The way of Life and Salvation preached by Shri Vallabhacharya is known as Pushti Marga. This is the most original part of his teaching, showing his religious genius at its best. It differs, however, in some important respects from the teaching of the preceding Acharyas, and has several distinguishing features of its own.
The word Pusti, which means fatness or strength, is derived from the word poshana i.e. Nourishment, used first by the Bhagavata with reference to God’s grace.
The idea underlying it is that the soul of man has become weak and lean owing to sin, and consequently it is in dire need of God’s grace which alone can give it life and growth. It emphasizes thus the grace of God even more than Bhakti, which after all has its source in the heart of man.
According to Vallabha, the origin, development and perfection of Bhakti, are dependent almost wholly, if not altogether, on God.
The Pusti-Marga of Vallabha is, thus, based on the absolute dependence on the part of man on God and His grace.
Faith in God and in His Dispensation, full trust in Him accompanied by total surrender and dedication to Him – these are essential for progress in this Way of Grace.
This means the extinction of the self as an entity independent of God with all its selfishness manifested in its I-ness and mine-ness, and the substitution of God in the place of the little self.
The self then remains only as the servant of God whose sole pleasure in everything it does is to do the will of God or to give Him joy.
As a result of this, its intellect, senses, body and everything else become consecrated. Even one’s relations and property are dedicated to God, or they are looked upon as belonging to God without the soul having any proprietary rights over them.
When such a state is realized the soul becomes free from the Samsara, the world of its own creation, a kind of Maya, and sees Jagat in its true character as but a manifestation of God. Such a soul is freed from Avidya or nescience.
The Bhakti that such a soul offers to God is no longer of the kind which seeks its fulfillment in something else at some future date.
It is real Seva, service of God, which is the means as well as the end in itself. It has no other aim but to give pleasure to God in the present moment.
It is Siddha-Bhakti, Bhakti which is an end in itself, as contrasted with Sadhna-Bhakti which is a means to an end.
In the Pusti-Marga, the soul enters the inner world of God, seeing Him face to face and serving Him in very possible manner, which alone is its true heaven.
It has nothing to do with social conventions or scriptural injunctions, which belong to a world, which has reality only so long as the soul is not ushered into the immediate presence of God.
The Bhakti-Marga of some of the preceding Acharyas, wherein room is found for both karma and Jnana, is, according to Vallabha, the way of Pusti-Maryada, a path wherein both Grace and Law are conjoined together.
Even Jnana, knowledge, spoken of so highly by some of the scriptures, is after all an outward thing in comparison with this Seva, immediate service of God. It is true that often the souls which begin their spiritual life with Sadhana Bhakti may come in the end to attain the pure Pusti or Shuddha Pusti, provided they persevere on the path and go on surrendering themselves more and more to God.
The truest type of Bhakti, in Valabha’s opinion, is the one which has love for its chief characteristic.
Excerpted from ‘Shri Vallabhacharya – Life, Teachings and Movement (A Religion of Grace) 1943’.The 534th birth anniversary of Shri Vallabhacharya was observed on May 5.
Bhai Manilal C. Parekh
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