Variegatedness

"Bhakta-Chitra!"

So spontaneously these words sprung from your mouth, without even knowing of their existence let alone their meaning. I was stunned.

You were just fumbling, trying to recall the name of that great book of transcendental knowledge that was recorded in the written word more than 5000 years ago in India, the Bhagavad Gita. During our frequent long discussions on religious philosophy, searching for the possible Golden Thread that might unite such different creeds as Achintya Bheda-Abheda Tattva - a school of Vedanta presenting the philosophy of the inconceivable oneness and difference of God and Creation - and Islam, I had mentioned this book and the wisdom it contains on several occasions.

Yet now you said something else, my Algerian friend, words you didn't know but that I recognised as Sanskrit, although their meaning I wasn't really sure of. 

Curious about this seemingly transcendental message, I went about investigating their significance the first opportunity I had. This is what I found:

भक्त bhakta adj. devote

भक्त bhakta adj. faithful

भक्त bhakta adj. devoted

भक्त bhakta m. devotee

चित्र citra adj. strange

चित्र citra adj. wonderful

चित्र citra adj. diversified

चित्र citra adj. various

चित्र citra adj. manifold

चित्र citra adj. in different ways

चित्र citra adj. bright

चित्र citra adj. bright colored

चित्र citra adj. variegated

चित्र citra n. vestige

चित्र citra n. picture

The message that was coming through with those two little words was mind-blowing.

Various types of devotees, variegated faiths, a manifold of different ways of being devoted to the Lord... all creating a strange yet wonderful brightly-coloured picture. 

And we could say that the whole picture, or absolute vision, is that there is variety to enable different kinds of people with different kinds of consciousness to have different kinds of relationship with the One Supreme Absolute. 

In Subjective Evolution of Consciousness, Swami BR Sridhar explains it as such:

"Revealed Truth is distributed in installments according to the capacity of the peaple of the time, place and circumstance. The revealed truth is found in varying degrees in the Bible, the Koran, the Vedas, and the other scriptures of the world. Through this process, the truth is partially revealed in different places of the world in proportion to the thinking and capacity of each particular group of people. The revealed truth is reliable, but still it is modified to fit the persons to whom it is extended. For that reason we find differences in the different versions of the revealed truth. It is said in the Srimad Bhagavatam that medicine may be hidden within candy to treat children. In the same way, the revealed truth may be hidden within the mundane concessions of ordinary religion to help the ignorant class of men."

Nobody is left out, such Love!

Then what by Bhakta Chitra? – The reminder that there is, ultimately, a non-sectarian conception of God, Love and Devotion... and it came through an almost other-worldly message.