Divine and Devotion

Firstly, I must apologize for keeping the comments closed on my last post (The Devi in our Lives). Yet many of you lovely people shared their appreciations with me via other means. I am very grateful to all of you. The reason of keeping it closed was swami had asked us to be as silent as we can and also, I felt that awareness was important and needed to be penned down.
For this one though, I will have to humbly request you to not share it with any non believer. He/Him have been used for my isht-Mahadev.

If you ever wondered if god exists, then please keep wondering. Don’t give up your quest and don’t stop questioning. As I told dear Yash a few days back, Devotion and knowledge goes hand in hand. At least for me it does. My logical mind does not question it because knowledge is a part of my devotion. Though, Now it’s not just devotion anymore but love. But it started with a lot of questions and yes cribbing and fights too.

Just like you shouldn’t marry someone without knowing them, I believe you shouldn’t believe in god without knowing him too. Paradoxical huh!? And for that, I suggest please keep asking questions, for the nectar of bhakti is so worth it. And remember the one annoying student in the class who asked a lot of questions was the one who usually ended up topping the exam 😛

Is there any other stage or state of devotion? I believe there is. There is a state of being in love. Devotion still may be bound in some labels but love is not, love is so infinite that it can never be bound in any label. The kind of love that consumes your own identity. The kind of love that makes you experience oneness, the kind of love that can only by defined through silence because there is no word created yet to describe the absolute intense ecstasy. I have talked to quite a few people who believe that I have something extraordinary. The truth be told, I truly don’t feel it and I say it with all honesty that I do not put in even the tiniest of efforts. It comes naturally, more naturally than my thirst for water. It’s just like when you fall head over heels in love with someone and it’s not an effort anymore, remaining separate from them is. Love is not madness, everything else is. Given my sharp temper and strong opinions, I was the last person I thought who would experience devotion. But when he wants you, when he summons you, no power in any world, as many as they may exist can stop you.

Bhakti for me is nothing but adoring and worshipping the one I am already so much in love with. Bhakti cannot happen without love, it cannot be for mere results. Bhakti means more, it means you are willing to dissolve yourself if it is what it takes to be with him. That you are very much capable of loving him more than everything else, that you are mad enough to see him and feel him and know him like you know nobody else. To look at him like you look at nobody else.  To let him be your reality and your dream. To let him be your destination and journey and everything in between. It means to make him your everything that counts. Love is difficult no doubts, sometimes I have to drag myself back to this world while all I want to do is sit with my eyes closed and feel him in my pulses and heartbeat. How would you focus on work when you look at your laptop and think ‘this is my isht,’ and then you look at the curtains and feel ‘oh! he is there too’ and then slowly everything around you starts to feel like him and you are starting to soak in ecstasy when you realize you have to come back to this world and finish that assignment . 😛

“Well! You invaded my life” I often tease him. And it’s true though. At first I was a little annoyed because he wouldn’t give me what I wanted and kept dragging me back to him. Trust me when I say, during the starting days, I had told him clearly that if I had to choose between him and the material world, I would choose the latter because devotion word brought up pictures of monks and even though it intrigued my curious mind, it also frightened me. It was almost a year before I got a tiny taste of his vastness.

Being in love with the divine does not make you any less involved with this world because, this world is his manifestation. This world is a tangible form of his grace. How could anyone not love him and everything he created? Just acknowledge his presence and he will reveal himself to you in his truest form which is formless. Oxymoron this time !?

I fell so much in love with him because I suppose he fell in love with me first JK 😛. I fell in love with him because he never gave up even when I was running back to hug my sorrows. I had so much attachment to certain people, ideas, and things that I wanted to choose them over him even though they were causing me terrible pain. Such plague is attachment. You will be hurting but still won’t let go of it. He kept me in his arms and held me tight, he didn’t let me hurt myself anymore than I already had. In his words “Whatever anyone says to you, comes to me. It’s not about you so don’t get upset.”

Whatever dispassion I have today is only because of him and he can take it all back tomorrow. Divine being real for you doesn’t necessarily mean that he will manifest for you, as if you are meditating and suddenly there is a huge man in front of you with a trident. That can definitely happen but it hasn’t yet happened for me.  But what can be more real than feeling him everyday? Than dancing and singing with him? He is my all levels of consciousness, he is my dream as well as my reality. So don’t get hung up on visions or become demotivated because of not getting them, they also might become an attachment. Feel his vastness and his love, that’s all he his. And soon enough, you will start loving everything in his creation just as you love him.

Denying his existence because he didn’t fulfill your wishes is as absurd as denying the existence of a parent because they didn’t let you eat junk food. We Kids focus on taste buds and Never know the harm junk food can do as well as a parent does. He knows better, give your best efforts but don’t sweat the results. Whatever is rightfully yours will be given to you.

On the day of Navami, my mom and I went out to donate aata (wheat) to less fortunate ones. Nothing is more fulfilling than seva and nothing ever will be. When we were returning, we had a discussion about this one girl, who might have lied to us to get an extra bag that led to the conversation about what constitutes of a true ‘daan.’ My mother might be the only person I personally know who has no tamsic qualities, none of it. She is as sattvik as a human can get so much so that sometimes I curse myself after arguing with her. Anyway, that day, she decided to pour some of her nectar on me.

She said “Daan is not just food my dearest. And it’s not charity but generosity, it’s not about someone’s lacking but how much you can offer. It’s a smile, it’s good speech, it’s good conduct, it’s giving respect and love.” I could feel my divine flowing out of her mouth that day and it only made me realise that he is so much more than just form, or even formless. He is everything. Everything I see, everything I hear, everything I feel. There is absolutely nothing separate from him and there is nothing more I want from him other than to keep me in his love forever.

Fall in love with him and he will make you fall in love with everything and everyone else. Your search for love will end in his divine, infinite love, the kind of love that you have not known before, the kind of love that makes you lose yourself without feeling even a bit scared, the kind of love that feels like home you have been craving for. So that you shall always have enough to give it to everyone to crosses paths with you. If I wanted to express my love in words, I will keep searching for the right word till eternity. 

May you always feel his gracious presence,

Har Har Mahadev