WHO IS A TRUE DEVOTEE

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WHO IS A TRUE DEVOTEE

Various paths are prescribed for the progress of the soul to God or to

the awareness of its own eternal splendor and joy. Of these the simplest

and easiest is the path of devotion. The devotee looks upon God as his

supreme ideal and keeps Him ceaselessly in his thoughts to such an

extent as to be filled with the radiance, power and peace of the

Beloved. It is now that the veil between the devotee and the Beloved is

removed and there is the consciousness of the devotee's identity with

Him.

 

In the contemplation of the Beloved the devotee loses himself, and his

individual existence disappears. In its stead the inherent divine life

manifests, transforming him into the image of the Beloved. Devotion

therefore leads to complete self-surrender. When the heart is fired with

the burning zeal to meet and become one with the Beloved, the devotee's

life undergoes a radical change. His attachments to the ephemeral things

fall off. His mind and all his senses are athirst for feeling and

sensing God's presence through them. The devotee's heart cries and longs

for Him, eyes to see Him ears to hear Him, hands to touch Him, tongue to

taste Him and nose to smell Him. When a devotee thus finds his Beloved,

his experience can better be imagined than

described-perhaps it is not even possible to imagine it.

- Sri RADHAKRISHNA SWAMIJI

(Source Shri Sai Padananda April 1993)