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| Home > Bhakti Yoga > Universal Love
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| | Universal Love: Essence of Bhakti Yoga
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It is possible for a bhakta to first love the universal beings in order to love a particular being. When a bhakta goes on merely loving one person after another, he may go on loving them so for an infinite length of time, without being in the least able to love the world as a whole. However, there comes a stage in his life, when, at last, he understands the central idea that the sum total of all love is God. When the soul of a bhakta sees divine love, his heart becomes an eternal fountain of love. And when he reaches even the higher states of this love, all the creations of god- any animal or man is clearly seen as a manifestation of God and not as the creature itself! Thus, in this intense state of Bhakti, worship is offered to every one, to every life, and to every being.
As a result of this kind of intense supreme love, comes the feeling of perfect self-surrender and the bhakta has the conviction that anything that happens to him cannot harm him. Be it any pain, misery or even death, the loving soul of the bhakta welcomes it with a smile. The Bhakta in this state of perfect resignation arises out of intense love to God and ceases to distinguish between pleasure and pain in so far as they affect him.
Most of the individuals think about their body, to be the centre of their existence and even the center of their worship is to protect their body against other beings. For a vast majority of mankind, bodily enjoyment becomes the core of their existence. Thus, it is very important that until a man reaches that highest point of ever-ready and ever-willing self-sacrifice, he cannot become a perfect Bhakta. A bhakta should be an enlightened one, who is aware of the bodily existence, its pains and even its decomposition. Infact, a perfect bhakta is the one who readily accepts the fact that the human body is a combination of many materials, is never permanent and hence, it must get dissolved and die. There must and will come a time for it to be decomposed.
So, it is important for a bhakta to declare himself already dead to all the things of the world and surrendering himself to the divine entity. It is a well-known fact that the human body itself is the sole reason for all miseries like pain, selfishness and jealousy. Thus, the former should be given up for the service of the Lord to be away from such miseries and a bhakta should lead a life without any attachment and offer services to all the universal beings. A bhakta offers his life and his body at the feet of the lord. For the bhakta who has experienced the divine intervention, this eternal sacrifice of the self unto the Beloved Lord is much greater than any of the wealth or power, than even all soaring thoughts of renown and enjoyment. In this state of sublime resignation everything in the shape of attachment goes away completely, except the love to god in which all beings exist. This attachment of love to God is indeed one that does not bind the soul but effectively breaks all its bondages.
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