0:00 Intro
0:05 How do you define bhakti? Ramana Maharshi has said that bhakti is the mother of jnana.
4:46 How can one devote their total attention to the Divinity which is all around? Is bhakti possible with or without image?
8:04 Is it possible to have devotion to the Divinity without taking a deity as your focus?
12:10 If I do rituals to one particular deity, can that benefit my mind and how can it expand my love to the pure formless Divinity?
19:35 When in the duality and you perceive your Deity as higher than you, does it help the mind or is it also a process of going to the ultimate?
23:40 For busy householders, can everyday rituals to a deity purify the mind?
30:15 Is it wrong to worship deities with certain expectations of results which that particular deity can bring?
43:27 What are the stages of the devotion path?
46:55 How do bhakti and dhyana (meditation) support each other?
49:29 Is everyone capable of feeling that love in bhakti?
51:34 Is love absent if I just practice meditation, without following the bhakti marga?
52:54 Is it ok to focus our prayers to particular deities according to our needs?
54:53 What is the difference to the bhakti Babaji had to Swamiji at the beginning compared to now?
57:07 When Babaji talks about all the sages and deities, is that all Swamiji to you?

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.204
Bhakti Marga, The Devotional Path
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/87vlnueHUJw
Recorded: 07 December 2024

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  Pranaams at Your lotus feet and Pranaams at the feet of Divine Guru Sri Swamiji Maharaj.  Baba, can I take Your permission to start the question and answer session?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, my blessings and thank you for taking up these questions for me and assisting me to hold these sessions.  So, you are most welcome to start your questions. 

Question:   So, Baba, today’s topic is Bhakti Marga and how one can purify their mind and achieve the same nirvikalpa samadhi or achieve the status of pure mind as the Self by Bhakti Marga.  So, my question is, how do you define bhakti?  Because once I remember, I read, Ramana Maharishi has said that bhakti is the mother of jnana.  Knowledge appears from the bhakti.  From the womb of bhakti, the knowledge appears, the jnana appears.  And through the jnana, one attains the pure consciousness. 

Babaji Maharaj:   It can be taken so.  You see, bhakti marga is a very wide subject.  We cannot define conclusively, “This is what is bhakti.”  However, we try to understand a basic definition of bhakti marga.  Some of the things that I have said first might appear very funny and ordinary, but it’s not an ordinary thing.  Due to imagination, mind has gone out of control.  Using the same imagination, we try to bring it back to Divinity here.  So, in bhakti means, all the time your attention needs to be on your Divine through whichever form or formlessness that you would have adopted.  Like, God is both form and formless.  So, in that way, you can believe God in any form or formlessness, and you have to fall in love.  That is the bhakti.  So, all the time your mind’s attention is on that, on that form, on that name that you would have imagined. 

Like, for example, though this entire universe is also a form of the Divine only as Vedas talk – because this has come out of that Divinity only, just like every matter that has come out of the mind is nothing but the mind itself. The mind is a pure consciousness.  When thoughts and visions are there, the same pure consciousness, we recognize it as mind.  So, now if all the thoughts and visions finally have to go, that is the knowledge you acquire through bhakti.  And then the jnana comes and when you become quiet, you realize the form to that which you have become attached as your Divinity and the actual that same Divine is much beyond, is boundless. 

Just like for another example, you would have measured the space; that space is a hundred feet.  You fall in love with the space and you start loving that space all the time; you are obsessed with that space through reverence, through love, through care, through attention, all these things.  And then eventually as you go on, you realize the same space is all pervaded.  That means it is boundless.  It’s much more beyond what you can visualize.  Thus, you achieve that jnana also.  Then finally, your mind becomes quiet.  It surrenders.  When it surrenders, means it’s quiet.  Surrender and becoming quiet both are same actually.  So, that’s when you achieve the pure consciousness.  This is what Ramana Maharishi also has tried to tell. 

Question:   Baba, You define very beautifully that the mind has to become one with the deity or one with your ishta.  So, Baba, is it possible to do bhakti, means your devotion… it’s a bit confusing to me that how one can devote their total attention or their total single-pointed mind to this Divinity which is all around.  We have to have a deity in our mind.  So, is it possible that bhakti can be possible with Nirguna and Saguna,means with image or without image?

Babaji Maharaj:   Definitely possible.  Simply you have to fall in love and consider that as Divinity.  See, Divinity is all pervaded.  This, even in bhakti marga it tells sarva vyaapi – omnipotent.  So, whatever is all pervaded, and wherever, whatever you get to see, that must be Divinity.  Thus, your imagination has to rise to a higher level trying to recognize.  Now, first, we told that you need to be paying attention; all the time your attention needs to be on the Divine.  Now, if you are not sure where all the divine, in whichever form it is, whichever form or formlessness you come across, consider that as Divinity and apply your mind.  When you get to see the space, that space also you consider it as Divinity. Because through a logic, science anyway also you see, if the Divine is all pervaded, that means other than the Divinity, nothing else can exist at all.  That means whatever, whichever is existing that appears to you is all Divine.  Thus, that is the knowledge that Ramana Maharishi talks.  Thus, you realize everything that is there is simply Divinity; that is the height of bhakti. 

And gradually, if you are in the bhakti marga, in your consciousness, you as Ambaji also will disappear.  Only that deity that you perceive will be there.  Like I keep telling, for Meerabai only Krishna was there everywhere, in everything.  Whatever She came across, it was Krishna.  For Her, even Meera did not exist in Her consciousness.  So, that is the height of bhakti marga.  That is how you achieve knowledge and finally your consciousness becomes pure only when you see Divinity everywhere. 

Question:   So, Baba, that is a very beautiful explanation because I always thought that bhakti has to be to your deity.  Means you have to perceive one deity or you have to adopt one ishta; it could be your Guru, or any other deity, like to some people it’s Rama, to some Krishna, to some it’s Devi.  So, I always thought that your bhakti has to be onto the one deity or one person you consider your Guru that you have focus onto, but without any deity also is it possible that one has a pure devotion towards the Divinity?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, you have to consider. Because form and formlessness are both our imaginations.  Whereas the Divinity is beyond all imaginations.  You cannot limit it to either a form or formlessness.  Everything is it is.  That’s what you have to reach.  That height of Divine, that height of bhakti.  Means you are fond of one deity.  That means that is a limited form of the Divine.  Let’s say an idol or a photo or any such thing that you can imagine, but slowly if your devotion starts getting elevated, that means your consciousness expands and you will see your own deity everywhere. 

See, Swamiji, physically He disappeared, but for me He is everywhere.  That means whatever I get to see, I see my Swamiji only in that.  It might be funny for many people – for you this might be a laptop or a Surface or an iPad, something, but for me it is Swamiji seeing Swamiji.  So, that is the love.  Everything you will see.  See, one person falls in love with a girl; any woman, anybody he gets to see, he will go into that brahma, it is called, in the beginning.  He will get to see only that girl because he has fallen in love.  That is the love, unconditional. 

Here it is the purity of love, height of love.  You see your deity everywhere.  Because if you try to see deity in only in that one particular form, you are limiting.  You don’t want to recognize your deity, though which is all pervaded, in any other thing – you want to recognize only in that.  That means you are limiting.  So, many times after my tapas, a couple of people used to approach me.  “So, why don’t You come and meet our Guru like this.”  I simply said, “Why do you want to limit your Guru to that particular place or that particular form only?  I see my Guru everywhere.  So, I don’t have to go to a particular place to see my Guru.”  Like, even I don’t have to go to birth place of my Guru’s body or the samadhi place of my Guru’s body or any such thing; everywhere, I see Him only.  Or in other words, whatever I see, I see Him only.  See, everywhere I see Him.  Or whatever I see, I see Him only. 

Question:   So, Baba, it means, what I understand, I think You’re saying that the single-pointedness of the mind and seeing everything as your deity is the pure bhakti? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes. 

Question:   So, Baba, if suppose I have a love towards one particular deity?  Suppose I love Hanumanji or I love Ganesha.  And I love to worship, do my rituals only to Ganesha.  So, does that benefit my mind or it’s just purely my imagination that, “Okay, I have an idol or a picture of Ganesha on my altar and I do a few morning and evening rituals.”  So, how do those exercises, those rituals, my spiritual exercise as those rituals benefit my mind and how it expands my love towards the pure Divinity beyond any image?

Babaji Maharaj:   That benefit depends on the purity of your love.  Don’t love simply the external body, whether it is a human body or a stone idol, you don’t love that much.  For you, in your bhava, the same thing will appear to you.  If you are doing a abishekam on the idol, the idol on which you are doing the abishekam, from the material that which you are doing abishekam, and all those people who are standing there and watching the abishekam and all other nature, every matter, everything should appear to you as your own deity.  That is how you gradually get elevated.  That means if your love is pure, automatically it will take you; you will not see anything else other than that in your consciousness.  

If you are seeing other things also, that means your devotion is still limited, it has not expanded; consciousness has not expanded, it is still very narrow.  So, that means your concentration is not in purity.  Means when you concentrate, you don’t imagine about anything.  That’s what exactly in the meditation also we give the technique.  “Just keep watching in between eyebrows and don’t repeat anything, don’t imagine anything” – this is directly attention to the Divinity.  The same thing you can achieve through devotional path also.  If only you really fall in love with your deity and your mind gets engulfed with that deity – everywhere you get to see, every time you get to see wherever you are; you might be a hundred kilometers away from your deity, but you get to see your deity. 

Just like one thing explaining this Swamiji used to tell, Sri Krishna after spending his early childhood, etc. in Gokulam, He came out to Mathura, killed Kamsa, then got educated, then was busy with His mission work, helping Pandavas to establish dharma, etc., etc., it was all going on.  In the end, His dear attendant Udhalaka says “Krishna, You are very unfair to those gopikas of Gokulam who loved You so much; Radha loved You so much all the time.  But You totally forgot them.  You did not attend to them; You never even once went there to see them.  You must understand how miserable they might be.”  Sri Krishna smiles, “It is not so.  I have not forgotten because they have not forgotten me.  It is they who are holding me; they have not given me up at all.  They love me so much.  They are in remembrance of Sri Krishna only.  They don’t have anything else to remember.  I will prove this to you.  You take a chariot, go to Gokulam.  Tell all those gopikas, Radha, everybody that your Sri Krishna wants you to come to Dwaraka now.  He is established there in Dwaraka.  Why don’t you come and see him and then listen to their answer, what they have to say.”  

So, when he comes to Gokulam, he meets all the gopikas and tells Radha “Sri Krishna is in Dwaraka.  He is calling you.”  They ridicule “Which Krishna you are talking of?  Why are you telling that Krishna went away from here to Dwaraka?  What Dwaraka you are talking?  My Krishna is here.  He has been playing with me all the time.  Every day He has been playing with me.  Every moment I could see Him in my heart.  My Krishna is here.  He never left us and went away.  Udhalaka, how do you think that you took away Sri Krishna from us?  It’s not possible.  It’s not possible for even Sri Krishna to go away from our hearts.”  So, that was the purity of love.  That was the real devotion.  For them Krishna was there.  He never left them at all.  That was the beauty.  They said “Our Krishna is here only.  Which Krishna you are talking about?”  

So, that type of elevated devotion has to be there.  That is the real purity.  That is when, what Ramana talks, you achieve the pure consciousness.  Because in your consciousness there is nothing else.  Only your deity is there and that deity you are not limiting to one place.  It’s everywhere, everywhere.  So, that is the highest point of the devotion through which you achieve pure consciousness.  Once your consciousness is pure, automatically your consciousness merges with the Divine.  It will become a yogi and it will just wait for the body to get dropped and it merges finally.  So, that’s what a yogi also does. 

   So, in my opinion bhakti marga, jnana marga, dhyana marga are all not different, they are all one and same.  Simply, different terminologies. You begin with a different type of way of worshipping or remembering.  But many people, if they stop at the lower level itself, they will never achieve the purity of consciousness.  That means they are attached only to the body or to the outside form.  That is what it is.  But if you really love everything, it will be you.  It is the deity – if I show you anything, “Yeah, it is my deity, my Guru.  It’s my Lord.  Yeah, it is my Swamiji who is here and every time He is always with me guiding me, He is looking after me.  So, it is His wish He wants to slap me sometimes, He wants to kiss on my forehead.  It’s up to Him.  It is He who plays.  It is one single Self that is playing.”  So, that knowledge also comes. 

Question:   Thank You, Baba.  Baba, what You are saying, it’s very beautiful and I can understand that your deity disappears in the form and the Divinity which exists everywhere is ultimately that Supreme consciousness which becomes your subject to worship or subject to follow.  So, Baba what You are talking is the non-duality, where the existence of your own self totally vanishes and only the Divinity as your deity exists. 

So, Baba what happens when your deity and you are in the duality, when you love?  Like, Sri Ramakrishna, before attaining nirvikalpa samadhi, He used to go feed Mother Kaali, He used to talk to Mother Kaali, He used to cry in front of Mother Kaali, and He used to take every single guidance from the Mother Kaali idol.  So, is it good that when you perceive your deity, when you are in duality, and you perceive your deity as highest, higher than you, does it help the mind or it’s also a process going towards the Ultimate? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Both – it helps also.  Because, you see, for example, after tapas there is no individuality called Shivarudrabalayogi; it merged with, became one with the Divinity or the Guru, whomever we perceived as our deity.  But in duality when in this world, as long as this body is there, I have to follow certain maryaada, the manners.  That is, Shivarudrabalayogi means His disciple; Shivabalayogi is Shivarudrabalayogi’s Guru.  That difference I must show for the people of the world.  So, whenever I behave, I must behave in this body as a disciple only, sitting at the lotus feet. Must not try to sit on His head or on the dais that Swamiji sits.  We have not become Swamiji.  That I have to show.  That is maryaada. 

But within me, when I do not exist at all, it is only Swamiji who exists.  That is how Hanumanji said, “In Dwaita, I am servant and my Lord Rama is my Master, my Divine.  In Advaita, I do not exist, only Rama exists, that is all.”  So, that is how things go.  Your height of your imagination must have reached.  Like, you are talking of Ramakrishna feeding Maha Kaali – you start with a bhaava and then reach the mahabhaava.  When Bhairavi Brahmani made all the brahmins, pandits sit down and discuss what is the status of Ramakrishna, they said, “He is not an ordinary soul.  He is equivalent to incarnation, avataara. His is a mahabhaava.  Just like the Divine is in maha samadhi, whatever bhaava is showing is in mahabhaava.  He saw only Kaali everywhere; He never saw Ramakrishna.”  Like that they explained. 

Question:   That is very beautiful Babaji. It clarifies that we can worship our deity, purely perceiving it as the only present Divinity, but at the same time we can stay in duality and understand how big, how vast and how magnanimous our deity or ishta is.  Baba, I want to ask You one more thing.  You always talk about the highest, highest in the sense of the mind attaining the pure consciousness and becoming one with that.  So, same thing in bhakti marga, You always tell us to achieve the highest which is the Supreme, even through the bhakti also. 

But Baba, in this world, when we live our day-to-day life, people do every day worship at their home, and they have limited time.  But their life is very busy, a simple householder’s life is very busy.  And they can’t live their life in this bhaava of their deity everywhere, but they want to worship their deity every morning, or every evening they want to perform such certain rituals. 

So, where does this take us?  Is this just simple ritual or simple exercise or does it really benefit?  Our everyday rituals such as offering flowers, offering incense, or lighting a diya, or offering some food to our deity – do these purify mind, or it’s just a simple ritual, that ultimately we have to perceive the Divinity as the all-pervading?

Babaji Maharaj:   When you perform such ritual of offering flowers or any such thing, it is expected that you apply your mind also.  That is when your worship will reach your God.  That’s what I have always emphasized.  Whenever I have got a chance to address people in temples, places of worship like that, this is what I have told. “It’s wonderful that you all come to the place of worship.  Temple has a special place.  It has a special manifestation of the Divinity.  But when you do some puja or when you get to see a puja being performed, take care that your mind is there, concentrated.  Just watch that.  If an abishekam is going on, watch that.  Instead of that, if you are watching here and there, then maybe fifteen years will go by and you will never learn what devotion is.  Simply even if you go to ashram or a monastery or a Guru, anywhere, those fifteen years will be just like you go to the engineering college and remain in the first semester only; you are unable to cross that.  You don’t get through because you have not understood the things of engineering, anything you never read. 

In the same way here also, devotionally, you will simply remain in that nursery school only, showing all your anger, your frustrations, as your this, as that, all such things keep happening in your life.  You don’t change at all.  But if you get to see your real Divine… When your mind gets purified, then you overcome all emotions and slowly your consciousness becomes purified because you get to see only Divine. Then the rest all disappear.  All the universe disappears for you.  Only your Divine is there.  Though bodily you might be performing duties also, certain things also, you might be moving, you might be eating, just like a yogi also, eating or moving or talking, but all the time in His consciousness, He is purely settled in Itself there. Effortlessly due to sadhana, it is settled. 

In bhakti marga also, the same thing can be achieved, provided you follow this rule that you become obsessed with your deity, with the Divine.  The Divine is here.  If you undergo some difficulty, consider “It is the Divine who is testing me.  It’s for a larger cause he is giving me this trouble.  Maybe He is training me for something.  Maybe He has better things in His store for us.  For something He is slapping me – that’s good.”  Like when Swamiji was alive, sometimes He used to be very lovingly, smilingly talking, feeding us, playing this, singing, everything.  Sometimes He used to be so furious that it would appear the next moment He is going to kill us and He will throw us away.  So, that type of terrifying thing, but slowly, slowly as we loved Him so much, both had the same effect inside our consciousness.  That’s when I remain composed.  Once He started scolding, afterwards it was up to Him.  He could have gone on scolding for one hour, two hours.  All those one hour, two hours, mind used to remain composed at peace.  “My Lord is loving me so much like this.”  Any dear ones you see, dear friends or dear siblings in a family, like that, when they talk also, it appears as if they are talking very rudely, very ferociously, but inside they all love each other. 

So, that’s the beauty of a family.  Family means, it has to be like that.  From outside, it appears that you keep fighting for every small thing, but it is the love everywhere.  Whenever there is a pure love, the relationship will never get broken.  In the same way, you really love your Master, your Guru, the relationship will never get broken.  It will be the same.  What you would have had twenty years ago, ten years ago, whether something good happened to you or bad happened to you, it will become a question of your self-respect.  If you don’t love your Master, that means you are not ripe at all in your devotion to the Master and you never loved your Master really, though you spoke.  If you really love, it will never diminish, come what may be; this world, anything may happen.  Tomorrow this universe may disappear, the Earth might get broken, anything can happen, but your love for your Master, it is the same. 

Question:   Babaji, here I want to ask one more thing.  Here, what You are talking, again You take us again and again to the same place where your Master or your deity exists and you don’t exist, the same non-duality You take us to.  I want to ask one much lesser or a worldly question.  Sometimes when we worship the deity, we have expectations also in our mind.  Suppose I am worshiping Saraswati, so I want knowledge and I am specifically worshiping Ganesha to remove all the obstacles in my life and then I am worshiping Mother Kaali to remove all the bad things from my life. 

So, do these things bring benefit in our worldly life also, our day to day life, that whatever form we worship we get to see the same results? Because I remember somewhere in Bhagavad Gita also Bhagawan Krishna has said, “You will attain in the way you worship me; same way you will get the results also.”  So, onto this worldly plane, do we get the same result, the deity we worship or it’s just again our personal imagination; the whole technique behind is our own mind?

Babaji Maharaj:   Now, what do you need to understand, what I would like to teach people for devotion; there is no harm if you want to pray for these things in the beginning.  Slowly, slowly, you will get to see that the same Divine will induce you to get elevated.  Once or twice He will give you what you want. Just like mother will give what the child wants, then the third time, fourth time if the child is becoming habitual, then mother will start scolding the child, “Enough, whatever I have to give, I have given you, enough.  Now, you learn to grow up.  You are not going to stay there.”  In the same way, in devotion also, the Guru, if a real yogi is a Guru – that is the most fortunate for anybody to obtain a yogi as a Guru. He will not simply pamper all the time.  He will pamper in the beginning, then He will become a little tough, then He will pamper, then He will become tough.  Like that He will try to elevate the devotee also. 

So, in the beginning, even if you pray it’s no harm, the Divine will grace upon you, but you will get to see the Divine actually would like you to get elevated to the higher level of consciousness.  Because all the time you want chocolate, you are given a chocolate, you want chocolate, you are given a chocolate; that’s what everybody wants in this world.  So, you want everything to happen according to your wishes, you don’t want the world to move on according to its rules and regulations; you want the whole universe to dance to what you want.  That’s when the prayers will become narrow-minded, selfish; you are considering your physical body as yourself and based on the needs of that physical body only, you will be praying, “Let it be morning, let it be only winter, let it be only summer.”  Whatever you want at that moment, it has to happen because you are not liking the other thing. 

So, you realize one day how selfish you are.  When you realize, then you start surrendering. Then the prayers will get elevated if that happens. “I want this my Lord, but let it happen according to Your wishes, but please inspire my wisdom.”  So, like that it gets elevated, then only you will be promoted to the next class of bhakti marga, that’s what a yogi Guru tries to train people into such devotional path, but many people fail.  They don’t understand.  They will start thinking, “We thought that Babaji will give us this thing, but in spite of that, Babaji did not help this thing to happen.  So, Babaji has no powers.  His Guru has not given Him any powers, so it’s useless worshipping Him, it’s useless going to Him, considering him as a Guru” –they fall out.  So, who is the loser?  Babaji has nothing to lose.  He has achieved.  His Guru has given Him.  The devotion is always there.  Whether Swamiji will take away all my attendants, all my people serving me, everybody who is attending on and helping me in my mission work, I will not give up loving my Master; it’s no problem.  “You are testing.”  Master has to fail, I must not get failed.  That should be the devotion.  Master will have to accept that, “Okay, you are okay now, you have passed.”  That type of love must be there come what may be. “You take out everything, You trouble this physical body, You humiliate this physical body, You take out this Ashram also, no problem.  I will love.  But You cannot make me not to love You.  Except that power which is not with You, You can do anything You want because You are the Master, You are the Lord.  Universe is yours.  You can do anything, but inspire my wisdom that I love You all the time.  That must not go away.  No problem if You don’t fulfill my wishes, no problem. It’s Your wishes.  Something good is there.”  

That is how you get elevated in devotional path, that is the real devotion.  But majority of the people, they don’t know what devotion is.  They simply think, “I have to pray and it has to be granted, otherwise Babaji doesn’t have any powers.”  They accused Swamiji also, “Swamiji doesn’t have any powers.  What twelve years of tapas He did; it doesn’t seem to have any powers to protect us.  How could that lady get killed?  Babaji, Swamiji did not protect her.”  Fifty years ago, several of the devotees left Swamiji and went away, local devotees.  I’m an eyewitness, I was here fifty years ago when such a thing happened.  I used to wonder, “What type of devotion these people have? Just because this thing has happened, so they don’t want to love Swamiji anymore.  They don’t want to be devoted to Swamiji anymore. O, God, how can I tell these people, they are losers?  They will lose it, they will lose it.”  

So, that is how the devotional path, if the knowledge is coming.  This comes naturally if you have a pure love.  That’s what I told, when the worship is being done, if your mind is there, then gradually your mind will become pure consciousness automatically.  If your mind is not there, it is running anywhere else and you want your deity to fulfill all your wishes, whatever you want… because you yourself don’t know what you are going to ask tomorrow, what you are going to ask the day after tomorrow; anything might come to your mind and you will start asking. There is no limit for you to ask. And all such things must be fulfilled by your Guru, only then you will be satisfied that your Guru has powers.  You think you are educated, does this make sense?  Who the hell are to give certificate to your Guru, what He has achieved and what He is, who the Divine is?  

One person said, “It looks that the Divine is holding somebody to do tapas and not to do tapas in Him.”  Is that all the Divine?  This is ridiculous.  He is not holding anybody from coming to Him.  Today you want God, He is ready to accept you, provided you really want Him.  He will never stop you.  He is never holding it as a ball that “I will give you tapas only if you give me  500 million dollars.”  He doesn’t need that thing.  Such a thing keeps coming in the emails and for educational purpose only I am talking, how we need to understand this devotional path.  This is a wonderful topic.  It has no end. Such a wide subject, bhakti cannot be understood in two words, in one definition, impossible!  It is such a great tapas, bhakti means also tapas, nothing less than that.  

Even you cannot understand God as it is, just like you cannot measure space as it is, but even a little bit of criteria comes to your consciousness, what this all pervadedness means… “My God…” [shakes head in wonder] – you will be shaken!  “What was I thinking about this Divinity?  Was I going to ask small things? Small, small things I was going to trouble?  What an idiot I was.  My God.  God, please forgive me, I was all the time asking for a chocolate, for an ice cream.  Stupid, I was.  I wanted You to behave as I wanted You to behave.  I am really sorry.  Forgive me my Lord.  Forgive me please, forgive me.  You do whatever you want, You play whatever you want, please inspire my wisdom.”  That’s how the prayers will have to get elevated.  

If your consciousness becomes pure, automatically it will come.  These things, nobody taught us.  From childhood we learned, because there was pure love.  We were not ready to give up that love to our God, or our Master.  Once I saw Swamiji I surrendered, means I was not ready to give up that love.  Even if Swamiji tested me, He wanted to scold me, kill me, anything…  So, Guru told once, “You see this boy.  Even if I cut him into pieces and throw him into river, he will get joined and come back to me.”  Can you understand that tattva that Swamiji was, what devotion means?

Question:   That’s phenomenal, because it’s not possible for any of us, the love, the surrender, the devotion You had for your Swamiji and You are still continuing to serve Him, considering Him Your Master and You as His servant.  None of us has that capability.  Definitely, You’re a super human for me, Babaji, because it’s unbelievable that at the age of seventy You have the same reverence, same love, same devotion, same surrender what You had fifty years back for Your Master.  It’s not easy, it’s not easy thing.  

Yes Baba, we always want our deity, our Guru, our ishta to behave or give what we want, so the bhakti ultimately shrinks to the wanting – a bhaktha wants something in return of his bhakti or her bhakti, but ultimately that’s not the bhakti; that’s a deal that I pray to You and You give me this.  The bhakti is that I surrender at Your lotus feet and You do whatever you like, whatever you want.  Let that acceptance, until that surrender comes, bhakti has not yet started even.  Baba, it’s a very beautiful topic, because it has opened my eyes also.  I have understood how narrow-mindedly we think about bhakti; actually bhakti is nothing else but the pure jnana, the pure surrender towards the Divinity.  So, my questions end here, Babaji.  I take you permission; shall we take it to the people if they have questions?  

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, for about fifteen minutes we can take some questions if people have on this topic. Remember, if the question is intelligent, an intelligent answer will come. It depends on the question.

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.   Babaji, when You were describing that the level of prayers also elevate gradually from one part of devotion to another, there seems to be stages in the spiritual path.  Is there a way that Babaji could describe how these levels of stages come? What are these stages, the changes?

Babaji Maharaj:   See, these changes come as your consciousness becomes pure.  This power is in your own consciousness, then that guidance will come from within, the Divinity.  So, your effort should be to purify your consciousness. That purification happens – in the beginning itself if your love is sincere, if your love to your Master is sincere, even after twenty years you will have the same attachment to your Master.  Not that you came for a little bit of cricket and then you disappear, you don’t even remember your Master; it’s not like that.  So, if that is there, if that love was sincere, if that attachment had developed within you, if you have understood, then automatically your mind starts giving up all other types of definitions, means it will lose its ego and narrow-mindedness.

It will not try to measure or weigh the Guru, it will not try to understand the Guru, because these things are limiting the Guru; it is like trying to measure the space, or trying to weigh the space, or trying to understand the space – same thing, you are going to limit it, you can never do that one, impossible. Like that when you start, slowly your mind gets purified.  As it purifies, this knowledge comes within, and you get elevated, your attachment to the Master grows, grows and grows.  One day, it will make you to merge with your Master one day.  Those are the stages.  You can name if we have to give some names for the stages.  Because it naturally happened to us, I never thought of any names for any stages; simply the method is this one.  If your devotion is sincere, it is not just for a bodily urge or outside benefit, that you want to be a VIP with your Master, or you just want to attend to your Master’s physical body, and nothing else, you don’t want to bother, you don’t want to see your Master anywhere else, so these are not the elevated devotion.  That’s where you need to be sincere, then the consciousness becomes purified.  Then in those stages, you get elevated. 

Same Questioner:   So, Babaji, just in conclusion, the starting can be very small, let’s say “I want to be in presence of Babaji,” but then eventually with every passing test or every passing practice, it evolves into purer and purer consciousness, and more purer devotion, if I am very open to that?

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly, yes. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  With bhakti and dhyana, how do they support each other?  If my dhyana practice gets stronger then will the bhakti get stronger also, and vice versa if I’m practicing bhakti and that gets stronger, will the dhyana also get stronger?

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly, they go parallelly.  From both ways, the purification happens.  In the dhyana also, the purification of the mind starts happening if you follow the right technique, and just watch in between eyebrows.  When you are watching, means, I have repeatedly tried to explain, you are not analyzing anything, you are not making any judgments at all, you are just watching: “Keep quiet, this is nothing.”  In devotional bhakti marga also, as you fall in love, and then things start happening in your life; some may be good, some may appear bad, some may be according to your wishes, some may not be according to your wishes, in all times if you continue to love the Master, if you just worship in the same way.

Not “Today, I am offering ten flowers; tomorrow because my wishes were not fulfilled, I will offer only two flowers.”  It should not be like that, calculating.  Unconditional surrender.  “Whether You give me anything or not, I am going to offer these flowers to You.  Whether You are going to love me or not, I am going to love You.”  So, like that when you do that, the consciousness becomes purified.  It becomes quiet, because there won’t be any analyzations, judgments, then all the thoughts and visions disappear.  The same thing you are trying to achieve in meditation also.  So, they both go parallelly, they both can give you the same results, provided you follow the rules and techniques. 

Same Questioner:   If in the example of when something in my life happens that I am not wanting to happen, and if I am practicing acceptance, would that be a form of bhakti?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  I have a very basic question, Babaji.  You talk about love, and it appears that love is the base of bhakti.  But I often wonder, is everyone capable of feeling that love?  I think love is basic, but as individuals, can everyone feel that love?  Can that feeling come to anybody and everybody?

Babaji Maharaj:   Not necessarily, it may not be.  That’s why everybody may not become a champion.  When it comes to the championship round, one or two will remain.  So, that’s what is the important criteria.  Whether you meditate, whether you are on the devotional path, a rule is a rule.  You need to fall in love.  That will sustain you.  That will take care of you, because life is a mixture.  You will see good and bad, right and wrong.  Things happening according to you or not according to you will be there.  If you are allowing your consciousness to jump according to the happenings of the world, then it will not be stabilized in devotion at all.  But if you love, that love can overlook everything; that needs to be achieved.  Those who are unable to love like that, they fail in the bhakti marga.  That’s what I have seen in my observations also.  May not be possible for everyone, but still we try to teach.  See, if you can bring out your love.  The love comes and it should become a self-respect.  You love your deity because for sake of love you want to love, and you don’t get to see anything else for that love. 

Same Questioner:   Okay, that makes sense.  So, then if I don’t have a deity in life – let’s say I’m not able to have that unconditional love and devotion, so I’m not following the bhakti marga, but then the technique that You tell, like the formless, we’re just focusing and looking between your eyebrows with your sight and your focus – does that mean that love is absent there? When you’re following the technique without that emotion?

Babaji Maharaj:   It is a technique through which you try to transcend all the emotions there.  Even if emotion is not there, it is not necessary that a love has to happen through emotion only.  But as long as the yearning is there: you want to do that, you want to disciplinely sit and meditate to that, that also needs to be considered as a love above emotions. 

Same Questioner:   Okay.  Well, yeah, that makes sense.  Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Pranaams Babaji.  So, this is just a little bit of an expansion on one of Ambaji’s questions.  So, when I go to the temple, or I’m doing puja in my home shrine, I have very much love and fondness for all of the devas.  And even though I consider Lord Shiva as my ishtadeva, I spend just as much time with the other devas as well.  And I know You said to not limit them to a single attribute, like don’t limit Ganapati to obstacle removal or something like that, but if I’m seeing them as all manifestations of the same one Divinity, and that they all have the same infinite power and infinite divinity, is it still okay to, say, when I’m feeling the need for extra strength I will sit more time with Hanuman or focus more attention with Hanuman, or if I am facing a hard obstacle, I’ll sit more with Ganapati and focus my attention more on Him?  Is that okay?

Babaji Maharaj:   Yes, yes.  As long as the inside consciousness is aware that it is all the same Infinity, from outside if you remember with that name or with that any chant you would have learnt is no harm, the same effect it will have. 

Same Questioner:   Yes, okay.  Just like with Swamiji and Babaji and all the devas; I see that all are the same manifestation of one. 

Babaji Maharaj:   Exactly, exactly.  Same.

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  Ram, Ram.  When You met Swamiji and You’re talking about that formation of bhakti that You had, and now when You’re talking about Swamiji after Your more profound Realization, when You refer to Swamiji now, You’re referring to that that’s everything, that complete universe, that that being was just a representation of, and probably now a small representation of.  So, the difference of the bhakti at the beginning to the bhakti now, it’s something very, very different, or what is the link?

Babaji Maharaj:   In the beginning was on seeing that body which was holding Swamiji through which He did tapas, that falling in love with that, then gradually it got elevated, trying to see that everywhere, in everything, as everything.  So, this thing started coming in, started coming in, and as we tried to understand Yoga Vashista also, then the love also increased.  The more Swamiji tried to test us with His different attitudes, different behaviors, whether He did this, did that, that love was there, that sustained us.  So, thus, that love also got elevated slowly.  So, it started seeing from everywhere.  “If through this body when He’s behaving like this, if I can keep quiet, accept it as Swamiji’s love, so, everywhere through other means also, whatever is happening in my life, that is also Swamiji.  So, we have to accept it”, like that the mind got elevated.  Slowly that’s how it became ripened.  Today, it is totally different.  After tapas, it has reached the final height of merging with that one Self. 

Same Questioner:   And when Babaji is talking about Ramakrishna, when Babaji is talking about Mother Kaali, all this universe of great beings, great energies, all of that is just Swamiji to You? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Yeah, because it’s all the same, it’s all one Divinity, all these yogismerged with the Ultimate Truth.  It is not two truths.  Means where Ramakrishna merged is not a different entity, where Swamiji merged is not a different entity.  It is all in one entity called the Parabrahman.  So, thus, all of them when I remember, for me it is Swamiji only. 

Same Questioner:   Thank You, Babaji.

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   Ah, it looks like all the questions have come to an end.  Ambaji, thank you so much for some wonderful questions that you gave an opportunity to me.  And as the new things are asked, for the same devotional path new, new things keep coming when the questions are new. 

End of Session