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195
bhakta is already experiencing the s盲ttvikabh膩vas ("ecstatic
modes"), outward symptoms of an intensely moving inner
experience.89
This, however, is only the "sprout" (a峁卥ura),
the mere beginning, of bhakti. At stage six, the devotee
realizes the bliss of the Self, but even this--the final
goal of traditional Advaita--is not the end. He goes on to
experience and increasingly more blissful levels of
spontaneous ecstatic love of bhagavat, plumbing the full
range of premabhakti as it was enjoyed by great devotees
such as Prahlada and the gopis. Though Madhus奴dana gives us
only a sketchy outline of the higher stages of devotion, it
is clear that he regards them as further and more blissful
developments beyond the state of Self-realization attained
at stage six. If, as we have seen, bhakti, moksa, and yogic
sam膩dhi are all forms in which the supreme bliss which is
the goal of life may be realized, the implication of the BR
is that bhakti is the highest of these--that is to say, the
highest mode in which the paramapuru峁Ｄ乺tha can be
relished.90
This is why, his initial effort to widen the
concept of paramapuru峁�artha by transferring that title from
liberation to bliss notwithstanding, it is still possible
for Madhusudana to speak of bhakti by itself as the highest
goal of life.
Except for Madhusudana's close verbal identification
of bhagavat and the inner Self, and the consequent