THE GOSPEL OF LOVE

THE LOGIC OF DEVOTION

AN ANCIENT VEDIC TREATISE

ON THE SUBJECT OF

DIVINE LOVE

COMMETARY BY

JAMES SWARTZ

1996

INTRODUCTION

Every day roughly six billion humans wake up, have breakfast, and set out on their life’s course in search of something meant to make them a little happier than the day before. Successful or not, the same six billion get up the next day hoping it will bring happiness.

A fellow gets a house. Is he satisfied? Next he needs a wife. Is that then end of it? Not on your life. Kids, grandkids, a place in the country, a trip around the world - the list goes on. Until the day he dies the sense that life still has something to offer lingers in his mind. Were he to be reborn a thousand lifetimes and garner untold experience, our hypothetical person would get up in the morning and set out on the quest to find something he or she didn’t have.

So the question is, “If I felt whole and complete and unconditionally loved myself as I am, would I chase happiness outside myself?” Would I strive ceaselessly from dawn to dusk, subject myself to untold inconvenience, and take endless risks to get something - freedom from want - that seems largely unattainable? If I had peace of mind, wouldn’t I ignore the alarm clock, sleep till ten, and read the morning paper over coffee and doughnuts at the cafe on the corner?

By and large most of us aren’t that happy, even those who think they are. A nagging sense of insufficiency trails us wherever we go like a needy little dog. We work hard with the best intentions, do everything right, yet some small emotional grain of sand always manages to foul up the works of our clocklike lives. However, moments of true happiness, when we feel adequate and complete and our sense of self is perfect, do happen. Not frequently, mind you, but often enough to make us wonder why the feeling can’t last forever.

For thousands of years a perennial spiritual culture has been saying that it can, that the very nature of the Self, like these moments, is peaceful, wise, loving, and desireless. Keeping our eyes peeled as we move along our paths, we encounter people who are completely happy, who express what could be called pure love, Mother Theresa for instance. And it’s not surprising that such souls are greatly revered, are, in fact, never forgotten, Jesus for example.

It might be argued that these people had been arbitrarily blessed by an unknown and mysterious fate, but the paths leading to peace of mind are well-trodden.

The path of action says that an abiding mind comes when the source of our discomfort, the Unconscious, is cleansed, and counsels substituting a service-oriented attitude for the selfish grasping state that motivates so many of our activities. As the Unconscious empties wholeness and peace dawn.

The path of knowledge says there’s nothing to do. We’re already OK. All that’s lacking is the realization of the real Self which is whole, complete, and loving by nature. The work lies in teaching the mind to discriminate between those ephemeral things that bring dissatisfaction, and the eternal Self, the source of lasting satisfaction.

The path of mediation asks that we control and discipline the mind, redirecting it to the Source, God.

The path of love, the subject of the Gospel, is the easiest because Love is our nature. All that’s required is that we love God.

WHO IS GOD?

God, Happiness, Love as the most universally coveted experience is never a problem, but the word “God” has become one. Originally, it probably meant “good,” in the sense of that which is always good, true, and real. But now, because of centuries of accumulated baggage, the meaning has become obscured. Thinking about God, the Good, apart from our experience, is always difficult because It isn’t knowable by the senses and mind, remaining an abstraction, subject for debate by theologians and philosophers. The most common way of dealing with the problem has been to create a more user-friendly abstraction by turning the nameless formless Love that is our nature, the source of all goodness, into a person.

The difference between a person and a being is negligible. In fact a person is a being. And Love, in spite of its formlessness, though not necessarily a being, is Being - what is. Our “beingness” as people derives from Love’s being, or to use religious terminology, we are “cast in the image of God.” So personifying the impersonal is not a problem spiritually if we actually know what the Impersonal is.

To project, the mind needs a substrate, something whose nature is subtle enough to appear when perceived under certain conditions as something it isn’t. If the mind isn’t completely clear when it perceives the substrate, in this case Love or God, its fears, desires, opinions and prejudices condition the perception, just as clear water seen through a colored glass appears colored. Projection is by definition unconscious, so the religious mind has unconsciously developed views of God not completely in harmony with God’s nature, the wrathful jealous Old Testament picture of God, for instance. Nonetheless, the mind’s impurities, not God or the word “God” is the problem.

So when these commentaries, in keeping with the text, refer to God they are not thinking of It as a jealous, vengeful, arbitrary, judgmental, authoritarian, white-bearded old man in a physical Heaven. The Old Testament was probably put together by a number of sincere religious men whose minds were burdened with concepts of jealousy, vengeance, power, majesty, and glory. In fact, the second verse, the beginning of the text proper, defines God in a completely experienciable non-conceptual impersonal way.

However, not everyone can initially realize God’s nature, so concepts (words) are necessary to turn the heart inward toward God. The path of meditation, for example, refers to God as the forth “state of Consciousness,” the object of meditation. Is God, Love, a state? If a state is subject to change then God is not a State. Even the Old Testament agrees, calling God, “The Eternal.” Because it carries the sense of something unconscious, the word "state" probably isn't the best. The dream state, for example, is not conscious but a condition created when God shines through the dream ego. So if the forth state is not conscious, then it isn't God, because God is Consciousness. But if we define the forth state as Consciousness then it is the only conscious state, the only unchanging state. Even calling God "conscious" could be misleading because of the implication that It might become unconscious.

Different words appeal to different people. God, Consciousness, is often called the "I." In a way it's a good symbol because the "I" we know in everyday life, the ego, is a conscious being, but unlike the ego, God doesn't have a personality, suffer, die, sleep, eat, or breathe. So its non-similarity to the ego is easily greater than its similarity. "Self" is a good word too because it conveys the idea of something essential. You can get along in this world with just about everything except a self. But it's not a good word because we tend to think of the ego when the word "self" is used. And the Self, for various reasons, especially with regard to love limitation, isn't an ego.

With each of the thousands of symbols something is appropriate, something not so appropriate, something stated, something implied. It probably doesn't matter what symbol is used as long as an important quality of God is highlighted. But, by definition, a symbol can only partially convey the symbolized. Nonetheless, contemplated with understanding and faith, religious symbols should transport us to the inner experienceable state of universal Love, not feed the mind with ideas about God.

The unauthored text that follows, which provides a long list of purified symbols, is of indeterminate origin, its ideas as old as the hills. I came in contact with it in India where it is highly revered and appears under the title, “Narada Bhakti Sutra,” loosely translated as “Narada’s Train of Thought on Divine Love.” Narada was evidently not a “real” person, but a mythological celestial musician who flitted between the worlds of the gods and men, waking people up to Love. Although in India, where the psycho-spiritual or mythological view is highly developed, people see the gods as at least as real as humans, as a non-Indian I found the title difficult, hence “The Gospel of Love.”

When I think of the Gospel I see a stately mansion on a country hill looking out over a pristine river valley, surrounded by a graceful cluster of old oaks. Time has been kind, according it the patina of lives well-spent. About twenty five years ago I came along, sat on the verandah and looked on the ever-changing world. Something happened and I received a wonderful gift. The other day I got to leave and noticed that it needed another coat of paint and some minor repairs.

Scripture is much more than words. Like the house on the hill it can undergo modification without loosing value, if we stay true to the spirit of the Architect. Taking it out of Sanskrit doesn’t harm it. In fact it does well in English. I like it because it doesn’t stoop to dogma. Nor does it get fascinated with its brilliance, but patiently and humbly sticks to its subject. The organization bothered me a bit at first, but my attempt to rearrange the verses failed. Then I realized that it was so sure of itself it could afford to be natural and spontaneous. Like a gnarly old oak, it has sucked diverse nutrients from human devotional soil, absorbed and assimilated them into one wonderful eternally living form. It will continue to give shelter and shade forever.

Now, therefore, we shall reveal the Gospel of Love.

The first human to know God was probably the first human. For who has not, having journeyed into the backcountry anywhere, dwarfed by the immense grandeur of nature, noticed the civilized mind begin to gently dissolve into the silent timelessness of the elemental? And, in the face of such splendor, felt the electric arc of Divine Love flowing between oneself and the body of the Eternal? Just being there, alive and unencumbered by memory as the first of our species must have been, encompassed by the awesome beauty of life, is to know God.

In those times, unlike today, to know was the rule rather than the exception. Probably nobody made much of it. But, when civilization developed and nature became an adversary to be conquered, exploited, and manipulated, it was time for the heart, ever in search of meaning, to begin the difficult and subtle quest within.

The feeling of oneness that invariably comes when we experience identity with life is religion, spirituality. Our holy ancestors had no need of churches, synagogues, mosques, and written scripture. Life itself was seen as a vast open-air temple, nature a sacred scripture, and the body a living altar in which the flame of Love, the Holy Spirit, reverently burned in devotional purity. Wishing to preserve their vision for the coming generations, the blessed ones developed spiritual culture.

Endowing them with lofty standing, society entrusted its most promising minds to their care. In those days spiritually-inclined young people routinely spent years in forest hermitages, learning the inner way, developing spiritually before returning to the society to marry and assume their responsibilities. A number never returned but followed their hearts, wandering in search of Truth. One could find them holed up in caves on the banks of holy rivers or cloistered in monasteries practicing austerities and devotions - living lives of contemplation, prayer and meditation, the foundation of the spiritual path.

It was a common sight then, and even today in cultures still in touch with their spiritual roots, to come upon a small group sitting in the morning sun under a tree near a stupa, temple, or mosque, or in the courtyard of a hermitage listening to a discourse by someone whose heart vibrated with love, whose mind sparkled with wisdom. And in that dynamic communion a passionate love of God was awakened in their hearts.

This text, undoubtedly heard countless times throughout the ages, is addressed to an ethical, cultured, non-attached, discriminating person with an inquiring mind who, through conscious living, has come to the conclusion that worldly happiness is not enough, and seeks to know and love the great mystery beyond.

The Gospel is not apologetics, dogma, or an evangelical polemic intended to convert the atheist, agnostic, or cynic to the religious point of view, but a meditative treatise intended to reveal God’s love in moments of deep reflection and contemplation.

***

“Now, therefore, we..” The royal “we” suggests the lineage, the perennial tradition from which the ideas on Divine Love spring. The Gospel’s ideas are neither the personal mystic theories of a prophet or the speculations of a spiritually-inclined poet or philosopher, but time-tested and universally respected truths. Such works have endured because they embody our highest ideals as revealed through an ancient yet extant culture of holy beings. The author might be conceived of as the Infinite Spirit’s response to the devotional yearnings of humanity.

Devotion is intense exclusive love of This.

No verbal definition of love is given in the beginning because the Gospel knows that to define is, in some sense, to defile. The verse uses the neuter pronoun, “This” to suggest that devotion is a palpable, ever-present experience, not only to avoid sectarianism, but because to think of the object of devotion as a “God” outside oneself in a transcendental sky or faraway heaven is to turn a self-evident reality into an object of blind faith.

The God “This” is immediate and perceivable, the innermost Self, ( “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”), nearest of the near, that because of which we exist, the Consciousness in whose light we “live and move and have our being.” “This” is the GodSelf, the spiritual mother-father of the psyche or self, our individuality. Devotion is love of Self, not love of self.

Devotion is both intense and exclusive. According to the Gospel, love tied up with material things or psychological states (feelings, ideas, and people) does not qualify as devotion, although usage occasionally dignifies love of objects with the term. Devotion is exclusive love of God. Lest the concern arise that loving God excludes love of sentient beings, it should be noted that all beings are embodied God - “man created in God’s image.” Therefore, love of God includes love of everything that exists. However, loving God’s forms without understanding that they are in essence God, is merely emotion, not devotion.

More than a Sunday-only attraction to religion and its forms or blind belief in an immanent or transcendental deity, Devotion is as exclusive, intense, attractive, and liberating as youth’s first love. All feelings and thoughts constantly stream inward toward the Beloved in response to the universal and compassionate outpouring of Love from the all-pervasive Heart, creating passionate attachment.

It is Immortal Bliss[1]

Why, in spite of overwhelming evidence, do we consistently believe that our human loves should last forever? No matter how passionately we project immortality and divinity, no matter how hard we try to keep them pure, they always seem to entangle themselves in a finite web of circumstances - emotions, feelings, desires, fears, fantasies, dreams, the flesh rather than spirit - that inevitably lead to disillusionment and grief. How insecure we become trying to insulate love from change, protect it from the ravenous jaws of desire, salvage it from the monstrous clutches of time. Yet in spite of all our good intentions, love comes and goes, bringing ups and downs, joys and sorrows.

But Devotion, the immediate experience[2] of the innermost Self, never dies. Because it never dies, it is considered bliss. Though all descriptions somewhat miss the mark, a devotee describes it. “The exclusive love of God is real nectar, the sweetest thing that can be possessed. Whoever has it attains immortality. Desire love is equivalent to death. Within the heart of the devotee only the pure ever-growing desire to taste Love exists. He or she lives constantly in the presence of God and God lives by his or her side. This inseparable union is true immortality.”

Attaining It, one becomes perfect,

immortal, and completely fulfilled.

The purpose of life is to attain union with God through love, a sensible idea since searching fulfillment in an ever-changing world with an ever-changing mind is a tailor-made recipe for disappointment. God, Love, is that which endures, is true and good at all places and times, and can never be apart from us.

In fact Love can’t actually be “attained” because it is us. When we haven’t realized it, however, we should practice love, direct our thoughts and feelings toward God as we understand It. Consciously loving God dissolves the “getter,” the imperfect part of ourselves, allowing God to spontaneously reveal Itself.

“Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” The perfection the devotee attains through rediscovery of the Godhead doesn’t come from outside but is a revelation of innate identity with God and the actualization of God’s perfect love in his or her life.

Attaining it, one desires nothing else,

grieves no more, neither hates or delights in objects,

and feels no enthusiasm for the vanities of life.

Satisfying desires is unsatisfactory because it only temporarily frees us from desire. The more we satisfy ourselves the more there is to satisfy. Following this path the soul becomes a misshapen and ugly caricature of itself, twisted and contorted under the pressure of its neediness. Squandering its energy by incessant craving, it eventually arives at the point where it can no longer efficiently obtain, possess, and enjoy desired objects, ending up frustrated and grieving, a bundle of unfulfilled expectations.

We tend to think that satisfaction comes from objects, things outside ourselves, but it doesn’t. If satisfaction were in objects the same object would supply the same satisfaction to everyone, suggesting that the question of happiness, satisfaction, love, is centered on me, the subject.

The Gospel states that, though seemingly coming from objects, all satisfactions come from the Self. Everyone at one time or another believes happiness comes from giving to and\or receiving love from someone. As long as the love object cooperates, gives and\or receives according to the subject's special needs, everything is fine, but as soon as cooperation stops the love withers, at which point the removal of the object is thought to make us happy. Why does the love dry up? Because the idea that it was coming from the object acted like a switch in the mind which erected a wall between the mind and the Self, effectively shutting down the feeling happiness\love.

That switch, the belief that the joy is in the object, can as well pull down the wall. Starting from lack we erect an idol, the "ideal" person, the attainment of which we believe will remove the loneliness. When reality presents a semblance of our fantasy, the desire for love is released, the Self's love cascades into the mind, and we experience happiness. Of course the love seems to be coming from the object, or an interaction with the object, but it is only a catalyst, a trigger, activating the inner switch.

Rather than seek love indirectly the verse suggests we go to the source. To get there the devotee should purify desire for objects because as the mind empties, the Self, an infinite reservoir of pleasure, floods it with immortal bliss. A purified mind becomes a window of perception through which the soul can inwardly gaze on the heavenly beauty of the Beloved resting within. In such a state who will “hate or delight in any object?” In such a state who will feel “enthusiasm for the vanities of life?”

Attaining it, one becomes intoxicated,

then silent, delighting in the Self.

The state to which this verse refers is not a simple love inspired by blind belief, but an inner transformation, the rebirth of the soul out of the womb of matter into the realm of pure Spirit, a spontaneous, ecstatic expansive, dynamic, open-ended awakening that fills the heart with Love and the head with Wisdom, resolving all conflict and tension. Unlike "born-again" experiences, which quickly fade leaving the devotee caught up in the limitations of the old life, the heart merges completely into the Self.

A glimpse of this state inspires intense faith, prompting single-minded striving to enter into It. Referred to as salvation by religion and liberation or enlightenment by spirituality, it is distinct from all meditative, concentrated, absorbed, and practice-induced states of mind and lower forms of devotion.

The seeing, enjoying, and participating in the Self inspires divine madness, an overwhelming exhilaration that blows the mind and knocks ego's socks off, leaving no sense of separateness. One feels completely intoxicated, like winning the lottery and falling in love on the same day, or the mother's feeling, extended forever, when a child thought to be dead returns to her. Everything, including oneself, is seen as Love. The devotee may hug and kiss a complete stranger or enemy, accept an insult as the sweetest thing, go for days without eating, throw money and possessions away, sing recklessly, laugh uncontrollably like a child, take embarrassing liberties irrespective of proprieties, talk in tongues, roll madly in the dirt, jig shamelessly without music - anything is possible. Devotional literature is replete with accounts of the fantastic antics of devotees who attained this state.

The emotions, unable to handle the intensity for long, gradually calm down, not that the vision is less intense, the relationship less passionate. The heart, formerly constricted by selfish thoughts, becomes spacious, graciously accommodating the Divinity blazing within. Over time one’s feelings rarefy, turning back toward their ecstatic Source, creating an unbroken circle of love. Before long God doesn't seem such a big deal, an incredible being, but a natural companion, tried and true, trusted, warm and maternal.

As the initial reaction to the State of Devotion winds down, one becomes aware of a deafening silence, a hushed presence swallowing all thought and feeling, engulfing every perception. Caught in the embrace of timeless Love and realizing the absurdity of any reaction in face of God's awesome mercy, passion gently morphs into the white heat of meditation. Visible devotional signs evaporate and the devotee, content to sit quietly sipping the nectar flowing from the Heart of hearts, putting out no vibrations, becomes absorbed in the Infinite. Patterns supporting the ego crumble, the mind dissolves completely like a phantom, and the soul, in primordial nakedness realizes oneness with the Self. The cause of this transformation, the Self, is the source of great joy. Therefore the verse says, “delighting in the Self.”

Renunciation is the essence of Devotion.

Devotion is actually God loving God through the heart of the devotee, the natural state of the Self, the pristine meditation of the Self on Itself. When the Self loves Itself, as is Its nature, the world disappears, but when It apparently forgets, the world begins and Love manifests as the energy and intelligence in all forms of life. Though in fact It doesn’t, It seems to get mixed up with life forms, taking on the nature of the form, just as clear water in a colored container appears colored.

Pure Love, functioning through an unawakend mind, becomes other directed and transforms into romantic or “special” love. As humans we are unaware of the spiritual origin of our feelings for each other, believing them magically manufactured from an earthy “chemistry” between bodies, a belief subjecting the “love,” like the ever-changing bodies and emotions that influence it, to endless instabilities: possessiveness, clinging, jealousy, anger, fear, desire, and anxiety - the fear of “falling out” of love. A confusing state because it contains light as well as dark elements, romantic love will momentarily rise to sublime heights, perversely devour itself in fits of stormy passion, or predictably drown itself in the dark seas of depression.

Associated with the lowest in us, Pure love ironically appears as lust. An ignorant and unremittingly dualistic state, lust is intense craving flowing compulsively through deeply-etched grooves in the Unconscious, incarcerating the soul in an addictive, hellish world.

Both romantic love and lust yield special sufferings which in the best of all possible worlds ignite the fire of seeking and set the soul on the inner path. To find true love the seeker must abandon the idea of object love and convert special to spiritual relationships. Special relationships,[3] which are compensations for the Separation from God, operate on the principle that love can only flow to an object that satisfies the lover’s special needs. Spiritual relationships, on the other hand, ask the devotee to love and serve the Self in the beloved. Short of that, the devotee is enjoined to love the beloved’s ego as it is, warts and all.

At a more developed stage, the devotee, secure in the knowledge that the presence and absence of objects are equal, becomes indifferent to the whole concept of relationship and cultivates a pure meditation, a relationless relationship with God.

On the God level renunciation, freedom, and Love are identical because Love is complete, depending on nothing but itself. The discovery that the devotee’s and God’s love are one and the same is liberation, the fruit of Devotion.

Renunciation is a sense of wholeness and self-esteem. What is more liberating than the feeling that you, not your needs, are the master of your destiny? A renounced devotee enjoys the enviable option of making decisions based on what is spiritually correct rather than expediency, a luxury few enjoy.

For renunciation to occur all

activities must be consecrated.

From ego’s point of view life is a futile attempt to satisfy an inexhaustible stream of desires and pander to an unending procession of fears. To thwart the unconscious recycling of fear and desire the Gospel recommends converting desire into devotion by dedicating all actions to God. Dedicated activities, rather than creating attachments, purify them, turning the heart into a luminous channel through which pure Love flows. Since God dispenses the fruits of consecrated action, the ego needn’t dissipate energy in needless worry, investing it instead in devotional practice - loving service, for example.

The more we’re attached to things the less we’re apt to experience Divine Love, and conversely, fewer attachments make it more likely selfless love will develop. Material philosophy, on the other hand, defines happiness as love for and attachment to things and beings, and supposes that more of everything produces more happiness. Whether the desire for ever-increasing joy springs from our unenlightened material self, or God in us trying to realize Itself, the desire for object love must be dismissed if devotion is to flower.

Of course the devotee can’t banish the objects themselves because they belong to God. However, the misunderstanding that associates love with objects should be renounced. Sublimated into devotional practice, impurities wither and die. God consumes any thoughts and feelings, positive or negative, offered in a spirit of surrender and sacrifice as holy good, removing them from the unconscious cycle of emotion and transmuting them into devotion.

The inner enemies (desire, lust, anger, attachment, arrogance, acquisitiveness, possessiveness, sloth, greed, pride, etc.) often seem so powerful we feel compelled to toady to them completely. Invariably we resist letting go, testily defending the fortress of rationalization and justification we’ve constructed to validate them to ourselves and others. Occasionally, puffed with pride, we turn them into hard and fast credentials.

The idea that renunciation is painful is false.

A rich and famous person, attracted to the simplicity of a devotee’s life said, “What a great soul you are, having given up everything in the world yet are so happy!”

“No, the devotee replied, you are much greater than I. I have only renounced worldly things for eternal love but you’ve renounced eternal love for the goods of this world.”

The consecration of positive feelings is safe, even sensible, but offering negativity seems foolhardy, not to say blasphemous. Surprisingly, God, who sees no duality, though conscious, doesn’t suffer karmic rebound, accepting everything without comment. It is the part that dispassionately reflects, like a mirror, our thoughts and feelings, a thirsty cosmic sponge that soaks all projections. Knowing God’s nature frees the devotee to consecrate it all, positive and negative, in love.

Consecration, therefore, proceeds renunciation triggering the devotional flow from the devotee to God, completing the cycle.

The devotee is indifferent to obstacles

that hinder the flow of Love.

To the lover of God there is one Friend and many enemies dwelling within. Toward the enemies dispassion (fear of the enemy is the enemy) should rule the mind, toward the friend, devotion.

Purging the heart is difficult because of the strong attractions and aversions we’ve developed toward emotions. On one hand how quick we are to defend, justify, and rationalize them; on the other, how easily we make ourselves feel guilty, remorseful, and “sinful” because of them. This verse offers a weapon for dealing with our feelings (and our feelings about our feelings) - dispassion.

Dispassion, which teaches that emotion, a major obstacle to growth, is transparent and impermanent, helps deconstruct the frozen superstructure of ego and intellect that makes feelings unworkable and allows the devotee to creatively relate to feelings, teaching him or her to step back and allow them to play out in the world or direct them to God through prayer and meditation. Without dispassion, the inner enemies have their day and love remains caught up in objects, unable to pierce the subtle realm of Spirit.

The whole-hearted renounce

everything but God.

A statement unwittingly designed to raise doubts about our devotional eligibility. Can we actually live happily without attachment[4] to all the props - family, job, status, wealth, etc.? Such questions are only relevant when we’ve arrived at the high devotional state to which the verse refers.

We try to solve the universal need for security in many ways, all fraught with anxiety. The need to relieve anxiety often creates a belief in God, (Marx’s “opiate of the masses”) but the belief in an external problem-solving agent is not devotion unless the devotee depends completely on God for security and support.

When the devotee experiences God directly and comes to know what he or she had formerly merely believed in, devotion is said to be ripe, “wholehearted.” The experience of God purifies ill-considered and superstitious notions of the Divine and leads to self awareness, insight into one’s psychology.

Devotion flowers when perception of God is continuous, though union, the forth stage, has yet to occur. Perception is panoramic, the devotee seeing the reality of God, the soul, and the world with no identity crisis clouding the mind. Devotion is pure, intense, and Godlike, filling the heart with confidence and self-assurance. Though residual worldly tendencies occasionally extrovert the mind and agitate the heart, faith is unshakable. All supports, except God, are abandoned and the heart becomes incapable of loving anything else. The world, formerly a fickle reality, becomes God’s body, and the devotee, like a fish, swims in an ocean of love. As the poet says, “The lovely form of the Lord has settled in these eyes and there is no room for any other beauty.”

In the final state the devotee and God melt into each other in Love and Understanding, leaving nothing to renounce.

Rejecting selfish actions,

the pure devotee performs

actions pleasing to God.

God’s love is unchanging irrespective of our behavior, however unselfish actions performed with the understanding that everyone and everything is God rate special attention - because they express our full devotional potential and bring union with the Beloved, the purpose of evolution.

Often society and family demand action that conflicts with devotion: the son is required to obey tyrannical parents, the employee the boss, the citizen the government. Because devotion is a conscious discriminating process, not blind belief, the devotee is required to determine on a case by case basis which of the four classes of actions, with the exception of prohibited, are conducive to devotion.

The four classes are: (1) Obligatory - taxes, military service, and jury duty, those compelled by the society on threat of punishment. (2) Incidental - small social and family duties of a non-compulsory nature. (3) Prohibited - actions to be abandoned by all: murder, theft, adultery, homosexuality,[5] taking drugs and alcohol. Violation of prohibitions impact negatively on society, cloud the emotions, and dull the intellect.

(4) Desire-prompted. Our society encourages unbridled pursuit of desires, inimical to self-development because it increases egoism and injures others. Sublimating desires into service of God in others purifies the heart and creates a healthy society. On the other hand, the mindless denial of desire creates an unhealthy personality, necessitating the need for a middle ground. Spiritual practice is intended to cultivate a space in the heart where the seed of devotional love can sprout. If all energy is expended satisfying our worldly desires, how is it possible to love God? Therefore the devotee should ask whether or not acting out desires actually increases his or her sense of well being and enhances devotion. In fact we want things, not for themselves, but for the love they apparently bring. So why not seek the love at the source, rather than in its pale reflections?

Until Love is attained

scripture should be diligently followed.

Everyone follows something. Scripture points the way to union with God. This verse addresses the devotee who believes “guidance” or “intuition” superior to scripture, a common New Age view. Because of ego’s tendency to co-opt and misinterpret the inner voice, intuition should be considered useful only when coinciding with scripture, not the other way around. One meets many nowadays who view God as a permissive parent and whose “guidance” seems to suspiciously coincide with ego’s every fancy. Those exclusively following intuition tend to be burdened with the belief that the spiritual path is a personal affair and God’s instructions tailor-made to every individual. In fact, devotional practice is meant to dissolve personal peculiarities in the universal experience of Love. And scripture, which admittedly is also subject to misinterpretation, is addressed to the universal in each of us. Hence its teachings are indispensable and should be “diligently followed.” [6]

The verse is also addressed to those who may not be particularly psychic but who need to base their lives on principle, not passion. Of course there are tens of thousands of scriptures worldwide, many with apparently conflicting views on the nature of God, human psychology, and the purpose of the world. Contrary to the anti-intellectual view sweeping the Western spiritual world, devotion demands clear and comprehensive knowledge. Rather than put intellect on the shelf the devotee should make a thorough study of world scripture accepting only universally valid ideas.

Or there is danger of a fall.

In the heat of exalted devotional moods ego can easily loose touch with reality and imagine itself an exceptional spiritual superbeing unencumbered by petty morality, beyond all teachings, rules, conventions, and injunctions. Therefore, the teaching and advice of outside authorities should be given careful attention.

The purpose of following a spiritual path is to show that God, not an individual, is the fountainhead. Knowledge and experience of the Almighty does not make the devotee special. On the contrary, distinctions like high-low, pure-impure, enlightened-ignorant, and spiritual-worldly should be reduced to ash in the fire of devotional love. Once the vision of God has taken root devotional practice should be continued, not suspended, to purify hidden tendencies that can cut the flow of devotion and cause the devotee to become resentful, blasphemous, and bitter, blaming God, and abandoning the path - the “fall” referred to in the verse.

Worldly duties should be performed

until body consciousness is transcended,

but care of the body should continue until death.

Although following any path is impossible without devotion, the “path of devotion” is meant for those who respond emotionally to the world. Because such people tend to get carried away with their feelings and ignore common sense, the Gospel is urging a “head in the clouds, feet on earth” approach. The deeper the devotee dives into the ocean of love the faster conditioning dissolves, like ice in warm water, compromising relationships not centered in love. The verse, however, counsels against the impulse to discard all relationships until permanently established in the Divine, reminding the ecstatic devotee to honor nature and respect the power of the mind.

Occasionally the bonding in love is so deep the devotee looses all body consciousness and ignores even basic rules (eating, sleeping, bathing, etc.) because life and death, spirit and matter, have become one. Though no personal reason to continue living makes sense, scripture, wishing to keep the devotee on earth so his or her experience will benefit others, insists the body be cared for until death. In India devotees who have attained this state surrender the care and feeding of the body to other devotees who use it for devotional purposes.

One characteristic of Devotion

is worship with deep attachment.

In the highest state of devotion the devotee’s every act unconsciously radiates love - walking, talking, eating, sleeping, even breathing - the absorption in love is so complete no sense of doing or enjoying remains.

The means of reaching this state is “worship with deep attachment,” viewing the body and mind as objects given by God for the express purpose of worship and seeing everything in one’s life, not just religious symbols, as God. For example, the devotee is to see food as God, the eater as God, and the body as God’s temple. One’s spouse and children are to be regarded as God's own, every spoken word thought to be the name of the Lord, all actions service of God. Bending, lying, or kneeling are to be considered prostration to God, walking as circumambulation of the Deity, all lights as symbols of the Self, sleep as union with God, and rest as meditation. Every person the devotee contacts must be offered loving service, as if he or she were the Divinity. With the intention of keeping God’s name continually in the mind, in this manner mundane rituals from washing dishes to sweeping the floor are converted to sacred rites.

To a fervent devotee religious icons (stone, wood, paper, clay, and metal statuary) are not viewed merely as elevating or provocative symbols but are to be symbolically bathed, fed, entertained, spoken to, slept, and worshipped as living Divinity. On special holy days in India at the Jagannath Temple in Puri, Orissa State, God is removed from the temple on an astrologically auspicious day, placed on top of a multi-story intricately-carved brightly-painted wooden car, and pulled through the streets by thousands of ecstatic devotees on the way to the ocean for an afternoon at the beach. Although the custom has been outlawed in recent years, in the old days it was not uncommon for worshippers in the throes of ecstasy to hurl themselves beneath the great wooden wheels, crushed to death at the feet of the Lord.

To the materialist mind, projecting life into inanimate objects seems the height of irrationality, but the practice is good psychology from a devotional perspective. Just as an actress “becomes” the person she is portraying by totally identifying with every aspect of the character’s life, the devotee discovers identity with the inner Self through intense identification with the symbol.

Nearly everyone believes in love but not everyone believes in God, a strange contradiction in so far as God is love and the capacity for love. The fact that no form of love is perceivable by the senses doesn’t keep us from believing in and seeking it, yet God’s apparent imperceivablility does. Often those ardently seeking love fancy themselves atheists.

Nevertheless, since the purpose of the world is to facilitate spiritual evolution, over the course of human development hundreds of thousands of God realized souls have contributed to a universal culture, the basis of all major world religions and countless spiritual traditions, whose vast body of knowledge and technique forms the foundation of the religious life. Fascination with, attachment to, and fondness for this culture, a tangible manifestation of God, is one sign of true devotion.

Complete attachment

to God, the formless Self,

is Pure Devotion.

Worship of or contemplation on a form or symbol of God brings about identification; greater the identification, greater the love for the symbolized object. Contemplating the life of the historical Jesus, for example, may inspire personal devotion. As the meditation intensifies, a spiritual awakening might take place that transforms the personal form into the universal Christ, the Self, a being of unsurpassed beauty. It is impossible to witness such beauty, not fall in love, and become passionately attached. Because worldly beauties pale, outer attachments, personal views, automatically fall away.

The true devotee surrenders everything

and feels extremely miserable at the

slightest lapse in remembrance.

God’s form, Love, draws devotion into the sacred Heart like the flow of oil from a lamp through the wick to the flame. So worthy of our love is God that even the thought of separation produces inordinate terror. When we love someone passionately we think of them constantly. A devotee who utterly loves God will psychologically thrash around like a fish out of water were he or she to forget the Beloved even for a moment.

Such devotion deeply affects God who becomes immensely attached to

the devotee. In an extraordinary passage from a Pauranic[7] text, God says, “Not even the creator of the universe is a dear to me as you. I constantly follow in the footsteps of the devotee who has no worldly craving, who is tranquil at heart, who has no quarrel with anyone, who beholds me equally in all things, and who is constantly absorbed in thoughts of me - to sanctify myself with the dust of his or her lotus feet.”

Humbled by such devotion, God sees it as a sacred intimacy, saying, “The supreme bliss of desirelessness enjoyed by those exalted souls whose hearts are attached to me, who have made themselves utterly destitute by surrendering their all to me, who are tranquil, and because of their relationship with me, kindly disposed to all creatures, is known to no one else.”

The Devotion of the Gopis is an example.

“Gopi” is a Sanskrit term indicating someone whose vision of God is so powerful he or she drinks Love through the senses, a person whose sole attachment is Love. One of Vedic literature’s most exalted devotional works, Srimad Bhagavatam, describes the Lord’s feeling about such souls. “Oh Gopis, you have broken the chains of household obligation and clung to me with love. This act is entirely blameless. In a thousand lifetimes of service I could never repay this debt. Will you please discharge me of the responsibility of your own generosity?”

And, “The Gopis have given up everything for me and offered their hearts. I must look after them. They treat me dearer than their own children. If they send their thoughts to me and can’t find me, they loose consciousness. They are one with me and I with them.”

Gopis see Love all around, inside and out. Speaking of their love they say, “There is no room left in our hearts! How shall we accommodate anything else when the heart is fully occupied by the Lord? Whether moving or looking around, awake or asleep, the Lord’s beautiful form doesn’t leave the heart for a single moment. What are we to do when the body is brimming over with love? The jar cannot contain the ocean.”

“We are not fit for spiritual practice. What do we know of wisdom? How can we close our eyes and meditate when our eyes are full of our Beloved’s precious form? How can we wander around all day looking for God when He stays right here with us, just as our shadows are always attached to our bodies?”

Even in the State of Devotion

the devotee sees all the Lord’s[8] glories.

How does it happen that at the breakup of a relationship one or both parties is often heard to say, “I can’t believe it. I was married to that so and so for twenty years and still don’t have any idea who he (or she) is.”

Disillusionment, anger, and confusion are not problems when the love is pure because the devotee is so unconcerned about his or her self and so concerned about the love object that the Beloved’s nature, powers, and glories are well known.

Even when the devotional flow is broken, consciousness of the Beloved is not lost. In fact separation only increases devotion - absence makes the heart grow fonder.

When the Lord disappears in the middle of one of their love games to teach them love in absence, a love they already have, the Gopis, though unable to see Him, chide Him thusly, “O Almighty Lord, source of everything that is! It is not becoming that you ask us who have renounced everything for you to leave your protection. You yourself have decreed that it is the primary duty of every woman to protect her family. We have abandoned our families seeking protecti