Vivekananda Mailing List-1/23/04

[Guest guest]

Some of the great writers on Para-Bhakti have tried to understand and

experience this divine love in so many different ways. The lowest form

in which this love is apprehended is what they call the peaceful — the

Shânta. When a man worships God without the fire of love in him,

without its madness in his brain, when his love is just the calm

commonplace love, a little higher than mere forms and ceremonies and

symbols, but not at all characterized by the madness of intensely

active love, it is said to be Shanta. We see some people in the world

who like to move on slowly, and others who come and go like the

whirlwind. The Shânta-Bhakta is calm, peaceful, gentle.