Chapter Four: The Perfected Body and Entry into Līlā

Inherent spiritual nature

It is necessary here to understand clearly what svabhāva means. Svabhāva is the distinctive individuality of every living being. Each being comes bearing its own particularity; that very particularity is its “own disposition,” its sva-bhāva or bhāva. Attaining one’s svabhāva means being transformed into one’s own true form.

The relationship established with Bhagavan through the path of knowledge culminates in unity. The practitioner on the path of devotion, however, attains distinction on account of individuality or svabhāva. The Upanishad says: paraṃ-jyotiḥ sampadya brahmaṇā saha ekībhūtvā svabhāvo prāptiḥ—having attained the Supreme Light, the practitioner becomes one with Brahman and then attains the inherent nature.¹

Knowledge of Brahman uncovers one’s own nature. It is the property of light to disclose things in their own form; in darkness everything merges into an indistinguishable mass. Knowledge unveils the nature that lay covered. One’s relationship with Bhagavan is formed only through this inherent nature. Without knowing one’s true form, what relationship with Bhagavan can there be?

Feeling-body, inherent-nature body, true-form body

The feeling-body is the body of one’s inherent nature, the body of one’s true form, through which the living being plays with Bhagavan in a conscious spiritual form. The feeling-body alone is the body of devotion; it is cool like the moon. Even after attaining the body of knowledge, a fall remains possible: knowledge may still exist, but covered by ignorance. The feeling-body, by contrast, brings about loving attachment to Bhagavan and is never destroyed.

Before the feeling-body is attained, every alien or extraneous disposition must cease. One’s inherent nature opens only when ignorance has been removed. It possesses form, yet cannot be described; every person’s svabhāva is distinct. The guru’s purpose is to remove the outer covering and open the disciple’s inherent nature. The guru’s function extends through the realm of prescriptions and prohibitions. Once the veil of avidyā-māyā has been removed, that external function is complete.

The path of bhāva is not governed externally by the guru. Once the feeling-body is attained, one’s own nature is the guru, one’s own nature is scripture, and its direction constitutes prescription and prohibition. No external controller remains. Nothing of the outer world has any place in the stillness of that profound interior realm. Yet a power there dwells within as the Inner Guide and directs the devotee. That is what is called svabhāva.

No one has to teach a small child how to call its mother or how to behave toward her; the child is naturally governed by its own disposition. In precisely the same way, a devotee who is a child in the feeling-body does not have to be taught maternal devotion. The devotee is a child of svabhāva, and svabhāva itself directs the devotee. Whatever arises spontaneously becomes that devotee’s worship. In rāgātmikā—