: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. For that moment, the appeal of this sensual world was muted. This is not a rehearsal, I thought. The play of life is happening now. I – a reckless and confused teen – had seen Pranada as a person of poise and elegance who also faced life challenges. Giving voice to my own impression of her, one of Pranada’s peers said to me, There’s nothing she can’t do. Twenty years later, I was reminded of that prediction as I began reading Wise-Love: Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness.

With grace and formidable insight, Pranada skillfully introduces the reader to the ancient and complex Vedas and bhakti yoga. In the first few pages of the prologue, the reader will at once notice and be drawn into Pranada’s exceptional ability to deliver mystical truths in a modern and relevant voice. You will feel an awakening and resonance in your heart, the litmus test of any noteworthy text. Seemingly without effort, Pranada conveys, with clarity and conviction, the intriguing story of the Bhagavata as she masterfully homes in on the passages and truths that are most important. She writes that the author of this sacred text knew that spiritual experience evolves in an illumined heart and that there the teaching remains relevant and viable. In other words, bhakti is a living tradition, not something archaic or inaccessible. The mystic’s powerful inner home, she writes, is available to each of us when we decide to do more than philosophize. True mysticism is active and practical, not passive and theoretical. It’s a life process that engages the whole self. At every step, Pranada seems keen on inspiring the reader to deeper thought and action, investing us with agency: The self is situated in the heart and is the ultimate agent of choice.

For years, I applauded Pranada’s pioneering work empowering women in the modern bhakti tradition. Bhakti holds that every person, regardless of gender, race, or nationality, has the intelligence and inner guidance required to mature spiritually and transcend beyond the material. We know that every tradition (and secular society) benefits tremendously not only by participation of women but by hearing from them. Hearing about the tradition from a female perspective is of special interest because bhakti is the path of the heart – or the path of heartfulness as Pranada calls it – full of feminine sensibilities, which she highlights in her afterword, The Feminine Divine. Yet, though bhakti, or divine love, is feminine in nature, within the history of the tradition we find almost no published works by women writers. And in modern times, Wise-Love is one of the first philosophical treatises written by a woman presenting bhakti in a way that synthesizes current thinking with ancient teachings, thus opening doors to all.

I want to emphasize something you will yourself undoubtedly discover: the content of this work is neither female nor male in tone or style. Pranada writes with sensitivity, often seen as feminine, only to ground her ideas in examples of football or the latest in medical science – examples often seen as masculine. There is very little in the work that suggests the gender of the author. This is very much in line with Pranada’s heartfelt and intellectual contribution: a search for consciousness and wise-love that trumps any bodily designations.

Wise Love will be much appreciated for its elegant summation of authentic bhakti. Its wide-spectrum appeal may enchant even those who are simply curious so they too can experience the joy of bhakti. Chances are that, like me, you will feel moved by Pranada’s intellect and elegant voice as she shares bhakti’s profound and ancient truths.

I’m proud and humbled to read Wise-Love, a seminal work by a highly intelligent woman whose wisdom and love permeate these pages of her offering to the world.

Vrinda Sheth

Award-winning author of

Sita’s Fire Trilogy

www.SitasFire.com

Introduction

Wise-love refers to the heart’s development from ordinary love to a love so pure it has no scent of material influence. In its most mature stage, wise-love is a state of being, an existential, eternal state of self.

The love we know in this world is only a shadow of wise-love. Most of us don’t yet love with wise-love, don’t yet love every sentient being unconditionally, with no thought of our own gain. We don’t yet swoon with rapture for our Divine Other or for other souls, and we’re not engulfed in profoundly fulfilling love relationships with them. The ecstatic state of wise-love is, nonetheless, our fullest potential, our most complete joy, and our deepest calling. This ecstasy is within reach through the conscious culture of wise-love.

Since the rise of psychoanalysis at the dawn of the twentieth century, the Western world, in search of enduring happiness, has turned its attention toward mental health, studying control of the mind, meditation, and the psychic benefits of affirmations and positive visualizations, among other mental exercises. We have access to extensive information on self-help and a collection of well-developed protocols for achieving mental health.

We have long focused on the mind-body instead of the heart as the channel to spirit. In The HeartMath Solution, Doc Childre shares his experience of counseling serious spiritual practitioners who have focused their spiritual attempt on the mind: Even longtime meditators get only limited benefits unless the heart is deeply engaged, so they’re often frustrated with their progress.

Why? Because we need to enrich mindfulness with heartfulness; we must come to live our meditation minute to minute. In the yoga world, this practice is called bhakti. Bhakti’s divine doctrine of love, grounded firmly in philosophy, shows how to practically culture the pure state of the self. The practice is backed by an elaborate textual tradition and sages, saints, seers, and mystics.

Bhakti teaches us that joy comes from the awakened heart, not from a controlled and stilled mind. Happiness lies in loving, not in knowing or mindfulness or any sort of mental peace that is the goal of most meditation and all of psychoanalysis. By the practice of bhakti, the heart expands with love and the mind with awareness of the self, and gradually we move from simple human love to an all-encompassing, otherworldly wise-love.

Wise-Love is based on my study of Vedanta, especially the Bhagavad Gita and the Bhagavata Purana (Srimad-Bhagavatam or Bhagavata), and my practice of bhakti yoga.

Vedanta refers to the massive body of literature that includes the Vedas, Upanishads, Vedanta Sutras (Brahma Sutras), Bhagavad Gita, and Puranas. The entire body of work is known as vedanta, or the end of knowledge (veda – knowledge; anta – end). Anta also signifies deepest meaning, ultimate purport, and secret principle. Hence Vedanta is accepted by many as the import of India’s metaphysical knowledge.

The Vedantic texts were compiled by the legendary Vyasa in a succession meant to unfold layers of meaning from the original Veda. After Vyasa divided the original Veda into four texts, he then compiled the Upanishads, writing them in terse codes to facilitate their memorization. Due to the cryptic nature of those Upanishadic codes, clarification was required, so Vyasa then wrote the Vedanta Sutras, which forms the basis of the many schools of Vedanta. Vyasa’s final work, the Bhagavata (Bhagavata Purana), takes the reader to the essence of the Vedanta Sutras. Vyasa deemed that the Bhagavata, written in his mature realization, contained the confidential meaning of all Vedantic texts.

What is the confidential meaning? Wise-Love attempts to answer this question. The phrase wise-love is an English translation of the Sanskrit word bhakti. Bhakti is the pure love of the self/consciousness for its origin, the Supreme. To understand wise-love is to understand consciousness; to experience wise-love is to experience the full potential of the self/consciousness – a point I will discuss at greater length in chapter one.

India’s expansive yoga universe and all of Vedanta concerns itself with consciousness. In truth, a number of Western scientists and philosophers consider the Vedanta texts the world’s richest vein to mine in pursuit of discovering the nature of consciousness.

My subtitle, Bhakti and the Search for the Soul of Consciousness, means we will map consciousness according to the ancient Bhakti Vedanta philosophical system of Vyasa’s Bhagavata – which is the core text for the bhakti yoga path – in order to discover what is at the heart of consciousness, what is the soul of consciousness.

India has four main yoga paths. In Wise-Love I compare and contrast three: jnana, ashtanga (from where hatha and the multiple systems of modern physical yoga practices originate), and bhakti. I don’t engage with the fourth, karma yoga, because, for the most part, it is no longer practiced. But I'll say a little something about it here.