Growing in Devotion - 'No God. No Peace. Know God. Know Peace'.
22nd to 24th June 2021
Three days series of talks by Swami Aparajitananda (Chinmaya Mission, Mangalore)
Swami Aparajitananda ji beautifully expounded on what is the meaning of devotion & how one can cultivate ananya bhakti. Devotion is the emotion of love directed towards God. This is also called divine love. As explained in Narada Bhakti Sutra, it makes us feel perfect, immortal and we have a sense of contentment and fulfilment. Devotion makes us experience the Mahavakyas.
When true devotees have been given a boon by God, they ask for only focused devotion. Eg. Tulsidasji, Hanumanji. Unwavering devotion is constant, uninterrupted, steady, spontaneous, effortless devotion. This should be done with a conscious mind and not a mechanical mind. Therefore, let a conscious mind do japa. A person who surrenders thought, word and deed does not experience sorrow and pain. A true test of devotion is in times of calamity. Bhishma Pitamah is the epitome of surrender, who withdrew his mind and focused on God, and he felt the absence of pain.
Cultivation of love for God can be learnt from a child, who learns from mother nature. Babies are the happiest beings, who are born from a womb into this external world. God’s compassion is seen when he makes the child’s senses dormant at the time of birth. Slowly as they develop, the child observes, analyses and concludes based on his experiences that his identity is the body. A child is born crying, in pain. He realises the pain can be relieved, not by himself but with the help of others and that he must cry out for help. So his utter helplessness makes him egolessness, coupled with his survival instincts makes him very alert.
A child has strong attachment to his mother and values her as he sees her sacrificing and relieving his pain at all times. When he is bribed with new toys he uses his viveka and vairagya and wants only his mother. He has ananya bhakti towards his mother and like a mumukshu, he wants to only go back to his mother.
All mothers have been given the greatest gift from God, LOVE. This makes them compassionate, enduring and forgiving. When a mother gets possessive and is not grateful towards God, the relationship becomes worldly.
Our devotion wavers because our attachment to the world is stronger than God. The starting point of spirituality is that “I am a nobody/nothing”. We must crush our egos before the world crushes it. Dasoham/surrender can be done by us and Soham/blessings can be given by God. The prerequisite to gain knowledge, is humility. Just as a child cries to the mother, to fulfil his wants, we too should pray to God and ask for what we want and accept what he gives. However, instead of making God our foremost priority, He becomes our last resort. We try to solve our problems through worldly rajasic and tamasic means, instead of the sattvic solutions that God shows us.
Bhagwan’s attitude differs for different devotees based on our individual maturity of devotion. God knows which devotee needs to be given what blessing. Equanimity of the mind is Yoga; The mind must be calm in the most calamitous situation, but when one has worldly support, one forgets divine support. We must remember to chant the name of the Lord and invest our time in building our relationship with God.
Bhagawan is always working for his devotees.
