ES: Buddhi-yoga and and the wayward ways of the intellect - Conducive and degrading applications of buddhi

We are sometimes riddled by a buddhi, intellect or intelligence, that serves to merely confuse and detract us from the path of devotion proper. Introspection is, then, in place in identifying the unholy ways of this subtle covering of the self.

When the intelligence is unable to decipher anything clearly, it is overcome by tamas. When the intelligence is branching out in all directions, uncontrolled, it is overcome by rajas. When the intelligence is peaceful and illuminated, it is situated in sattva.

To be able to exercise discrimination and self-analysis over the status quo of the intelligence, one should be situated beyond: yo buddheH paratas tu saH. Buddhi is born of rajas; to ravel on the platform of the buddhi without rising to buddhi-yoga, one is in a precarious situation. When the buddhi is established in yoga, one becomes established in sattva.

The formula for the proper establishment of the buddhi in yoga, in connection with the supreme, is noted in Krishna's words in the Gita:

teSAM satata-yuktAnAM bhajatAM prIti-pUrvakam |
dadAmi buddhi-yogaM taM yena mAm upayAnti te || 10.10 ||

"Unto those, who are always engaged, who worship with love, I bestow the yoga of the intelligence by which they may approach me."

Note carefully the qualifiers that lead to a situation, in which buddhi-yoga proper is established: It is given for those, who are perpetually engaged, and who worship with love. The antaryami bestows knowledge and forgetfulness in accordance wiht the living entities' desires; when the desires are skewed, a skewed understanding shall arise, and the antaryami shall make that strong. Therefore, buddhi-yoga proper is only attained with the purification of the heart in the fire of well-entrenched practice.

This is also the theme in Visvanatha Cakravarti's Raga-vartma-candrika, as he explains the three-fold ways in which the aspirant comes to attain proper understanding:

udbhUte tAdRze lobhe zAstra-darziteSu tat-tad-bhAva-prApty-upAyeSu AcArya-caitya-vapuSA sva-gatiM vyanakti [bhA.pu. 11.29.6.] ity uddhavokteH keSucid guru-mukhAt keSucid abhijJa-mahodayAnurAgi-bhakta-mukhAt | abhijJAteSu keSucid bhakti-mRSTa-citta-vRttiSu svata eva sphuriteSu sollAsam evAtizayena pravRttiH syAt | yathA kAmArthinAM kAmopAyeSu || 1.9 ||

When such greed has arisen, as seen in the scripture, to give the means for attaining the corresponding bhava "you show their own paths as the acarya and the indwelling witness" (BhP 11.29.6); from Uddhava's statement it is known that some attain this from the mouth of a guru, and some from the mouth of an all-knowing, blessed anuragi-devotee. Some, whose course of consciousness has been polished with devotion, will have all this knowledge manifest of its own accord; at this time, they will be seen as very joyfully – and indeed eminently – progressing, as a person desiring fulfillment of sensual desires is engrossed in the means for attaining the desired."

The true and saintly jnana-vritti (course of knowledge) will only flow in one, whose heart is polished by devotion, and who has fully committed himself to acts of devotional pursuit; only then will the intellect truly function in the parameters of uttama-bhakti and bring about nothing but the devotional welfare of the devotee. That pending, one should maintain a fair amount of caution and introspection, question one's motivations and see the undue biases that arise in the understanding – biases that lead our intellect to act against devotion.

The sadhaka should not, then, mistake all application of the intellect as buddhi-yoga. Should the rogue intellect be engaged, for example, in minutely examining the shortcomings of others, or in an endless wrangle of scriptural arguments for the sake of establishing one's view as the supreme, or merely for showing the defects of another's views, it is to be known that the intellect has been terribly misapplied and can only serve to degrade the tarkika.