From jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca Sat Mar 14 23:13:26 1998
Newsgroups: alt.meditation.shabda
Subject: What the Principles are of Bhakti or Devotion
From: jamesjs@unixg.ubc.ca (James Shannon)
Date: 15 Mar 1998 07:13:26 GMT





                         
                 WHAT THE PRINCIPLES ARE OF BHAKTI OR DEVOTION

                                    by

                            Sant Kirpal Singh Ji

                               (1894 - 1974)


                    This talk was given on Nov. 18, 1967
                    at Sawan Ashram, Delhi, India and was
                    published in the book Morning Talks. 
                    -------------------------------------


   I was just speaking about devotion, real bhakti. The first principle, 
the basic principle and I would say the grandest of all, is to know that 
God is everywhere. We are living in Him and He is in us. We live and 
have our being in Him, like fish in the river. The fish lives in the water, 
its whole life depends on water. It lives in water, it lives on water, 
from whence it gets its food. When God wished "I am One and wish to be 
many," the whole Universe emanated, came into being. The whole world is 
an expression, a manifestation of God. Where is that place where He is 
not? We are in Him, He is in us and is our Controlling Power. All 
ensouled bodies are the drops of the Ocean of all Consciousness. When 
we know this, all is beautiful. God is beautiful and any world made by 
Him, manifested by Him, is also beautiful. Beauty comes out of beauty, 
not from ugliness. Anything that appears to be ugly in the world is the 
result of the spectacles that we are wearing. If the glass of the 
spectacles is smoky, you will see all smoke. If it is red, everything 
will appear red. If it is black, everything will appear black. Well, 
the world is not black, red or smoky, mind that! So we have to change 
the trend of our mind, of our heart.
 
   The first principle that we have to abide by is to know that He is 
everywhere. We are in Him and He is in us. When you know this, you will 
just pay respect to everybody. They are all manifested in the manbody.  
When we know that He is everywhere and that He knows everything of our 
heart, how can we do anything that is not good or commit a sin! Our 
Master used to say, "When a child of five years is sitting by you, you 
will never dare to do anything which is wrong." When you have the 
viewpoint that He is within me, He is outside me, I am in Him, how can 
you perpetrate anything! Can you? This is the sum and substance, the 
basic principle. If you abide by it, everything will follow of itself.  
The world will be beautiful. Beauty comes out of beauty. If the world 
appears to be ugly or not beautiful, that is the result of the 
spectacles that you are wearing.
  
   If you will cast out evil thoughts about others, all are friendly. 
If somebody has played any hell against us, we simply retaliate, we 
harbor those very thoughts within us. Saints have been coming to the 
world and the people have been meeting them very disrespectfully. 
Sometimes they put them on the cross, sometimes they burn them alive.  
They took the skin off the body of one Saint. The people cry, "O God, 
send us some man to save us." God said, "Well, I have sent you many men 
to save you, but how have you treated them? They came to give you a 
right understanding of the whole show, which is that all Creation is 
the manifestation of God. That you are all my children, drops of the 
Ocean of all Consciousness. That I am your Controlling Power. You live 
in me and I live in you, but you have forgotten." To forget is 
delusion, or what is called Maya. If you go to somebody whose eye is 
open, even if you speak ill of Him, He still tries to bring you out of 
the abyss of ignorance. If He gives you something, you should develop 
it. When you see inside, your whole angle of vision will be changed. 
Even outside you will see that it is all the manifestation of God.  
It is so, and when we meet a Master, we begin to see that it is all 
His manifestation.

   So the first principle of devotion or bhakti is to know that God 
is everywhere. We are living in Him and He is in us. If this right 
understanding comes in, then naturally right thoughts will follow.  
With right thoughts there will be right speech and with right speech, 
you will have right action. So always pray to God, "O God, let us come 
into contact with somebody who is out of this ignorance and who sees 
that this whole world is the manifestation of Thee."  But how many are 
there like that? They are very rare, very few. God has been sending 
these persons of right understanding to give you right understanding, 
and how have they been treated? God said, "I have sent men to you who 
have said that they were God, but you have not respected them. I have 
also sent you those who have said that, 'I am a man like you, it is all 
God's grace.' What do you then say? You say that if He is a man like 
us, then how can He take us out?" These are them aspects of how God 
sends us men of right understanding and how we treat them.
  
   The main principle is to know that God is everywhere. It is a fact 
and we have to develop, to open that eye to see that it is so. That eye 
is opened only when you meet with somebody who opens it within you. It 
is called the Third Eye, or the Single Eye. You will begin to see that 
it is all the manifestation of God. There is no evil in the world. If 
it appears to be evil, it is due to the smoky or colored glasses that 
you are wearing on your heart or mind.  You will find that if you think 
in the way that I have just told you, then naturally you will have 
respect and love for all, even for your enemies. They might think 
otherwise of you, but if you have thrashed out every evil thought 
within you for everybody, you will see with that angle of vision, which 
the Master gives you, that it is all the manifestation of God. Then 
naturally, everybody will be beautiful. You will see this beauty even 
in your enemy. A perverted view is only on account of smoky glasses.
  
   Whatever comes into our lives, sometimes good, sometimes not to our 
taste, is all due as a reaction of our past karma. What you have sown, 
you will have to reap. It is no fault of God, it is our own fault. 
What we have sown we must reap. If you sow one pepper seed, it will grow 
into a plant that will give hundreds of peppers. If you sow one mango seed, 
a tree will grow that will give you hundreds of mangos. So if you cast
out all evil from your mind by having the right understanding, then all 
will be beautiful. Whatever else comes, either it is a reaction of our 
past or it comes from above. We should meet all that happens to us with 
an open mind, happily. Sometimes it so happens that something comes in 
our way which we think not good, but that very thing which appears 
before us is a remedy to set us right, so that we may have something 
higher. Man learns swimming in water, not on dry land. When you develop 
that angle of vision, you will have opened your eye to see things in the 
proper light. You will see that everything is the manifestation of God.
Then you will be strengthened.  This principle which has been placed 
before you is a fact, it is not man-made.
  
   I gave one or two illustrations from the life of Guru Nanak. Once 
when He was weighing out some wheat or corn, He was so absorbed in God 
that He saw Him everywhere. So when you think that "I am not the doer," 
you become the conscious co-worker of the Divine Plan. How can you say 
that it is you who are doing this or that! You should say that He is 
doing it, not you. You are a mere puppet in His hands. When you have 
that angle of vision you will, like Guru Nanak, say, "I am Thine -- It
is Thou not I." You will be so much engrossed and absorbed that you will 
forget yourself. So Guru Nanak was weighing out wheat and when He came 
to the word Tera (meaning both `thirteen' and `thine'), He became 
intoxicated and began repeating "I am Thine, I am Thine." The tenth 
Guru, when talking about God, said, "The whole world is yours, all 
rivers and mountains are yours. It is You who are manifesting in all 
of them." He was so much absorbed, that He was in a state of 
intoxication for hours at a time.

   So this is the basic principle, to know that God is everywhere.  
We are in Him and He is in us. We are the drops of the Ocean of all 
Consciousness. This is the right understanding. When you get that, you 
will have right thoughts. Right thoughts will give you right speech and 
right speech will give you right action. It is all God's manifestation.  
He is the very life of our lives. On this basic ground the very 
superstructure of bhakti is raised. When a child of five is sitting by 
us, we do not dare to do anything wrong. If we know that God is watching 
our every action, our very trend of thought, how can we do anything 
wrong!
  
   So today's subject is, "What the Principles are of Bhakti or 
Devotion." First and foremost, it is to know that God is everywhere, to 
know that it is all His manifestation.  He is the Controlling Power and 
we are a drop of the Ocean of Him. We are living and having our being in 
Him. All other principles follow of themselves. If anything comes that 
is not according to our taste, that is a reaction of what we have done 
in the past. That is due to the smoky or colored glasses that we are 
wearing. The truth remains that it is all the manifestation of God. If 
through some Master's grace, the God in Him, right understanding comes 
to you, you will see that it is so.

   The whole world is in the ignorance of illusion or Maya. You have to 
rise above body consciousness to open your inner eye and see for 
yourself. For that purpose, you have been given some capital to start 
with. If you live by these principles, you will reap the full fruit of 
your bhakti, you will see God within you. All our penances and right 
living ultimately result in what? to know God. Remain where you are.  
You are not to change your outer forms and rituals or symbols of whatever 
school of thought you belong to, not the least. You have to love God.  
The whole world is a manifestation of love. We are all brothers and 
sisters in God. The same Controlling Power is keeping us in the body. 
So this is the sum and substance of bhakti, the basic principle of 
devotion or love. Bhagat (the devotee) rises into Bhagwant (God). If 
we have got love for God, we will feel joyful in serving others. In 
this way, you will go into rapture, blissful rapture. Just like a 
loving mother who washes her child that has become besmeared with filth 
and then hugs it to her breast, so should we hate the sin but love 
the sinner.  That follows naturally.
  
   So the main and basic principle of bhakti is to know that we are in 
Him and He is in us. There is no place where He is not. He is here, 
within me, outside, everywhere. Only your inner eye, the single or third 
eye, has not opened as yet. A man whose eye is opened will give you some 
demonstration of it. If you follow His instructions accurately, you 
will one day see for yourself.

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