Amritavani-Devotion

[Guest guest]

Namaste All,

 

Thought you may like this-------ONS..Tony.

 

Question – Amma, you seem to be giving more importance to devotion

than to any other path. Why is this so?

 

Amma -Children, when you say "devotion," do you mean just repeating

a mantra and singing devotional songs? Real devotion is to

discriminate between the eternal and the transitory; it is to

surrender yourself to the Infinite. What Amma advises is the

practical side of devotion.

 

The children (the brahmacharis and brahmacharinis of Amma's ashram)

who live here read many spiritual books and they ask Amma questions.

Amma usually gives them Vedantic answers. But when talking to lay

people, Amma gives more importance to devotion, because ninety

percent of the people are not intellectual. They haven't learned any

spiritual science before coming here. It isn't possible to teach

them the spiritual principles in just one day or during one darshan.

It is therefore wiser to give them advice that they can actually

live by. Amma also advises them to read spiritual books.

 

Advaita is the foundation. What Amma teaches is practical devotion

that is rooted in advaita.

 

Most of the people who come here are ignorant about spiritual

matters. They are familiar only with temple worship. About ten

percent of them may give some importance to knowledge and reason and

follow a different path. But we cannot neglect the others. Don't

they also need to be uplifted? So Amma gives advice according to the

level of people.

 

The prayers and devotional singing at the ashram are not just

prayers—they are spiritual practices done to awaken the real I

(Self) within us. It is a process of tuning the individual

consciousness to the Universal Consciousness, of tuning into the

Universal Self from the level of body, mind, and intellect.

 

There is no need to search for a God sitting somewhere beyond the

sky. God is the all-pervading Universal Consciousness. Still, we

advise people to meditate on a form, because a medium is necessary

to make the mind one-pointed. To construct a slab of concrete, we

first have to make a wooden frame, and it is into that frame that we

pour the concrete. When the concrete has set, we remove the frame.

This can be compared to worshipping a form. The form is required in

the beginning until the principles are firmly grasped. Once the mind

is firmly established in the Universal Self, there is no longer any

need for any such tools.

 

Only those who are humble can receive God's grace. In someone who

perceives God's presence in everything, there is no room for the

ego. So, the first quality we need to develop within ourselves is

humility. That is the purpose of the prayers and devotional singing

in the ashram. We should be humble in our every look, word, and

deed.

 

When a carpenter picks up a chisel to begin his work, he touches it

reverentially and bows to it to invoke a blessing. The chisel is

just a tool he uses for his work, yet he bows to it. We pick up the

harmonium only after touching it with reverence and bowing to it. It

is part of our culture to show reverence towards an object before

using it. Why do we show such respect to the objects we use? It is

to behold God in everything that we do this. Our ancestors were

aiming to attain a state of egolessness through this practice.

Similarly, prayer is an _expression of humility; it is a way to

eliminate the ego.

 

Some people may ask if prayers can't be done in silence. Some people

may prefer to read in silence, while others need to read aloud. Some

people can understand things only if they read aloud. We cannot tell

someone who reads aloud when studying, "Don't read so loudly! You

should read quietly, like me!" Some people get more concentration by

praying aloud, while others prefer to pray silently. Similarly, for

different types of people different spiritual paths are required.

All paths lead to the ultimate.

 

Many people say, "Amma, when I meditate with my eyes closed, a lot

of thoughts continuously arise in the mind, but when I sing bhajans

and pray, I get concentration." The purpose of spiritual practice is

to make the mind one-pointed. When we discriminate and say, "I am

not the body, nor the mind, nor the intellect," thus following

the "neti, neti" path, we are using another way to reach the Supreme

Being. The purpose of prayers and bhajans are the same.

 

Is there any religion in which devotion and prayer do not have a

place? You will find both devotion and prayer in Buddhism,

Christianity, and Islam. All these religions also have the master-

disciple relationship. The master-disciple relationship can even be

found on the non-dualistic path. So even on that path, in the master-

disciple relationship, duality exists. Isn't devotion to the master

devotion?

 

Through our prayers we are trying to imbibe divine qualities; we are

trying to realize the Absolute. Prayer is not weakness; it is a

powerful step towards God.