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BHAKTI OR DEVOTION
The idea of a Personal God has obtained in almost every religion, except a very few. With the exception of the Buddhist and the Jain, perhaps all the religions of the world have the idea of a Personal God, and with it comes the idea of devotion and worship. The Buddhists and the Jains, although they have no Personal God, worship the founders of their religions in precisely the same way as others worship a Personal God. This idea of devotion and worship to some higher being who can reflect back the love to man is universal. In various religions this love and devotion is manifested in various degrees, at different stages. The lowest stage is that of ritualism, when abstract ideas are almost impossible, and are dragged down to the lowest plane, and made concrete. Forms come into play, and, along with them, various symbols. Throughout the history of the world, we find that man is trying to grasp the abstract through thought-forms, or symbols. All the external manifestations of religion — bells, music, rituals, books, and images — come under that head. Anything that appeals to the senses, anything that helps man to form a concrete image of the abstract, is taken hold of, and worshipped.
From time to time, there have been reformers in every religion who have stood against all symbols and rituals. But vain has been their opposition, for so long as man will remain as he is, the vast majority will always want something concrete to hold on to, something around which, as it were, to place their ideas, something which will be the centre of all the thought-forms in their minds. The great attempts of the Mohammedans and of the Protestants have been directed to this one end, of doing away with all rituals, and yet we find that even with them, rituals have crept in. They cannot be kept out; after long struggle, the masses simply change one symbol for another. The Mohammedan, who thinks that every ritual, every form, image, or ceremony, used by a non-Mohammedan is sinful, does not think so when he comes to his own shrine, the Caaba. Every religious Mohammedan wherever he prays, must imagine that he is standing before the Caaba. When he makes a pilgrimage there, he must kiss the black stone in the wall of the shrine. All the kisses that have been imprinted on that stone, by millions and millions of pilgrims, will stand up as witnesses for the benefit of the faithful on the last day of judgment. Then, there is the well of Zimzim. Mohammedans believe that whoever draws a little water out of that well will have his sins pardoned, and he will, after the day of resurrection, have a fresh body, and live for ever. In others, we find that the symbology comes in the form of buildings. Protestants hold that churches are more sacred than other places. The church, as it is, stands for a symbol. Or there is the Book. The idea of the Book to them, is much holier than any other symbol.
It is vain to preach against the use of symbols, and why should we preach against them? There is no reason why man should not use symbols. They have them in order to represent the ideas signified behind them. This universe is a symbol, in and through which we are trying to grasp the thing signified, which is beyond and behind. The spirit is the goal, and not matter. Forms, images, bells, candles, books, churches, temples, and all holy symbols are very good, very helpful to the growing plant of spirituality, but thus far and no farther. In the test majority of cases, we find that the plant does not grow. It is very good to he born in a church, but it is very bad to die in a church. It is very good to be born within the limits of certain forms that help the little plant of spirituality, but if a man dies within the bounds of these forms, it shows that he has not grown, that there has been no development of the soul.
If, therefore, any one says that symbols, rituals, and forms are to be kept for ever, he is wrong; but if he says, that these symbols and rituals are a help to the growth of the soul, in its low and undeveloped state, he is right. But, you must not mistake this development of the soul as meaning anything intellectual. A man can be of gigantic intellect, yet spiritually he may be a baby. You can verify it this moment. All of you have been taught to believe in an Omnipresent God. Try to think of it. How few of you can have any idea of what omnipresence means! If you struggle hard, you will get something like the idea of the ocean, or of the sky, or of a vast stretch of green earth, or of a desert. All these are material images, and so long as you cannot conceive of the abstract as abstract, of the ideal as the ideal, you will have to resort to these forms, these material images. It does not make much difference whether these images are inside or outside the mind. We are all born idolaters, and idolatry is good, because it is in the nature of man. Who can get beyond it? Only the perfect man, the God-man. The rest are all idolaters. So long as we see this universe before us, with its forms and shapes, we are all idolaters. This is a gigantic symbol we are worshipping. He who says he is the body is a born idolater. We are spirit, spirit that has no form or shape, spirit that is infinite, and not matter. Therefore, anyone who cannot grasp the abstract, who cannot think of himself as he is, except in and through matter, as the body, is an idolater. And yet how people fight among themselves, calling one another idolaters! In other words, each says, his idol is right, and the others' are wrong.
Therefore, we should get rid of these childish notions. We should get beyond the prattle of men who think that religion is merely a mass of frothy words, that it is only a system of doctrines; to whom religion is only a little intellectual assent or dissent; to whom religion is believing in certain words which their own priests tell them; to whom religion is something which their forefathers believed; to whom religion is a certain form of ideas and superstitions to which they cling because they are their national superstitions. We should get beyond all these and look at humanity as one vast organism, slowly coming towards light — a wonderful plant, slowly unfolding itself to that wonderful truth which is called God — and the first gyrations, the first motions, towards this are always through matter and through ritual.
In the heart of all these ritualisms, there stands one idea prominent above all the rest — the worship of a name. Those of you who have studied the older forms of Christianity, those of you who have studied the other religions of the world, perhaps have marked that there is this idea with them all, the worship of a name. A name is said to be very sacred. In the Bible we read that the holy name of God was considered sacred beyond compare, holy beyond everything. It was the holiest of all names, and it was thought that this very Word was God. This is quite true. What is this universe but name and form? Can you think without words? Word and thought are inseparable. Try if any one of you can separate them. Whenever you think, you are doing so through word forms. The one brings the other; thought brings the word, and the word brings the thought. Thus the whole universe is, as it were, the external symbol of God, and behind that stands His grand name. Each particular body is a form, and behind that particular body is its name. As soon as you think of our friend So-and-so, there comes the idea of his body, and as soon as you think of your friend's body, you get the idea of his name. This is in the constitution of man. That is to say, psychologically, in the mind-stuff of man, there cannot come the idea of name without the idea of form, and there cannot come the idea of form without the idea of name. They are inseparable; they are the external and the internal sides of the same wave. As such, names have been exalted and worshipped all over the world — consciously or unconsciously, man found the glory of names.
Again, we find that in many different religions, holy personages have been worshipped. They worship Krishna, they worship Buddha, they worship Jesus, and so forth. Then, there is the worship of saints; hundreds of them have been worshipped all over the world, and why not? The vibration of light is everywhere. The owl sees it in the dark. That shows it is there, though man cannot see it. To man, that vibration is only visible in the lamp, in the sun, in the moon, etc. God is omnipresent, He is manifesting Himself in every being; but for men, He is only visible, recognisable, in man. When His light, His presence, His spirit, shines through the human face, then and then alone, can man understand Him. Thus, man has been worshipping God through men all the time, and must do so as long as he is a man. He may cry against it, struggle against it, but as soon as he attempts to realise God, he will find the constitutional necessity of thinking of God as a man.
So we find that in almost every religion these are the three
primary things which we have in the worship of God — forms or symbols, names,
God-men. All religions have these, but you find that they want to fight with
each other. One says, "My name is the only name; my form is the only form;
and my God-men are the only God-men in the world; yours are simply myths."
In modern times, Christian clergymen have become a little kinder, and they
allow that in the older religions, the different forms of worship were
foreshadowings of Christianity, which of course, they consider, is the only
true form. God tested Himself in older times, tested His powers by getting these
things into shape which culminated in Christianity. This, at least, is a
great advance. Fifty years ago they would not have said even that; nothing was
true except their own religion. This idea is not limited to any religion,
nation, or class of persons; people are always thinking that the only right
thing to be done by others is what they themselves are doing. And it is here
that the study of different religions helps us. It shows us that the same thoughts
that we have been calling ours, and ours alone, were present hundreds of years
ago in others, and sometimes even in a better form of expression than our own. These are the external forms of devotion, through which man has to pass; but
if he is sincere, if he really wants to reach the truth, he goes higher than
these, to a plane where forms are as nothing. Temples or churches, books or
forms, are simply the kindergarten of religion, to make the spiritual child
strong enough to take higher steps; and these first steps are necessary if he
wants religion. With the thirst, the longing for God, comes real devotion, real
Bhakti. Who has the longing? That is the question. Religion is not in
doctrines, in dogmas, nor in intellectual argumentation; it is being and
becoming, it is realisation. We hear so many talking about God and the soul,
and all the mysteries of the universe, but if you take them one by one, and ask
them, "Have you realised God? Have you seen your Soul?" — how many
can say they have? And yet they are all fighting with one another! At one time,
in India, representatives of different sects met together and began to dispute.
One said that the only God was Shiva; another said, the only God was Vishnu,
and so on; and there was no end to their discussion. A sage was passing that
way, and was invited by the disputants to decide the matter. He first asked the
man who was claiming Shiva as the greatest God, "Have you seen Shiva? Are
you acquainted with Him? If not, how do you know He is the greatest God?"
Then turning to the worshipper
of Vishnu, he asked, "Have you seen
Vishnu?" And after asking this question to all of them, he found out that
not one of them knew anything of God. That was why they were disputing so much,
for had they really known, they would not have argued. When a jar is being
filled with water, it makes a noise, but when it is full, there is no noise.
So, the very fact of these disputations and fighting among sects shows that
they do not know anything about religion. Religion to them is a mere mass of
frothy words, to be written in books. Each one hurries to write a big book, to
make it as massive as possible, stealing his materials from every book he can
lay his hands upon, and never acknowledging his indebtedness. Then he launches
this book upon the world, adding to the disturbance that is already existing
there. The vast majority of men are atheists. I am glad that, in modern times,
another class of atheists has come into existence in the Western world — I mean
the materialists. They are sincere atheists. They are better than the religious
atheists, who are insincere, who fight and talk about religion, and yet do not
want it, never try to realise it, never try to understand it. Remember the
words of Christ: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened unto you." These words are literally true,
not figures or fiction. They were the outflow of the heart's blood of one of
the greatest sons of God who have ever come to this world of ours; words which
came as the fruit of realisation, from a man who had felt and realised God
himself; who had spoken with God, lived with God, a hundred times more
intensely than you or I see this building. Who wants God? That is the question.
Do you think that all this mass of people in the world want God, and cannot get
Him? That cannot be. What want is there without its object outside? Man wants
to breathe, and there is air for him to breathe. Man wants to eat, and there is
food to eat. What creates these
desires? The existence of external things. It
was the light that made the eyes; it was the sound that made the ears. So every
desire in human beings has been created by something which already existed
outside. This desire for perfection, for reaching the goal and getting beyond
nature, how can it be there, until something has created it and drilled it into
the soul of man, and makes it live there? He, therefore, in whom this desire is
awakened, will reach the goal. We want everything but God. This is not religion
that you see all around you. My lady has furniture in her parlour, from all
over the world, and now it is the fashion to have something Japanese; so she
buys a vase and puts it in her room. Such is religion with the vast majority;
they have all sorts of things for enjoyment, and unless they add a little
flavour of religion, life is not all right, because society would criticise
them. Society expects it; so they must have some religion. This is the present
state of religion in the world. A disciple went to his master and said to him, "Sir, I want
religion." The master looked at the young man, and did not speak, but only
smiled. The young man came every day, and insisted that he wanted religion. But
the old man knew better than the young man. One day, when it was very hot, he
asked the young man to go to the river with him and take a plunge. The young
man plunged in, and the old man followed him and held the young man down under
the water by force. After the young man had struggled for a while, he let him
go and asked him what he wanted most while he was under the water. "A
breath of air", the disciple answered. "Do you want God in that way?
If you do, you will get Him in a moment," said the master. Until you have
that thirst, that desire, you cannot get religion, however you may struggle
with your intellect, or your books, or your forms. Until that thirst is
awakened in you, you are no better than any atheist; only the atheist is
sincere, and you are not. A great sage used to say, "Suppose there is a thief in a room, and
somehow he comes to know that there is a vast mass of gold in the next room,
and that there is only a thin partition between the two rooms What would be the
condition of that thief? He would be sleepless, he would not be able to eat or
do anything. His whole mind would be on getting that gold. Do you mean to say
that, if all these people really believed that the Mine of Happiness, of
Blessedness, of Glory were here, they would act as they do in the world,
without trying to get God?" As soon as a man begins to believe there is a
God, he becomes mad with longing to get to Him. Others may go their way, but as
soon as a man is sure that there is a much higher life than that which he is
leading here, as soon as he feels sure that the senses are not all, that this
limited, material body is as nothing compared with the immortal, eternal,
undying bliss of the Self, he becomes mad until he finds out this bliss for
himself. And this madness, this thirst, this mania, is what is called the
"awakening" to religion, and when that has come, a man is beginning
to be religious. But it takes a long time. All these forms and ceremonies,
these prayers and pilgrimages, these books, bells, candles, and priests, are
the preparations; they take off the impurities from the soul. And when the soul
has become pure, it naturally wants to get to the mine of all purity, God
Himself. Just as a piece of iron, which had been covered with the dust of
centuries, might be lying near a magnet all the time, and yet not be attracted
by it, but as soon as the dust is cleared away, the iron is drawn by the
magnet; so, when the human soul, covered with the dust of ages, impurities,
wickednesses, and sins, after many births, becomes purified enough by these
forms and ceremonies, by doing good to others, loving other beings, its natural
spiritual attraction comes, it wakes up and struggles towards God. A certain great king went to hunt in a forest, and there he happened to meet
a sage. He had a little conversation with him and became so pleased with him
that he asked him to accept a present from him. "No," said the sage,
"I am perfectly satisfied with my condition; these trees give me enough
fruit to eat; these beautiful pure streams supply me with all the water I want;
I sleep in these caves. What do I care for your presents, though you be an
emperor?" The emperor said, "Just to purify me, to gratify me, come
with me into the city and take some present." At last the sage consented
to go with the emperor, and he was taken into the emperor's palace, where there
were gold, jewellery, marble, and most wonderful things. Wealth and power were
manifest everywhere. The emperor asked the sage to wait a minute, while he
repeated his prayer, and he went into a corner and began to pray, "Lord,
give me more wealth, more children, more territory." In the meanwhile, the
sage got up and began to walk away. The emperor saw him going and went after
him. "Stay, Sir, you did not
take my present and are going away." The
sage turned to him and said, "Beggar, I do not beg of beggars. What can
you give? You have been begging yourself all the time." That is not the
language of love. What is the difference between love and shopkeeping, if you
ask God to give you this, and give you that? The first test of love is that it
knows no bargaining. Love is always the giver, and never the taker. Says the
child of God, "If God wants, I give Him my everything, but I do not want
anything of Him. I want nothing in this universe. I love Him, because I want to
love Him, and I ask no favour in return. Who cares whether God is almighty or
not? I do not want any power from Him nor any manifestation of His power.
Sufficient for me that He is the God of love. I ask no more question." The second test is that love knows no fear. So long as man thinks of God as
a Being sitting above the clouds, with rewards in one hand and punishments in
the other, there can be no love. Can you frighten one into love? Does the lamb
love the lion? The mouse, the cat? The slave, the master? Slaves sometimes
simulate love, but is it love? Where do you ever see love in fear? It is always
a sham. With love never comes the idea of fear. Think of a young mother in the
street: if a dog barks at her, she flees into the nearest house. The next day
she is in the street with her child, and suppose a lion rushes upon the child,
where will be her position? Just at the mouth of the lion, protecting her
child. Love conquered all her fear. So also in the love of God. Who cares
whether God is a rewarder or a punisher? That is not the thought of a lover.
Think of a judge when he comes home, what does his wife see in him? Not a
judge, or a rewarder or punisher, but her husband, her love. What do his
children see in him? Their loving father, not the punisher or rewarder. So the
children of God never see in Him a punisher or a rewarder. It is only people
who have never tasted of
love that fear and quake. Cast off all fear — though
these horrible ideas of God as a punisher or rewarder may have their use in
savage minds. Some men, even the most intellectual, are spiritual savages, and
these ideas may help them. But to men who are spiritual, men who are
approaching religion, in whom spiritual insight is awakened, such ideas are
simply childish, simply foolish. Such men reject all ideas of fear. The third is a still higher test. Love is always the highest ideal. When one
has passed through the first two stages, when one has thrown off all
shopkeeping, and cast off all fear, one then begins to realise that love is
always the highest ideal. How many times in this world we see a beautiful woman
loving an ugly man? How many times we see a handsome man loving an ugly woman!
What is the attraction? Lookers-on only see the ugly man or the ugly woman, but
not so the lover; to the lover the beloved is the most beautiful being that
ever existed. How is it? The woman who loves the ugly man takes, as it were,
the ideal of beauty which is in her own mind, and projects it on this ugly man;
and what she worships and loves is not the ugly man, but her own ideal. That
man is, as it were, only the suggestion, and upon that suggestion she throws
her own ideal, and covers it; and it becomes her object of worship. Now, this
applies in every case where we love. Many of us have very ordinary looking
brothers or sisters; yet the very idea of their being brothers or sisters makes
them beautiful to us. The philosophy in the background is that each one projects his own ideal and
worships that. This external world is only the world of suggestion. All that we
see, we project out of our own minds. A grain of sand gets washed into the
shell of an oyster and irritates it. The irritation produces a secretion in the
oyster, which covers the grain of sand and the beautiful pearl is the result.
Similarly, external things furnish us with suggestions, over
which we project
our own ideals and make our objects. The wicked see this world as a perfect
hell, and the good as a perfect heaven. Lovers see this world as full of love,
and haters as full of hatred; fighters see nothing but strife, and the peaceful
nothing but peace. The perfect man sees nothing but God. So we always worship
our highest ideal, and when we have reached the point, when we love the ideal
as the ideal, all arguments and doubts vanish for ever. Who cares whether God
can be demonstrated or not? The ideal can never go, because it is a part of my
own nature. I shall only question the ideal when I question my own existence,
and as I cannot question the one, I cannot question the other. Who cares
whether God can be almighty and all-merciful at the same time or not ? Who
cares whether He is the rewarder of mankind, whether He looks at us with the
eyes of a tyrant or with the eyes of a beneficent monarch? The lover has passed beyond all these things, beyond rewards and
punishments, beyond fears and doubts, beyond scientific or any other
demonstration. Sufficient unto him is the ideal of love, and is it not
self-evident that this universe is but a manifestation of this love? What is it
that makes atoms unite with atoms, molecules with molecules, and causes planets
to fly towards each other? What is it that attracts man to man, man to woman,
woman to man, and animals to animals, drawing the whole universe, as it were,
towards one centre? It is what is called love. Its manifestation is from the
lowest atom to the highest being: omnipotent, all-pervading, is this love. What
manifests itself as attraction in the sentient and the insentient, in the
particular and in the universal, is the love of God. It is the one motive power
that is in the universe. Under the impetus of that love, Christ gives his life
for humanity, Buddha even for an animal, the mother for the child, the husband
for the wife. It is under the impetus of the same love that men are ready to
give up
their lives for their country, and strange to say, under the impetus of
the same love, the thief steals, the murderer murders. Even in these cases, the
spirit is the same, but the manifestation is different. This is the one motive
power in the universe. The thief has love for gold; the love is there, but it
is misdirected. So, in all crimes, as well as in all virtuous actions, behind
stands that eternal love. Suppose a man writes a cheque for a thousand dollars
for the poor of New York, and at the same time, in the same room, another man
forges the name of a friend. The light by which both of them write is the same,
but each one will be responsible for the use he makes of it. It is not the
light that is to be praised or blamed. Unattached, yet shining in everything,
is love, the motive power of the universe, without which the universe would
fall to pieces in a moment, and this love is God. "None, O beloved, loves the husband for the husband's sake, but for the
Self that is in the husband; none, O beloved, ever loves the wife for the
wife's sake, but for the Self that is in the wife. None ever loves anything else,
except for the Self." Even this selfishness, which is so much condemned,
is but a manifestation of the same love. Stand aside from this play, do not mix
in it, but see this wonderful panorama, this grand drama, played scene after
scene, and hear this wonderful harmony; all are the manifestation of the same
love. Even in selfishness, that self will multiply, grow and grow. That one
self, the one man, will become two selves when he gets married; several, when
he gets children; and thus he grows until he feels the whole world as his Self,
the whole universe as his Self. He expands into one mass of universal love,
infinite love — the love that is God. Thus we come to what is called supreme Bhakti, supreme devotion, in which
forms and symbols fall off. One who has reached that cannot belong to any sect, for
all sects are in him. To what shall he belong? For all churches and temples
are in him. Where is the church big enough for him? Such a man cannot bind
himself down to certain limited forms. Where is the limit for unlimited love,
with which he has become one? In all religions which take up this ideal of
love, we find the struggle to express it. Although we understand what this love
means and see that everything in this world of affections and attractions is a
manifestation of that Infinite Love, the expression of which has been attempted
by sages and saints of different nations, yet we find them using all the powers
of language, transfiguring even the most carnal expression into the divine. Thus sang the royal Hebrew sage, thus sang they of India. "O beloved,
one kiss of Thy lips! Kissed by Thee, one's thirst for Thee increaseth for
ever! All sorrows cease, one forgets the past, present, and future, and only
thinks of Thee alone." That is the madness of the lover, when all desires
have vanished. "Who cares for salvation? Who cares to be saved? Who cares
to be perfect even? Who cares for freedom?" — says the lover. "I do
not want wealth, nor even health; I do not want beauty, I do not want intellect:
let me be born again and again, amid all the evils that are in the world; I
will not complain, but let me love Thee, and that for love's sake." That is the madness of love which finds expression in these songs. The
highest, most expressive, strongest, and most attractive human love is that
between man and woman, and, therefore, that language was used in expressing the
deepest devotion. The madness of this human love was the faintest echo of the
mad love of the saints. The true lovers of God want to become mad, inebriated
with the love of God, to become "God-intoxicated men". They want to
drink of the cup of love which has been prepared by the saints and sages of
every religion, who
have poured their heart's blood into it, and in which hare
been concentrated all the hopes of those who have loved God without seeking
reward, who wanted love for itself only. The reward of love is love, and what a
reward it is! It is the only thing that takes off all sorrows, the only cup, by
the drinking of which this disease of the world vanishes Man becomes divinely
mad and forgets that be is man. Lastly, we find that all these various systems, in the end,
converge to that one point, that perfect union. We always begin as dualists.
God is a separate Being, and I am a separate being. Love comes between, and man
begins to approach God, and God, as it were, begins to approach man. Man takes
up all the various relationships of life, as father, mother, friend, or lover;
and the last point is reached when he becomes one with the object of worship.
"I am you, and you are I; and worshipping you, I worship myself; and in
worshipping myself, I worship you." There we find the highest culmination
of that with which man begins. At the beginning it was love for the self, but
the claims of the little self made love selfish; at the end came the full blaze
of light, when that self had become the Infinite. That God who at first was a
Being somewhere, became resolved, as it were, into Infinite Love. Man himself
was also transformed. He was approaching God, he was throwing off all vain
desires, of which he was full before. With desires vanished selfishness, and,
at the apex, he found that Love, Lover, and Beloved were One.