Vira Chandra: Traditions that carry real transmission warn with full justification: do not take pieces of a path and try to use them for yourself. Do not treat a method like a menu. Do not collect sacred practices and mix them like herbs in a casual brew. They say — and they are right — that when the method is taken apart, its living current breaks. The Presence that once made it alive disappears. What remains is only appearance: the outer form without the inner flame. Energy begins to move incorrectly. Illusion replaces realization. And eventually, the seeker becomes disoriented, and the entire field within collapses.
We see it often today: the spiritual nomad. A seeker flitting from tradition to tradition, tasting everything, digesting nothing. A year in Bhakti, a season in Jnana, a workshop in Tantra — all without surrender, without commitment, without fire. The path becomes a display shelf. Teachings become self-decoration. And what should have burned becomes entertainment.
And yet — this too has a deeper side.
Not everyone who moves between paths is avoiding depth. Not every step away is an escape. There are rare cases when the movement is not out of pride or distraction, but from something deeper and more dangerous: a longing that cannot rest until it finds what is real. Some seekers do not flit. They search. They ache. They walk away not because they want novelty, but because they cannot lie. They sense when the current has gone out — and move on, sometimes clumsily, but sincerely, in search of the flame.
Abhinavagupta knew this. He wrote:
āmodārthī yathā bhṛṅgaḥ puṣpātpuṣpāntaraṃ vrajet
vijñānārthī tathā śiṣyo gurorgurvantaraṃ vrajet
“Just as a bee, in search of fragrance, moves from flower to flower,
so too does the seeker of knowledge move from teacher to teacher.”
(Tantrāloka 13.335)
The bee does not fly for distraction. It moves by instinct, drawn by āmoda — the subtle fragrance of real nectar. It may pass over a thousand flowers that are bright but empty, and linger in silence on the one that is plain but alive. So too, the sincere seeker is not led by ego, but by something older and finer: the unteachable sense of truth.
The mystic al-Ḥallāj told the story of the moth and the flame. Some circle the fire. Others speak of its heat. But only the moth who enters and is consumed knows the truth. In the same way, there are seekers who move strangely — not circling perfectly, but burning suddenly. Their path looks crooked, but it leads straight to the center.
And it is here that the Upanishads speak with devastating clarity.
In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad (3.5.1), Yājñavalkya says:
tasmād brāhmaṇaḥ pāṇḍityaṃ nirvidya bālyena tiṣṭhāset |
bālyaṃ ca pāṇḍityaṃ ca nirvidyātha muniḥ amaunaṃ ca maunaṃ ca nirvidyātha brāhmaṇaḥ |
sa brāhmaṇaḥ kena syāt? yena syāt tena īdṛśa eva | ato ’nyad ārtam ||
“Therefore, the knower of Brahman, having transcended learning, should dwell in childlike simplicity.
Having transcended both simplicity and learning, he becomes a sage.
Having transcended both silence and non-silence, he becomes a Brāhmaṇa.
How does he become such a Brāhmaṇa? However he becomes — thus he is.
Any other explanation is suffering.”
This is the final truth.
What matters is not the map, not the structure, not even the consistency of the outer form. What matters is what the fire did. Was the ego burned? Was the longing real? Did the heart bow, not to a tradition, but to That which cannot be owned?
Yes — most who fragment the path will end up in illusion. But there are those who, even in brokenness, are being reassembled by grace. The bee may fly far. The moth may approach from an odd angle. But if the fire is true, if the longing is whole, the Presence returns. And when it does, it doesn’t ask how the seeker came. It simply burns what remains.
Grace does not follow form.
It follows surrender.
And Śakti enters only where the heart has become whole.
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