What is Pushtimarg?

Word ‘Pushti’ means ‘Grace’ and ‘Marg’ means ‘Path’ to reach God. There are many schools of thought or margs to obtain the grace of the Lord and reach him. As we are Pushti Vaishnavs, we follow the path of pushtimarg. This path of spiritual grace is introduced to us by Shree Vallabhacharyaji. He, after a deep study, contemplation and personal experience has simplified the path to experience the Lord and has given us certain easy principles to follow. E.g. we go to different schools, the subjects to be studied are the same but each school follows its own protocol, starting from the uniform to the types of teachers and methods of teaching. We being followers of Pushti school of thought practice the set of rules laid by our Guru Shree Vallabh. In sanskrit Pushti means ‘Krupa(grace)’. Thus pushtimarg is a marg in which we can experience God by the grace of God himself. It is also called ‘Krupa marg’. Thus in this marg God showers his grace on us. Pushti also means spiritual nourishments. It is a path of devotion through God’s grace. To follow this path one has to be initiated by Guru one who is from lineage of Shree Mahaprabhuji (Vallabhacharyaji). As we saw earlier, we are vaishnavs and follow Pushtimarg, so we call ourselves as ‘PUSHTIMARGIYA VAISHNAVS’.It (Pushtimarg) is spontaneous, selfless & motiveless love for Shri Krushna.

• It is based on pure love for Shri Krushna.
• It is expressed only through service of Shri Krushna – “Seva”.
• It is love after realising Shri Krushna’s true nature.
• The knowledge gained is not a means of liberation.
• Liberation, is considered secondary to the enjoyment of Shri Krushna’s bliss.
• Its aim is Shri Krushna’s happiness.
• No caste, creed, color, sex or age prevents one from attaining Shri Krushna’s Grace.
• It does not know any boundaries, be it time, place or anything else.
• It does not require a devotee to give up a householder’s life. In fact, one can serve Him better, by being a householder. This is different from other philosophies that require a life of contemplation as a monk.
• All the worldly desires are diverted towards Shri Krushna, they are then not required to be suppressed.
• World is not looked down upon but is treated as Shri Krushna’s creation and thus as real as Shri Krushna himself.
• Shri Krushna is the Supreme, all the other deities reside in his form. Therefore total faith is placed in Shri Krushna alone.
• In the state of liberation the entity of the devotee merges into *Shri Krushna’s blissful form, but in Bhakti (especially Pushti bhakti) the devotee does not seek liberation but he enjoys Shri Krushna’s bliss by participating in it as a separate divine entity.

Three Pillers of Pushtimarg:

The path which is established by Shreemad Vallabhacharyaji to serve the Lord with greedless and unconditional love is Pushtimarg. To retain and increase the concentration and thus extract the Ras of Bhakti during the seva of Lord, Shree Vallabhacharyaji introduced the “Raag, Bhog and Shrungar” in the Seva of Lord which became the integral part of Pushtimarg. This flourished under the care of his younger son, Shree Vitthalnathji, also popularly known as Shree Gusaiji.

Raag : Attachment – raag also means the aesthetic emotions in the Bhakta which leads him to attain the Bhakti and attain Lord Shree Krishna. For this, songs/hymns, musical intruments and dance “nrutya” are used to serve Lord. The song of praises i.e. “Kirtanas” are sung before the Lord in various different ragas, with intruments and in various taals. Different ragas are sung during different times of the day, and according to season.

Bhog : The Pure bhava of Bhakta, inspired by “Raag”, is offered to the Lord. This is called the “bhog”. In this, bhakta prepares with his different bhavas, the food to offer Lord. This is not a mere food but offering his/her prem, love, towards Lord.

Shrungar : After the offering of Pure Bhava through “bhog”, bhakta now wants to go further to even adorn the Lord with different bhavas in the form of ornaments, clothes etc. This is called Shrungar. From the above three integral part of Seva, “Raaga” is given the most importance in this article. Lord of Pushtimarg wakes up with kirtans, accepts the bhog with kirtans, and enjoys the different festivals with kirtans and go to sleep with kirtans. Each activity, in His daily seva and Utsav (festive) Seva routine, is done with kirtanas.