The path of Bhakti is different from the path of Jnana. However, in their maturity they do not differ, but are to be understood as the obverse and the reverse of the same coin of spiritual realization. At the disciplinary stage there appears to be a difference. For, the Bhakta, to start with, keeps up a sense of real distinction between himself and God, which is essential for his practice.

Sri Ramakrishna gives an analogy. A very loyal servant works under a master for a very long time. The master is pleased with him very much and one day puts him on his own seat and says that he is as good as himself (the master). In the same way, the Lord whom the devotee adores, loves and serves, may at the end withdraw the devotee into Himself. The devotee realizes then his unity of stuff with the Supreme Being, feels that he is the Lord’s own, recognizes Him as pervading everything and will not any longer have that sense of separation and distance from Him with which he started his devotional life.

The path of Jnana starts from the very beginning with the teaching that an aspirant’s real ‘I’ is not different from Brahman, and the sense of difference felt with reference to Him is illusory. To a practising follower of the path of Jnana, as distinguished from mere talkers on it, the denial of all limiting adjuncts as mere appearance, and therefore not actually existent, is the main part of discipline. To a Bhakta this seems quite incompatible with his outlook. But it is said that when the follower of the path of Jnana ultimately intuits Brahman, he comes to recognize that it is Brahman that has become all the Jivas and the Jagat and that Brahman’s power of manifestation Sakti or personal God, is as real as Brahman. This at least is what we learn from the life of Totapuri who was Sri Ramakrishna’s teacher in the path of non-dualism.

Totapuri did not at first have any respect for devotional discipline, evidently because his knowledge had not become complete. But in association with Sri Ramakrishna, he realized the Divine Mother as a reality and came to recognize that Brahman is both personal and impersonal. Going at first exclusively along the discipline relating to the Impersonal, he came, in the fullness of his knowledge, to the realization, that Brahman is also Personal. In the case of the Bhakta the personal realization comes first and, in the maturity of his love, he realizes the Impersonal non-duality also.

Thus as Sadhanas, Bhakti and Jnana are different. But in their maturity both reveal the same Personal-Impersonal Being, in whom knowledge and devotion are harmonized as the obverse and the reverse of the same coin. In fact, true love alone can generate true understanding and true understanding alone can generate true love. They are complementary in their maturity, though they may look different at the start.