Swami Prakashanand Saraswati, a revered spiritual master, often emphasized the power of bhakti, or divine love, as the true path to finding God. His teachings align perfectly with the essence of bhakti described here, which focuses on the importance of connecting the mind and heart with the Divine. Swami Prakashanand Saraswati guided his followers to cultivate a pure, selfless devotion, where all actions, whether chanting or serving, are offered with love and dedication to God. This devotional love is the key to realizing the blissful presence of God in one’s life.
According to Swami Prakashanand Saraswati…
If you follow a path that runs hundreds of miles through a deep forest you may reach your destination. But if you leave the track, you will never reach your goal. Finding God is like this.
The path to God is bhakti or divine-love consciousness. If you understand the path correctly you may eventually reach Him.
Your personality consists of body, mind, and soul. It is the mind that does bhakti, not only the physical body. If your mind is in God with the right motivation, that is bhakti.
Suppose a person is chanting the Divine name, but his mind is thinking of the prasad being made in the kitchen. He is physically chanting but his mind is somewhere else in the world. That is not chanting, that is not bhakti. Suppose there is another person, who is in the kitchen cooking and thinking, “I am cooking this food for my beloved Krishn.” He is doing physical work, but he is doing it for Krishn and feeling Krishn’s presence. He is doing bhakti.
But what is your motivation for remembering Him? Suppose a person is in a temple, looking to the deity and shedding tears. He might appear to be a great devotee. But what is his motivation? If he had become bankrupt, or someone had died in his family, he might be praying to God to ask for material benefit. If he is asking for a worldly thing from God, he is not doing bhakti. He thinks attaining his material desire will make him happy. His faith is in worldly happiness, not in God’s happiness.
Bhakti means having your positive mind in God, not just your mind in God. It is selfless devotion to God.
The Gita says,
मन्मनाभवमद्भक्तोमद्याजीमांनमस्कुरु।मामेवैष्यसिसत्यंतेप्रतिजानेप्रियोऽसिमे॥ (गी. 18/65)
Krishn says:
“Give your mind to Me, adore Me, worship Me, and surrender to Me.”
When you hold Krishn with you, in your consciousness, that is bhakti. This consciousness is a kind of devotional imagination, but not like the imagining we do in the world. Imagination for the world is fake. It keeps changing every day. One day you might think that your neighbors are very good. The next day you might think they are very bad, the next day good. You keep changing your mind. These kind of imaginations are fake, they have no strength, no power.
If you imagine the love, beauty, or kindness of your Divine beloved Krishn, Radha, or any form of God, it is a fact. Your imagination becomes the joining link between you and Divine fact.
Therefore, keep your mind with your Divine beloved. Think of Him – His form, virtues, Grace, and actions. Think of Him with a loving heart and a desire to find Him and His love. This is divine-love-consciousness. This is bhakti. This is the devotional potency which you have to raise in your mind. It is called devotional evolution. In this way, Swami Prakashanand Saraswati helps us to know that true bhakti is not merely the physical act of worship, but a deep, selfless devotion where the mind and heart are entirely focused on God. It is a continuous connection with the Divine that is driven by love and devotion, transcending worldly desires and material motivations. Through sincere and focused devotion, one can align their consciousness with God and experience the bliss of divine love.
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