Divine and Devotion

Recently while listening to a beautiful bhajan, I pondered upon its lyrics. It’s goes something like “Who says that God doesn’t come, we don’t call him like Meera did” That was such a meaningful line that it got stuck in my head for days. I wondered that what was common in these great bhaktas, Meera, Prahalad, Swami Ramakrishna. The answer was easy: they all were deeply in love with their Bhagwan.
I had read or heard somewhere that Swami Ramakrishna did not even eat food without offering it to mother Kali first and he would go like, “no mother, you eat first, oh you want me eat first? okay I’ll eat first then” and would offer the food tasted by him to the mother divine. This is something that goes against our conventional rituals of Pooja, but that’s true love, isn’t it? who follows rules in love? everything is fair in love and war and devotion is love. But to reach that stage of “no rules” one has to have unshakable faith and unending devotion. It cannot be just for the sake of our convenience.
I know someone very closely who is very religious. I have never seen this person miss morning or an evening Pooja except for when he is occasionally sick. Never saw him miss a Mahashivratri fast and never saw him miss his routine temple visits which is once every week. But this person is far from being spiritual or even happy, if someone enters his circle of aura, they feel very heavy, uncomfortable energy. It’s like Hari had left his mind, because he is never content. Even after having every comfortable means to exist in the material world, he is always angry or worried about something or the other.
That made me question that if only chanting Japas and only doing Poojas are enough!? The one major component missing here is devotion. But now, how and why will someone follow a religious routine regularly without having an ounce of devotion? Please free to answer that in the comment section, I am eager to read new perspectives on it. In my point of view, God is just an abstract idea for this person and he is conditioned from his childhood to pray to God. He does it because he does not know any other way. True love, softens us, it makes us more humble, more sensitive. If God is real for you then you will become humbler and content by the day. There is no question to it. The only difference that I see between this person and a bhakta is, for a bhakta, his or her god is as real as this universe if not more. For them, their God is the universe. They are just too busy loving their God that they are always content and happy singing thy glories.
While doing Sri Sadhana a few days ago, Swami said something like “If one doesn’t have devotion, then nothing is of use and if one has it then their sadhana will definitely be fruitful” and that’s something I have felt deeply in my heart, that if you call your Bhagwan with a pure heart, he listens. And he not just listens, he responds as well. More than half of the people I know, believe in God but they just believe in the idea of God. Which automatically happens if one is born into such a family. They were programmed into believing in God right from their childhood and were given notes like “If you do this, God will be happy, if you don’t God will be angry and punish you” some of them even to-date think that God will punish them! that always cracks me up. God doesn’t punish anyone. It’s just the simple law of Karma, it’s not even punishment if we look at it that way.
That Divine, only knows love because he is love himself. Knowing him is knowing love, knowing him is knowing what love looks and feels like. Knowing him is the end of all our troubles. Knowing him is knowing that it is very much possible to lose yourself in love. He is kindness personified, he is the only one who can cut our karmas, he is Mahakala, the master of time. Anything is possible with him; we should just have the courage to ask and believe that he is real because how can we expect answers from someone who is not? He not just loves, he protects, he strengthens and he nourishes. He never questions, and he never places any conditions. With him, it’s really simple, you love him and he’ll love you a million times back. You don’t love him and he’ll still love you a million times more. He is my bliss and my home.That being said, and with the Valentine’s week on the roll, I hope we all have a teeny tiny plan with our Isht for just fifteen minutes, if not more. Afterall, he is the one who exists in our beloved. Everything is his manifestation anyway!

A million obeisance at your beautiful feet my lord.

Tu Hai to Mai hu

Har Har Mahadev!