BHAKTI.

    Bhakti or devotion to such a living Guru, who is an avatara of the Supreme God, is the only means of getting the perfect and everlasting salvation from the wheel of 'Karmas' and from constant births and deaths. In our present state we cannot properly love the impersonal God, for we do not know Him as He is, that is, His true essence. But His incarnation is the personal Supreme God in human body, - whom we can perceive by our senses, conceive in our mind, as well as believe and love. This is the most natural and rational means of spiritual culture. None can conceive that there can exist in the whole creation a better means. Therefore, Bhakti-yoga is the highest form of Yoga which has ever been devised, for this is the only way for performing nishkamakarma, which does not bind us to this world. The whole universe is governed by prema or love or attraction. As man is a microcosm of the universe, - he is regulated by prema. Man, through the influences of his lower natures or 'principles' or 'Koshas' is attracted towards the objects of this world, lower animals and human beings, and thereby his lower koshas are gratified. But his higher planes are never satisfied until they get up to the higher regions and enjoy the objects thereof. This can be done only by drawing in our minds in ourselves from objects of the physical world. By intensely loving Him, whose all the planes are perfectly developed and who traverses up and down from the highest region to the lowest, we can go up and up to the higher and higher regions by the direct help of the living Guru. If we enjoy for a while the objects or rather the manifestation of higher regions, then we cannot but have lesser and lesser attractions for the objects of the lower regions. And if we have a strong mind to reach, the highest goal, we shall not be detained in the midway;- but shall get salvation in a few births.

    Bhakti-yoga is not confined to any age, sex, race, country, book, climate, time or world. Man in every religious denomination, in every social condition, in disease or health, in the caves or in the busy cities, can advance in the path of bhakti-yoga by the direct help of their living Guru, who is avatar – provided he has an earnest desire for the attainment of true Mukti. All the religious tenets and observances, devised and founded by the avatars and religious reformers or enjoined in the sastras or holy books, have not the power of imparting perfect salvation;- although some of them, if properly and rationally observed, can aid us in our onward path towards higher regions, But men must rise to the highest region of peace by Bhakti to a living avatar of the Supreme Father, and thereby attain perfect salvation. All other action should be considered of less importance and should, therefore, be made subservient of less importance and should, therefore, be made subservient to this mode of spiritual culture. "Man is continually peopling his current in space with a world of his own, crowded with the offspring of his fancies, desires, impulses, and passions, a current which reacted upon any sensation of numerous organization which comes into contact with it.

M. D.