D E VOT I O N
Diving in Divine Love
By Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai Propounding the path of Bhagwan Mahavira, an ardent devotee of Shrimad Rajchandraji, Pujya Gurudevshri Rakeshbhai is a spiritual visionary and modern-day mystic. The founder of Shrimad Rajchandra Mission Dharampur, Pujya Gurudevshri has illuminated numerous lives across the globe through enlightening discourses and an array of meditation retreats. The emotion of love is common, but the experience of love is not the same. Pujya Gurudevshri explains that love, when directed towards the Divine alone can bring the experience of true happiness
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 recognizes 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 realized.
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 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
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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
