LostOnTheWay,
“He allows God to keep him in whatever state God wishes. If you read ‘Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna’ by Mahedranath, you’ll see that going into nirvikalpa and coming back from it was an everyday thing for Sri Ramakrishna.”
To have experienced nirvikalpa samadhi is not any indication that one has come to an awakening. And that has been one of the greatest misunderstandings, that simply to enter into certain states of samadhi is going to trigger an awakening. Samadhi is needed, but only as a tool, an instrument for direct insight. That is why there have been yogis who have been entering in and out of samadhi for years, but they have remained in a deep sleep. Enlightenment is not a matter of a mechanical entering into altered states of consciousness, it arises as something entirely different.
“In fact bhakti marg produced many enlightened masters”
Although the approah of bhakhti yoga has awakened certain dimensions of existence which very rarely enter into the perception of the average person, I cannot agree that there have been too many bakhti yogis who have come to their enlightenment. Those few who have, have managed to move beyond an object of devotion which is simply a figment of one’s own imagination. For a devotee to be focused on an object of devotion requires a conscious effort of the mind, you have to project something far away onto the other shore. There is another kind of devotion which arises which is not focused on any particular object, it is not something that requires an effort of the mind. You are the Truth, there is no need to project it far away as though it were dimensions apart. If you are it, it is impossible for one to turn it into an object of devotion, neither is there one who is a devotee, but there is only devotion itself. Amongst the bhakhti yogis, they have called it para-bhakhti - it is not a devotion which is focused upon anything in particular. Every breath, every step, every gesture is a direct expression of the inexpressible. Most bhakhtis rarely ever come to know of this kind of devotion, simply because they have remained fixated upon a projection of their own imagination.
“There is an underlying assumption here that God is an idea and that the idea must be get rid of. But what if its not an idea and that God is a real thing/being/whatever”
There is certainly something which can be called “divine”. The word “God” is meaningless in itself, it will mean whatever one wants it to mean. That is the nature of words. One can use the word “God” if one wants, but if one considers it to be some kind of Supreme Being, that Supreme Being is simply a hallucination. It is simply because the mind cannot see anything beyond the lenses of it’s own subjectivity. The idea of “God” is created in that subjectivity, and whatever that idea may be, even if it is the idea of “nothingness”, it is bound to be a limited quality. Truth is not something that can be included in the boundaries of our knowledge.
I have spoken too much now. I should speak less, exercise more, drink more water, sit less in front of computer, sleep early, get up early and meditate more. Bhakti or hatha.