Shandilya: Delight in the Self Without Conflict
The sage Shandilya defines bhakti as that which brings undisturbed delight in the Self, free from any inner conflict.
Narada records Shandilya's definition in Sutra 18: 'Atma-rati-avirodhena iti Shandilyah' — 'Bhakti is that which does not conflict with delight in the Self, says Shandilya.' Shandilya, author of his own Bhakti Sutras, locates devotion in the unbroken, conflict-free joy of resting in one's true nature, which is one with the Divine. For him, love of God and delight in the Self are not opposed but harmonized, since the Beloved dwells as the innermost reality of the devotee. This view bridges the path of love and the path of self-knowledge, suggesting they ultimately converge. It anticipates the integrative insight that the deepest love and the deepest self-realization are not rivals but companions on the same road.
Bhakti is that which does not conflict with delight in the Self, says Shandilya.
Shandilya's harmonizing of love and self-knowledge prefigures later Vedantic attempts to reconcile bhakti with jnana, seeing devotion to God and realization of the Self as two faces of one truth.
Narada Bhakti Sutras
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- What is bhakti? Narada's definition of devotion
Shandilya defines bhakti as what does not conflict with delight in the Self. His version pulls devotion much closer to the non-dual traditions than the other definitions do.