Importance of Guru Bhakti
Here is bhakti yoga in a nutshell. Select an ishta devata (a favourite deity) - either Siva, Rama, Krishna, Vishnu, Dattatreya, Gayatri or Sakti - according to the advice of your guru, or your own inclination. Get the proper mantra (a mystic formula). Then keep a picture of that particular deity in front of you in the meditation room. For six months gaze steadily at the picture from fifteen seconds to fifteen minutes. Concentrate on the figure, without winking, until the tears flow profusely.
Study the scriptures constantly - the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Narada Bhakti Sutras and the Sandilya Sutras. Live for one year in a holy place. Pass through the course of Nava Vidha Bhakti (nine devotional practices). Repeat your mantra constantly. Sleep only for three hours. Select an attitude suitable for you madhurya sakhya, dasya or vatsalya (lover beloved, friend, servant or mother child). Make ungrudging, unreserved, true, perfect self-surrender to God. Pray from the bottom of your heart. Prayer can move mountains. Prayer can reach a realm wherein reason can hardly enter.
Have devotion to one ideal. Bhakti must be unswerving, one pointed, single minded devotion. Slowly develop anuraga prema, priti, viraha (pain of separation from God), bhava, and maha bhava (stages or states of God love). In maha bhava the devotee is unconscious of his body and the world. He is absolutely merged in God. From lower bhakti the devotee passes on to higher (para) bhakti. A devotee gets progressive emancipation after passing through salokya, sampiya, sarupya and sayujya mukti stages in emancipation or liberation.
After enjoying lower mukti a devotee finally attains kaivalya moksha the same state as that of a jnani. An earnest seeker with perseverance can realise God within two or three years. I assure you emphatically. So make a sincere effort and watch the results. Follow Lord Krishna's instructions, given in the Bhagavad Gita and described as: macchitta, yukta, matpara- with the mind totally absorbed in God, united with God, with God as the goal and ideal.
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| Swami Sivananda and his Gurudev |
Study the scriptures constantly - the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the Narada Bhakti Sutras and the Sandilya Sutras. Live for one year in a holy place. Pass through the course of Nava Vidha Bhakti (nine devotional practices). Repeat your mantra constantly. Sleep only for three hours. Select an attitude suitable for you madhurya sakhya, dasya or vatsalya (lover beloved, friend, servant or mother child). Make ungrudging, unreserved, true, perfect self-surrender to God. Pray from the bottom of your heart. Prayer can move mountains. Prayer can reach a realm wherein reason can hardly enter.
Have devotion to one ideal. Bhakti must be unswerving, one pointed, single minded devotion. Slowly develop anuraga prema, priti, viraha (pain of separation from God), bhava, and maha bhava (stages or states of God love). In maha bhava the devotee is unconscious of his body and the world. He is absolutely merged in God. From lower bhakti the devotee passes on to higher (para) bhakti. A devotee gets progressive emancipation after passing through salokya, sampiya, sarupya and sayujya mukti stages in emancipation or liberation.
After enjoying lower mukti a devotee finally attains kaivalya moksha the same state as that of a jnani. An earnest seeker with perseverance can realise God within two or three years. I assure you emphatically. So make a sincere effort and watch the results. Follow Lord Krishna's instructions, given in the Bhagavad Gita and described as: macchitta, yukta, matpara- with the mind totally absorbed in God, united with God, with God as the goal and ideal.
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