BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

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Posted by: " Uttishthata " uttishthata

Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:08 pm (PST)

 

BHAKTI OR DEVOTION - Swami Vivekananda

 

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 the 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.

 

The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda Volume 2 [ Page : 50 ]

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QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for

those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for

yourself. Face the truth.

- Katherine Mansfield