Bhakti Yoga BHAKTI-YOGA is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search beginning, continuing, and ending in Love. One single moment of the madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom. “Bhakti,” says Nârada in his explanation of the Bhakti-aphorisms, “is intense love to God.”—“When a man gets it, he loves all, hates none he becomes satisfied for ever.”—“This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit,” because so long as worldly desires last, that kind of love does not come. “Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means, and its own end.”
Full Novel
Part - 1 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 1 BHAKTI-YOGA is a real, genuine search after the Lord, a search beginning, continuing, and ending Love. One single moment of the madness of extreme love to God brings us eternal freedom. “Bhakti,” says Nârada in his explanation of the Bhakti-aphorisms, “is intense love to God.”—“When a man gets it, he loves all, hates none he becomes satisfied for ever.”—“This love cannot be reduced to any earthly benefit,” because so long as worldly desires last, that kind of love does not come. “Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means, and its own end.” ...Read More
Part - 2 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 2 Who is Ishwara “From Whom is the birth, continuation, and dissolution of universe”—He is Ishwara—“the Eternal, the Pure, the Ever-Free: the Almighty, the All- Knowing, the All-Merciful, the Teacher of all teachers ” and above all, — “He the Lord is, of His own nature, inexpressible love. ...Read More
Part - 3 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 3 QUALIFICATIONS OF THE ASPIRANT AND THE TEACHER How are we to know a teacher then sun requires no torch to make him visible, we need not light a candle in order to see him. When the sun rises, we instinctively become aware of the fact, and when a teacher of men comes to help us the soul will instinctively know that truth has already begun to shine upon it. Truth stands on its own evidence, it does not require any other testimony to prove it true, it is self-effulgent. It penetrates into the innermost comers of our nature, and in its presence the whole universe stands up and says, “This is truth.” ...Read More
Part - 4 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 4 THE MANTRA: OM: WORD AND WISDOM But we are now considering not these Mahâ-purushas, the Incarnations, but only the Siddha-Gurus (teachers who have attained the goal) they, as a rule, have to convey the germs of spiritual wisdom to the disciple by means of words (Mantra) to be meditated upon. What are these Mantras The whole of this universe has, according to Indian philosophy, both name and form as its conditions of manifestation. ...Read More
Part - 5 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 5 THE CHOSEN IDEAL The next thing to be considered is. what we know as Ishta-Nishthâ. One aspires to be a Bhakta must know that “so many opinions are so many ways.” He must know that all the various sects of the various religions are the various manifestations of the glory of the same Lord. “They call You by so many names they divide You, as it were, by different names, yet in each one of these is to be found Your omnipotence. You reach the worshipper through all of these neither is there any special time so long as the soul has intense love for You. ...Read More
Part - 6 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 6 PARA-BHAKTI OR SUPREME DEVOTION THE PREPARATORY RENUNCIATION We have now finished the cobsideration of what may be the preparatory Bhakti, and are entering on the study of the Para-Bhakti, or supreme devotion. We have to speak of a preparation to the practice of this Para-Bhakti. All such preparations are intended only for the purification of the soul. The repetition of names, the rituals, the forms, and the symbols—all these various things are for the purification of the soul. ...Read More
Part - 8 Bhakti Yoga
Bhakti Yoga Part - 8 UNIVERSAL LOVE AND HOW IT LEADS TO SELF-SURRENDER How can we love Vyashti, the particular, without first loving the Samashti, the universal God is the Samashti, the generalised and the abstract universal whole and the universe that we see is the Vyashti, the particularised thing. To love the whole universe is possible only by way of loving the Samashti—the universal—which is, as it were, the one unity in which are to be found millions and millions of smaller unities. ...Read More