Fullness and Pure Love is Devotion by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:
Whatever your actions, just surrender them to the Divine. Don’t say, I have done this and get into doer-ship. We make a mistake, keep thinking about it and end up blaming ourselves. Blaming oneself is an obstacle in Love just as uncertainty and pride is. Guru is just for you to surrender your guilt, all kinds of pride you surrender, ego and pride cannot remain in front of a Guru. If you have any leftover guilt, go and surrender it to the Guru, to a knowledgeable person. Also surrender lust, anger and pride along with it. If you want to have a desire, just desire for the Divine. When you desire only for Him then other desires do not remain. If you want to be angry on anybody, be angry with Him, what is the point getting angry with others. Anger should also be on Him, desire and pride should also be for Him. Be proud of the fact that He belongs to you, the Master is yours.

If you take pride in the fact that the owner of this world is yours, will pride have any limit then? Give it such a big dimension. Love is saved then, it does not die. Only then love is old, often when people love it is not long lasting. People love for 2 to 4 days, the fifth day, love has died. If you want love to be forever, if you want your love to last for many lifetimes then love only Him. Lust, desire and pride all should be for Him. If you have these (longing, desire and pride) for others then you will be more stressed, if you have for Him, you will grow in devotion. If you limit your desire for lust, anger, attachment and pride, you will be tired, you will be stressed, you will start feeling small but if you have the same longing, anger, attachment and pride for the Divine, then you will shine more.

Apart from three types of love – sattvic, rajasic, tamasic there is one more – ie. devotion. Devotion is bigger than these three. There are two kinds of devotion, – you are master and I am your servant and the other is feeling of friendship. Only in these two, there is closeness. If you start with these two, then, you will attain the feeling of oneness. First is dasa bhav (master-servant relationship) , in which you have protocols, respect, when there are too many rules then there is fear in the devotee’s mind; then kanta bhav , a servant cannot claim any right over the master but a lover can. However, a balance of both is required for devotion to be complete.

To eliminate fear one has to become a lover, be like a lover, interact like a lover with Him. If you believe Him to be your loved one then you will feel very close with Him and if you consider yourself to be His servant then you won’t become sad. A servant can never be upset with the master, a lover becomes upset at times. We often get upset that our friend/ lover did not look at us, did not talk to us. The problem that exists between lovers can be eliminated by mixing the spirit of being a servant, lovers should feel they are one another’s servant, not that one should be the other’s servant(Guruji laughs). If one says to another, you are my servant then it brings sadness. One should interact with the Divine in this manner (dasa and sakha bhava) everyday, not sometimes. Be in love.

Often we become servant to many, lovers to many, this should not be the case. First you love the Divine and become His lover, then you can love everybody else. When we say pranam, we say God, I have come to you, my prana is yours. You should have be one pointed and centred. Once you are focused in this direction, there is no way you can wander.

When love is one pointed like this then, your throat fills up, you feel tingling sensations in your body, when you hear or speak of Him your eyes are filled with tears. There is so much interest and passion in His stories. This is the sign of devotion. This is one sign of ultimate devotion, love of the top most category. One speaks of only Him, shares only His stories, and make their lineage and this world pure. Such devotees wash off the dirt in other’s minds and make it pure. The place where such people walk, becomes clean and sacred. That is the greatness of a devotee, wherever a devotee goes, he makes that place sacred, he makes the minds of others pure.

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Don’t believe that another person is such a devotee, believe that your are one such devotee, you are not less than any other person. If your love is one pointed then you are also such a devotee. A sacred place becomes sacred by devotees, lovers not by pundits. Where lovers sit, that place becomes a pilgrim centre, where knowledgeable sit, that place becomes a pilgrim centre. Any place of worship becomes a pilgrim centre because lovers (of God), knowledgeable people were there sometime. Every karma, action of theirs becomes good, whatever they do, it becomes good karma.

This is because a devotee can never go wrong, a devotee has love and surrender in every cell, there is belongingness for all. There is no attachment, nor is there any selfishness, or there is Self-ishness, love for all. Just like the senior most member of the family has love for all the others, similarly a devotee has belongingness with everybody. They realise that the whole world belongs to them. Whatever they do, it becomes good, they prove the knowledge in the books to be true. Once they start living the knowledge, then the importance of knowledge in the books is realised. ie. knowledge gets its importance only then. An ignorant person thinks his value increases by objects he possesses, if I have an Audi or a Benz car then my value will go up. They value themselves with objects possessed.

Actually, a knowledgeable person increases the value of an object. For example, when Gandhiji wore a footwear, its value went up. An old, worn out footwear is kept in Sabarmati ashram but its value has gone up. A small pot that he used, its value has increased because Gandhiji, used it. A person increasing the value of an object, is a sign of a knowledgeable person. There is a shine, importance in those objects. Buddha sat under a tree and that tree became invaluable. Similarly texts on knowledge also get their importance from devotees as they prove them right. The collection of experiences is a shastra.

Every cell has only divinity in them. A devotee is filled with the one he loves. All this happens because a devotee is filled with divinity. This body, which is made up of those five elements, what is it? It belongs to Him, it is made of Him. When we know that this body, the mind in it and the ability to know (intellect) is also His, then where am I? The memory is also His, its only Him there is nothing other than Him. The praise that we get or curses that we hear, all are His. When is everywhere, then we say we are filled with Him. A devotee is not separate from God, a devotee is only God, don’t go out in search of God, go in search of devotees. If you find a devotee, then, know that you have found God. Don’t go in search of devotees also because you are also one. One who goes in search of a devotee, he becomes a devotee that very moment.