An aspirant does not stop at mere wishful thinking. He follows practices such as meditation, austerities, etc., and puts in a great deal of effort so they may bear fruits. Yet, he remains incompetent in removing his ego, his doership. ‘I have done this’ or ‘I am doing this’, such ego remains intact, and due to this, he is unable to attain the divine state of fulfilment.

In spite of doing everything, when he recognises that the ego hasn’t annihilated, he becomes weary. This gives birth to a devotee in him. A devotee is one who knows that nothing is possible by his doing. He feels insignificant and so he surrenders fully to God. In doing so, he drops his ego, his doership. Devotion therefore, is not just a physical or verbal activity but it is a process of annihilating the doership. When devotion manifests, all barriers to divine communion begin to break. When the ego vanishes, God is realised.

One may think that as long as there is activity, there is a doer. So to remove the doer, one must stop all activities. But as long as there are mind, speech and body, how can there be no activity? The solution is – stay surrendered, stay a non-doer. God is like an ocean sending clarion calls to get dissolved in Him. The inquisitive one remains seated at its shores, the aspirant swims over its waters, while the devotee dives into it like the pearl diver. The inquisitive one and the aspirant, both are in pursuit of God, but the devotee dissolves in God.

What is Devotion?

The impure form of love is lust and the pure form is devotion. Mistaking lust as love, man has been running away from love. Undoubtedly, impure love is a sin. But pure love is a means to liberation. When love becomes pure, guileless, selfless, profound, and without any worldly motive, it is called devotion.

To understand devotion, you must at least know what love is. He who has not loved in life, has never been in even worldly love, cannot understand the divine love either. Won’t you need some experience in that direction? How else will you purify love?

Redirect Your Love Towards God

Whatever love energy has manifested in you, pure or impure, direct it at the Lotus Feet of God. Love when directed towards the dispassionate One cannot remain impure; it soon sheds off its impurities. It becomes pure, and gets transformed into devotion. In fact, in loving God, love increases in quality and quantity and eventually this devotion transforms into supreme devotion, oneness with the divine.

Therefore, to get immersed in devotion, pour your energy of love into following the instructions of the Enlightened One. In the beginning, you may not experience joy. You may even experience disinterestedness. But by doing this, your connection in the worldly direction will start growing weaker. Gradually, your beliefs, inclinations, activities, and life will get transformed and soon you will revel in an unprecedented state of divinity.

Practice to Perfection

Once a girl invited to her wedding, a teacher she had great regard for. The teacher brought a sitar as her wedding gift. The girl wondered why the teacher had gifted the sitar, knowing very well that she couldn’t play it. She told the teacher, “Because it has been gifted by you, I will surely look after it well.” The teacher said, “To look after it well, you must play it regularly. No one is born knowledgeable, but with practice, everything is possible.” After a decade, the teacher and the pupil met again. The girl fell at his feet and said, “Your gift changed my life. To look after it, I began to play the sitar. To play regularly, I needed time and purpose. So it saved me from wasting time in fulfilling passions. And with the purpose of playing it for the divine, my desires for the sensual pleasures started reducing. The reduction in sense indulgence and passions increased my love for the divine, and has brought joy and peace in my life.” Such a small looking resolve and a little bit of practice resulted in such huge benefit! In this way, constantly directing love towards the divine makes the love pure and transforms it into devotion.

Begin with beholding God, listen to His teachings, reflect upon His virtues, remember Him and praise Him, you will experience purity of heart. By constant practice of diverting your love towards God, devotion will increase and reach its absolute state. But if you are weak in this endeavour, your love will not become pure and complete; instead, passions will sully it.

Devotion is Divine Madness

As feelings of love, faith and surrender increase, offering of heart, head and desire occurs. A kind of madness arises. Madness is of two types. One, when one falls from the intellectual level, and the other, when one transcends the intellect. In both cases, that of the insane and the divine lover, the intellect gets dropped. The divine lover transcends the intellect, and so from that standpoint, he is called mad.

In this madness, a devotee becomes child-like, pure and innocent. Worldliness does not enter him. Neither wealth deludes him, nor does he seek worldly status or sensual pleasures, or become slave to passions. However, the difference between a child and a devotee is that the child is innocent because he is ignorant while a devotee is aware and awakened. The intellectual capacity of a child is not yet developed while that of a devotee is developed and surrendered.

Because of this, his conduct changes and the worldly people do not approve of it. They do not like or understand it, and at times, they even criticise him. When he does not act according to their beliefs, understanding, desire, or definition, the society opposes him. Not just society, even the family may oppose him. But the devotee is not perturbed or angered. Instead, he comes out of these events, purer, like gold.

The Intoxication of Love

There are two types of ecstasies in love. A novice drinker gets drunk even with a few sips of liquor. From his conduct, anyone can make out that he is intoxicated. But a seasoned drinker may have had a lot, yet he doesn’t sway, and continues doing his work normally. No one can make out that he is drunk and still he is intoxicated. In the same way, when love first manifests in a person, his devotion is like the novice drinker. But as his love becomes uninterrupted, the ecstasy remains unbroken. He remains immersed in devotion in every state. He performs all activities intoxicated in love, in divine ecstasy. Others remain oblivious of his inner state.

When you are in love with someone, your life is filled with joy, there is sparkle in the eyes, your feet begin to dance. Your heart blossoms and sways in joy like a bud blossoming in the presence of the sun. You begin to fly high as though you have wings. Even an ordinary love makes your life happy and filled with joyous melody as if you have found the purpose of life. Why then would love for the divine not bring a unique state of being? The one in love with God experiences divinity in him and its elevation is of the highest kind. He starts becoming free of desires, negative tendencies, flaws, and impurities.

It is love and not the scriptures that bring the first news of the divine. You are informed of the divine not by the ringing of temple bells, but when the heart is soaked in love for the divine. A devotee is not satisfied with mere words or knowledge of principles. He yearns for experience; an intimate, personal, direct experience of the divine. This can be had only when the supreme love for the divine manifests. A devotee then experiences divine intoxication, and complete contentment. Such an experience of the divine state manifests as a result of love, faith and surrender of individuality. Wondrous is the state of such a devotee.