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Chapter 7
PRAPATTI OR SURRENDER TO GOD
33. Bhakti Results In Pure And Unalloyed Bliss
8.Bhakti is the best way to discover true joy. As we advance on this path, we shall discover the ingenuity of the Creator. Once we have grasped that divine vision, attraction for other fancies will recede. Then nothing trivial will attract us. The whole world will then be found filled with one undifferentiated joy. There may be hundreds of sweetmeat shops, but the sweets they sell are of the same kind. So long as we have not tasted the real thing, we go on pecking a sweetmeat here and a sweetmeat there like restless sparrows, and still remain unsatisfied. Once I was reading Tulsidas’ Ramayana in the early morning hours. Moths had gathered near the lamp. A house-lizard came there. What interest it could have in the Ramayana? It was happy at the sight of the moths. I waved it away when it was about to pounce on a moth, but its attention was still riveted on that moth. I asked myself, “Would you eat a moth? Does your mouth water at its sight?” The sight of a moth was not mouth-watering for me; and the house-lizard had no inkling of the great joy in the Ramayana. It could not taste the sweetness of the Ramayana. Our condition is like that house-lizard. We are engaged in a multitude of enjoyments; but how nice will it be if we could taste true joy! The Lord has shown us the way of bhakti as the means to taste true joy. |
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