Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a recognized expert on Vedic and Sanskrit scriptures, highlights the importance of bhakti as an eternal path to God. For devotees wanting to reach the Divine abode of God, he emphasizes the importance of selfless devotion and surrender. Prakashanand’s teachings align with the wisdom of past saints, who stressed that true devotion, free from worldly desires, leads to the ultimate realization of Radha and Krishn’s divine love.
Swami Prakashanand Saraswati highlights that…
To establish dharm on the earth, Shree Krishn sends His associates. There are eternal associates of all the forms of God. Eternal means that they were never ordinary souls, they were always with God. Some eternal Divine personality descends on this earth planet from the Divine abode and that Divine personality establishes the path of God realization in public. There is a system. We have a complete history from the very beginning of this planetary system up until kaliyug, the age we are in today. Prior to 5,000 years, before kaliyug started, we have brief history of civilization. Within the past 5,000 years, our history is not highly detailed, but there is enough to gain knowledge about the path of God realization.
Within the last 5,000 years, there were quite a few Jagadgurus descended on the earth planet. They were sent by Krishn Himself, the Supreme Personality of God: Ramanajucharya, Madvacharya, Nimbarkacharya, Shankaracharya. All were great Divine personalities. They were called Jagadgurus. They explained the philosophy of God realization in their own words in great detail. It’s called bhashya, and they had particular names of their bhashyas. All these books are written in great detail. They show the path logically, while explaining the philosophy of soul, maya, and God. These Jagadgurus were descended Divine personalities, and they established the path of God realization – or in one word you can say bhakti.
Bhakti means dedication to Supreme God with no worldly desire. There is only one desire, a desire to receive His Grace. That is a simple explanation of the word. Those great personalities established bhakti in this world. They never made any religion (sampraday), but sampradayas started after them. In Sanskrit, Sampraday literally means to give properly. To give what? The path of God realization. They gave us the path. It was called a sampraday or religion in English.
A Sampraday is a religion, but dharm is eternal. A sampraday has a beginning, a religion has a beginning. Everything that begins is bound to come to an end sooner or later, but dharm, eternal dharm (Sanatan Dharm), has no beginning, and so it will have no end. The primary dharm, the dharm which comes from the Vedas, is protected by God Himself. That is eternal. However, on the basis of that dharm, saints come on this earth planet, and they reveal the detailed path of bhakti to the souls and that eventually becomes a religion or a sampraday. So, we have Ramanu sampraday from Ramanajuacharya, Nimbark sampraday from Nimbarkacharya, Madhv sampraday from Madhvacharya and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. We end up with all these different sampradayas or religions.
There are many more saints who don’t come as a Jagadguru, but they also come directly from the Divine abode. They are descended Divine personalities, but not Jagadgurus. Out of such saints, some were less literate, some were more literate. Some of them followed a path to find God in the form of Vishnu or in the form of Ram or in the form of Radha Krishn. There were various kinds of saints, but they were all Divine personalities – not scholars, not researchers, not devotees, but true saints. There are also many small religions (sampradayas) formed, in the names of those saints.
The fact is, a saint never forms a religion. He establishes a simple path of worship to find God. I’ll give you an example. Look at the example of Roop Goswami and Sanatan Goswami from Chaitanya sampradaya. Take one more example of Vallabacharya. Vallabacharya explained to his disciples, “You know Krishn is the beloved of your soul, mind, body, everything. You have to live for Him. And everything that belongs to you should be for His service.” That is his philosophy. What did Chaitanya Mahaprabhuji or Roop Goswamiji say? They said the same thing. “Radha Krishn are our Divine beloveds. You have to find Their love. That’s the only aim of your life. You have to love Him, worship Him, adore Him and live for Him.” Both said the same thing. Both had the same aim of life. Both mentioned bhakti, dedication, surrender, submission. In the end, there was no difference in their initial teachings.
In this way, Swami Prakashanand Saraswati emphasizes that true bhakti, or devotion, transcends religious boundaries and is the eternal path of dedication to the Supreme God. The teachings of divine saints, whether as Jagadgurus or lesser-known figures, reveal this timeless path of selfless love and devotion that guides devotees toward God-realization and the ultimate grace of Radha and Krishn.