Bhakti Yoga – the Way of Devotion

From a talk by Hari Prasad Shastri given May 7th, 1943

Mankind is a detail in this most wonderful universe where every detail is profound and defies human comprehension. The universe is a book, so to say, written by the august Author, the Lord Omniscient and Omnipre­sent, and each and every word of this book is infinite in its scope, most profound in its meaning and almost incomprehensible by the naked or unaided human intelligence. Our reason is a guide, to a certain extent, in things which are of our every day use, but when we come to assay the great purpose of our life or of the beginning of the creation or its end, reason can only say what it is not. 

The august Author of the book of the universe reveals Himself in the hearts of those with whom He is pleased, and by virtue of His pre­sence, realised by them, they are able to read a bit of this book of the universe. In Anthony and Cleopatra Shakespeare says, putting the words into the mouth of dear little Charmian: ‘In the book of nature a little I can read’. Neither Plato nor Hegel nor David Hume was able to read with any precision any two lines of the book of nature, but they have been read by what are called the sages who have risen above the worldly part of their mind and united the essence of their mind in devotion and contemplation with the Lord Him­self. When we want to understand the divine mystery the surest way is to arrive with great reverence at the door of these Holy Rishis.

Our chief purpose in life is to discover the divine element in our own personality and to surrender it to the Lord of the Universe from whom it has come and to whom it is bound to return. Those who do not do so today have postponed a golden opportunity. This is the purpose of life. If this point is not understood, vain is our pretention to religion, vain is our study, vain is our life, wasted is all our energy. 

There is a divine ray in the intellect of man, and man is here to purify his heart, to still his mind, to universalise his conduct and, through devotion, virtue and other means, know the nature of this divine ray, to realise the divine ray in its entirety, that is, God Himself. When this point is reached the purpose of the evolution of life is complete. There is no more wisdom to be learned, there is no more book to be studied, there is no action to be accomplish­ed.