0:00 Intro
0:06 What does Babaji means when He speaks about devotion and devotional practices?
1:20 How did devotion manifest in Babaji’s early life?
4:10 Some aspirants feel that devotion is an inferior path to meditation – how would Babaji reply to this suggestion?
16:24 Babaji narrates an event with Swamiji after being with Him after a few years.
20:28 Is meditation not enough by itself, but is devotion necessary also?
31:00 How can we develop devotion?

Discourse: In Quest of Truth – online Q&A no.215
Devotion – Is it necessary?
You tube Link: https://youtu.be/CcWqQmt7R7E   
Recorded: 08 March 2025

Start of Questions and Answers

Question:   Could I ask Babaji to describe what Babaji means when He speaks about devotion or devotional practices please?   

Babaji Maharaj:   Devotion is the highest pitch of dedicating yourself to the Divinity in a particular form.  Like, also I have told, due to imagination, mind has gone out of control since time immemorial.  To make it single-pointed, using one imagination of Divine, “Yeah, this is God,” and you fall in love, you pay your attention so that all the time your attention is on That.  So, that is the basic idea of devotion.  To remain devoted, means to the cause, or to that aspect, to Divinity.  So, these all are some of the basic points of devotion.  However, this is a very wide subject, you cannot give a particular definition that this is all the devotion. 

Question:   Babaji, even in His early life, He seemed to exhibit an innately strong sense of devotion.  Could Babaji describe how that manifested in His life? 

Babaji Maharaj:   Somehow, we had no questions.  Like, when we got to go to a temple, a place of worship, simply I enjoyed the serenity, a peace that used to happen in our mind.  And then I had fallen in love.  I fell in love with the deities.  Even as a child also, we never thought “This is a stone idol.”  Whenever we went to a place of worship, it was the Divine, God who was sitting there for us.  While praying, while  conveying our love, our devotion, it was so natural and truthfully, never questioning anything.  It was as if I had met God there, that type.  So, that type of love and devotion had happened.  The faith also automatically built up for us.  So, gradually, as we got to know about some saints’ teachings, Ramakrishna particularly, that helped us to know about more devotion, how to be devoted unconditionally, going for the highest prayer, leaving to the wishes of the Divinity. 

We learnt in such a way, like sometimes we used to pray if a certain thing needed to happen.  But always it wouldn’t happen.  But if it didn’t happen, there was no brooding or no complaint, no disliking of Divine.  The Divine was like as if it’s our own.  Like, we asked something to our father, and for some reason the father refuses, there is no question of getting annoyed with the father.  So, we had that type of attitude.  That helped us to think in this way, “Though I wanted this thing to happen so much, yet it has not happened –maybe something good is there for me.  So, let me accept it.”  Like that.  Under any circumstances, there was no annoyance with God, or no belittling God, no accusing God.  Nothing such was there.  Accepting was there, “It’s okay, no problem.”

Question:   Thank you, Baba.  Babaji, some aspirants, particularly in the West, they seem to believe that devotion is an inferior path to meditation.  That it’s a weak approach.  It’s not effective.  It’s a simpleton’s approach.  How would Babaji reply to that suggestion?

Babaji Maharaj:   It is a misunderstanding.  That means they don’t know what actual devotion means.  Technically, the purpose that you are trying to meditate is paying attention to that Ultimate Truth, the Divine.  When you are trying to pay attention, you don’t know what that Divine is.  Yet you are taught to concentrate your mind and sight.  Either on some body parts, either on a breath or on any name or mantra; these things come afterwards in the devotional path.  Or even silently as we teach, silently we teach “Watch in between eyebrows.”  At that time, we don’t talk anything about the Divine.  “You concentrate on Divine; this is Divine.”  I never tell that in between eyebrows is the Divine.  There is no such thing.  Yet, first you have to practice concentration. 

So, the same thing here also is taught – when we don’t know anything about God, we try to assume or imagine “This is God”, symbolizing God.  Slowly we have to understand a symbol of God, a stone idol or a photograph or any such thing, “O, this is God.”  So, we start worshipping, we start considering that to be God and we fall in love.  And we pour all our emotions.  When we pour all our emotions, when we fall in love, then the deity becomes our own.  Once it becomes our own, we have no complaints.  Just like you have a beloved in this world, you won’t have any complaints.  We adjust.  We don’t have any such dislikes, “O, this thing is not proper.”  Even if the behavior at that moment may appear as not proper, inappropriate, it’s okay, no problem.  We let go of the thing.  We adjust and we maintain the relationship.  That it is natural, that gives us so much happiness, a peace, because it’s our own. 

Like, for a husband and wife are any such relations in this world.  It’s our own.  Husband is wife’s her own; wife is husband’s his own.  That ownership means “Belongs to me.”  So, then you let go of hundreds and thousands of things.  It doesn’t really matter.  In the same way in the devotional path, a relationship with the Divine builds up slowly as you become matured.  And if you naturally and really fall in love, you won’t use your intelligence, or you won’t be selfish; you won’t work [out a condition to] consider you as God.  There is no such condition.  “If you want to give, give me. If for some reason you don’t give me it’s no problem.  That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to consider you as my God.  I will consider.”  Like, even with Swamiji also I used to tell, “Now that You have disliked me or You have shown me such anger, You have scolded me so much, I’m going to love You more.  Whatever You want to do, You cannot make me not to love You.”  So, that would become a challenge.  That would become like a sattvic ego.  “I am going to love You, come what maybe.  You scold, You find faults, You humiliate, You abuse, anything is no problem.  You are my own,  My Guru, my father, my mother,” like that.  That’s how. 

So, as the life went on, good and bad happened, likes and dislikes happened – what we wanted happened; what we did not want also happened.  But there was no question of disliking the Divine or complaining to the Divine.  There was no such thinking that now the relationship ends, let me move on to somewhere else.  It didn’t happen like that.  We don’t know that thing at all.  So, the same thing came so handy and beautiful; years later at the age of twenty, when I went to Swamiji’s abode, my Guru, twenty years and after that thirty more years bodily He has gone, we are still looking after His Ashram.  His place is there.  Hundreds of things have happened which were to our liking.  Some are not to our liking.  Due to some we have been stressed out, pained out, suffering.  Everything has happened.  But not a single moment any such dislike happened towards Swamiji.  Even if He Himself was scolding and used to find fault and complaining to all others just to try to belittle me also, such an idea never came, “Enough is enough” type of thing didn’t happen.  It was simply, “He is my own.”  That grew more stronger within me.  “He is my own Master, He is my own father, my own mother; He is everything to me.  He is my own God.  How can I dislike?  It wouldn’t happen at all.” 

So, for me this happened naturally.  It is very difficult to teach somebody else.  If they can understand the relationship and they cultivate, develop faith, they will definitely win.  But for me, this was a self-respect question.  A question of sattvic ego; I wanted to maintain, “It’s my Guru, my Shivabalayogi.”  Even after Swamiji dropped His body also, there was no such question of even for a moment, even for any… like, for sake of some protection or something like that, you need some psychological anchor, and you tried to go somewhere else – such a thing never happened to me.  In the Ashram of my Guru Shivabalayogi, everything was there.  We came to know about so many Gurus, but nobody attracted us like Swamiji attracted me.  Because He’s my God; today if He’s not in the body, that doesn’t mean He’s not there, He’s there always.  We speak to Him.  Whether He appears to me in a human form or not, not necessary.  The space, its appearance is there all the time, and that is my Guru, that is my Shivabalayogi for me.  We keep talking. 

So, this is how it grew and developed within me like this, even after Swamiji…  Though for a while we missed His physical body, but a very short while, not for a long time.  It didn’t trouble us that we have to leave the Ashram, we need to find some other Guru or some other place.  There was no such thing because we never had any such wanting that we need to be cared for, we need to be treated like a VIP.  Such people, we saw them trying to go to this Guru and that Guru. When Swamiji passed away an army officer, he tried to go to another Guru.  Because he was in service and for a while he was treated like a VIP.  So, that attracted him, then he went.  But after some time, when he retired and that died down, he also lost interest in that Guru also.  So, such people they never get stuck to any Guru.  They are never devoted, actually.  That is not devotion. 

So thus, finally coming to the point of the question, the devotion is as good as meditating.  When you are meditating, if you are really meditating, then you are really a devotee because your attention is on the Divinity.  Your attention is on your Ultimate Truth.  Thus, when you are meditating, you are devoted to your Ultimate Truth.  That is what is devotion also.  If you are devoted, you might have it in a form; some rituals are based on the cultural background.  It is likely that why some people might get put off – some rituals that have come from time to time might appear as funny or not up to standard, any such things.  So, we don’t have to follow all rituals.  We have to follow our heart.  We have to love.  That is science.  That is the real meditation.  We have to keep our attention to our deity.  So, that is devotion. 

Like, whenever I have visited a place of worship, I have, addressing the people, “You come to a place of worship is wonderful.  But when you are doing puja, if you are doing aarati, or if you are watching somebody doing aarati, your mind has to be there.  Then only your prayer or your worship will reach your God.  God is connected to your mind.  Your mind’s ultimate truth is God.  Not simply with the body that you can connect.  You cannot connect to God with any language, Sanskrit, English, Hindi, German, French, any such thing will not connect you.  Only your mind can connect you to your God.  So thus, devotion also is not an easy thing.  Many people may misunderstand that “If I offer two flowers and if I do some worship, and if I offer some five hundred dollars, I am devotee of such and such and I am certified now and the God has to give me what I want.”  It is not a devotion.  It’s only working a deal, business deal with God.  “I will give you five hundred dollars, and you give me this.”  So, that’s what it is. 

Even a Guru is offered dakshina, a donation for the knowledge and wisdom that He imparts.  Not for any other deal.  “If the Guru can help me to pass in my exam, then only I will give a hundred dollars.”  That is not the real donation.  You are trying to bribe.  But you offer a donation because that Guru has given you such knowledge and wisdom.  Like if we take tuition from a teacher, we would like to pay some because of the knowledge that the teacher has imparted to us.  It should be like that.  So, devotion also is not easy.  It is equivalent to meditation.  Meditation, devotion, they are all same.  Only one needs to understand the devotion in its right sense. 

Question:   Thank You, Baba.  Babaji, there was a particular event in Babaji’s life I’d just like to revisit if I could go into this subject a little bit more.  When Babaji had been with Swamiji for a few years, on His birthday He approached Swamiji and asked for some vibhuti to enable Him to go into Tapas.  Could Babaji please describe that event again?

Babaji Maharaj:   Well, after I went to Ashram in 1974, I had heard that a devotee of Swamiji in a South Indian town had sat for Tapas.  Till then, I didn’t have any particular idea about doing Tapas, just to do service, meditate; a Self-Realization idea was there, but how I am going to get was not there.  “Just serve and you will be liberated” – that type of idea was there.  But when I heard about this, slowly that idea came to mind, “If I also can do Tapas, then also I can serve.  Simply by doing Tapas, I am not going to go away from my Guru.  To Him, I will always be a disciple.  I can remain at His Lotus Feet and serve His Mission.  So, I used to pray. 

Two, three years later in 1978, I was in Bangalore.  Next day was my birthday.  One day before, a young girl who had become fond of me, used to call me brother, elder brother, she had brought a chocolate for me knowing that it was my birthday next day.  I kept it the night and early morning, next early morning – which was my birthday, 20^th September, actually – at 3:30 in the morning, I took milk for Swamiji.  He had milk, I was sitting quiet.  Then I took a piece of vibuthi I was carrying and gave it to His hand to bless.  He asked me, “Why do you need this vibuthi?”  I told, “I want to do Tapas.”  Swamiji first made fun.  “Do you think this vibuthi will make you to sit for Tapas?”  I said, “I have faith.  You bless and give me.  I am sure I can do that one.”  Then Swamiji said, “Look, now if you do Tapas, you might do Tapas, but still some amount of ego will be there, and you will go away from me.  You may have your own devotees, all such things might happen.”  But all these things did not impress me – “You will have your own ego or you may go away.”  Only the words “You may go away from me,” that troubled me.  That struck my mind, “O God, I don’t want to go away from You.”  I told Swamiji, “Tapas can happen afterwards.  That’s no rush.  I want to be with You first, that is important.  That’s my priority.  I cannot give it up and go away somewhere else.”  So, I dropped the idea.  “Please give me vibuthi.”  Then Swamiji said, “When time comes, when it is ripe, it will come on its own.”  That much He told. 

And afterwards, it went away from my mind once Swamiji told.  Such was the devotion to Swamiji.  Once He told, it totally erased from my mind of doing Tapas.  Finished.  Means, the mind was so much attached to Swamiji, devoted to Swamiji.  So, that was the incident.  Well, after that, everybody knows now.  Sixteen years later when Swamiji dropped His physical body, three or four months later in November He appeared and made me to go for Tapas, and here I am as Shiva Rudra Balayogi, sitting with all of you now, able to teach meditation, initiate you all into meditation and answer your questions. 

Question:   Thank You so much, Baba.  There’s one particular part of that story I’d like to visit.  By this time, Babaji had been able to meditate for extended periods of time.  So, He was skilled in meditation.  But when Swamiji said to Baba that “If you go into Tapas, you might develop an ego,” and Swamiji put you into service and on the path of service and devotion for the next sixteen years.  Does that mean that meditation is not enough by itself, that devotion is necessary also?

Babaji Maharaj:   A purpose – I would say, when you meditate, either you go beyond any purpose, just allow the mind to become silent; you have no idea at all.  But if there is some idea, that should be the highest idea of either Self-Realization, so that you remain humble, you don’t forget it is Guru after all.  See, that is important.  When we deal with it, when we are in the Ashram, when we worship Swamiji, all time we need to be aware that “This Ashram belongs to my Guru.  This idol is of my Guru;” that is important.  If that awareness is not there, even if I had been a devotee for forty years, fifty years, then I will try to rob, “O, if only I can break the hand of this marble idol of my Guru, I might be able to earn by selling that hand, marble hand.”  Such a corrupted idea can come. 

So, the purpose is so important.  Otherwise, one can become ego.  One can be living in the Ashram of the Guru by the permission of the Guru, but one might forget “This Ashram belongs to my Guru, and I have no right to claim any piece of land here.  I have no right to claim any building as mine.  I should not fight for it.  I should give up and simply go away.”  So that is important.  That is why purpose is so important.  Otherwise, when you close the eyes, when you meditate, you will go with that purpose, that idea that imagination will sit into your mind always.  That becomes the ego.  Perhaps Swamiji saw at that time that I had developed an idea to do Tapas and become a yogi.  He must have thought, for a while I just wanted to become a yogi, but at that time, I may not have had the idea that I have to remain with Swamiji.  In those two, three years, this idea of becoming a yogi, doing a Tapas would have engulfed me.  That is why He alerted me and said, but the attachment to Swamiji was perfect.  When He said, “You will go away from me,” then I said, “No need of Tapas, I want to be with You.”  So, that was the attachment to Swamiji not to do Tapas  at that time in 1978.  I never felt bad.  I was happy, “Here is my Guru, my mother ready to protect me at all times, not allowing me to go somewhere else.  Swamiji is there to protect and keep me with Him.  He wants me to be with Him serving Him, not to do Tapas now.  Means that’s it.  Finished.  So, no problem.”  Means, at that time that desire also disappeared, “Even if I don’t have to do Tapas in this life, it’s no problem.  Serving Swamiji is more important.”  Like that, the mind became cool and peaceful. 

So, purpose is very important when you meditate.  Otherwise, something else.  If you sit for twelve years Tapas and you just want to marry Swamiji, and after twelve years also the idea of marrying Swamiji remains in the mind, so where is the Self-Realization, where is the quietening of the mind?  So, that ego is always there, seeing the outside glamour.  Like, Ramakrishna, once told the story; A Guru was walking, and He saw a pond was drying down.  For long time, several days they have walked.  All the disciples were hungry.  And the Guru took a lot of fish from that pond which was drying down and the fishes were all about to die.  He took them into the mouth and moved ahead.  So, disciples thought, “O, Master has given us indication that we are hungry, we can eat the fish.  He also is eating the fish.”  Because they saw from outside the Master taking the fish to the mouth.  More than that, they didn’t know what he was going to do within the mouth.  So, they all took the fish and ate, and they quenched their hunger and started moving.  After some time, a pond came, which had plenty of water.  And the Master took out all the fish and left them alive into the pond.  Then looking at the disciples, “Come on, you also do it.”  Where to do?  They all had eaten up.  So, then they felt so ashamed. 

So, blindly one must not follow the Guru.  Try to know what He is trying to do.  So, that is important.  Means if He is sitting on a dais, hundreds of people are coming and doing darshan, that might have appeared glamorous for one devotee.  And that devotee wanted to marry Swamiji.  That devotee thought, “I can also sit along with Swamiji if I can marry.”  That idea came, imagine.  And, innocently Swamiji said, “You have to do twelve-years Tapas.”  Because He did twelve-years Tapas, just He went on watching and everything became silent for Him; no desires after twelve years of Tapas.  Even when Lord Shiva, Shankara Bhagavan asked, “Whatever You want to do, You can go home and do business.”  But Swamiji said, “I don’t have any such idea.  If You have any work for me, tell me I can do it for You, as long as the body is available.” 

So, after twelve years, also, that devotee had the one idea, “Now, I have sat for twelve years of Tapas, now I want to marry Him.”  So, some devotees  consider doing external seva is the real.  No, internally; you become attached, you consider the Guru as a mother, as a parent.  That devotion is necessary.  So, we are talking, the purpose becomes so important.  If the purpose goes wrong, everything… closest devotees can go, take a wrong path and go astray.  So, devotional path is not easy.  It’s difficult; you will be tested for eligibility, for sincerity.  When one passes all such, then only one would have gone closer to Divinity, and attain that Self-Realization.  Some great devotional movement happened a few hundred years ago in India.  Some great names like Mirabai, Tulsidas, so many others in different parts of the country, they all followed the devotional path.  They were great musicians, singers, but along with that, they were devotees also.  So, their mind was always on the Divinity.  So, thus, they attained Self-Realization.  In their consciousness only their Divine was there, and there was no other attachment, no other asking of God, no other wanting was there.  So, such is the greatness of devotion also.  Not simply easy.  Swamiji used to tell, “It’s not like eating laddoo, that you take a camphor and do aarthi and bell and then think that you have done.  That’s not.  Your mind has to be there,” He used to tell. 

Question:   Babaji, is meditation therefore enough by itself or is it necessary to have devotion?

Babaji Maharaj:   See, if you are devoted to meditate, then you will meditate sincerely by taking the technique that the Guru tells as a command.  That devotion is very important.  Simply, if you try to become intellectual, you are likely to half understand and half misunderstand.  It can become like a half-baked bean story.  So, that’s why devotion and meditation all go parallelly together.  It’s very important.  You need to be devoted to the Master, who teaches you, who commands you.  Like a soldier needs to be devoted to the commander.  There, the world may be different.  But devotion means this is what it is.  A soldier is devoted to his commander.  When the commander gives command, he does it, simply.  That’s how you have to be devoted to the Guru.  And the Guru says “You have to do like that,” then things will work.  Otherwise, you can have your own idea and you will just sit down and do it.  So, then things will not work.  Ego will not go.  After so many years of meditation, no transformation would occur; you will be doing the same mistake. 

Question:   Thank You, Babaji.  So, the one final question that we have, Baba, is how can we develop devotion?

Babaji Maharaj:   By totally surrendering.  Surrendering means here, without questioning, accepting, first accept the Guru as your own, then that will protect you.  “This is my own Guru.  This is my Swami.”  Like that.  Then nothing can come in between you and your Guru.  Means, automatically, your mind will not allow anything to come in between, come what may be.  So many people who abuse the Guru might try to brainwash you also, but you will never get brainwashed.  “No changes have happened.  We are okay with that one.”  The Guru might be behaving; “He was eating something and He was talking something, He was behaving like this.”  “No problem.  It’s okay.”  Another devotee says, “Your Guru is like this one, so He is not a Guru.”  “He is not a Guru??  Who the hell are you?” 

That type of sattvic ego needs to be there.  That is the surrender.  I have surrendered to my Guru and that is my sattvic ego.  Do I need to be told by somebody else what my Guru is?  I don’t want to know what my Guru is, because I just love Him, that’s all.  That type of surrender needs to happen.  Then this love to the Guru comes.  Maintain a sattvic ego that He is your own.  Even if the Guru wants to abuse you, challenge the Guru, “Now I’m going to love You more.  I’m going to be devoted more to you.  I challenge that even You cannot disturb my devotion, my Guru, my Lord.”  That much of surrender needs to be there.  Then you will win.  Anybody can win.  The selfishness needs to be turned towards the Guru.  Nowadays, you see, in the cameras of all phones and everywhere, we can turn which shows ourselves or we can turn which shows that thing that is in front of us.  So, if we turn it to ourselves and we become attached to ourselves, we will win.  We turn it to the Guru like that, not to anything else, then we can win.  That is the real love, real surrender, real devotion that would happen. 

End of Questions and Answers

Babaji Maharaj now concludes:

   Wonderful.  If you permit, we can end the questioning today.  It went very well.  Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to explain my learnings, my viewpoints, my opinions.  Some very beautiful questions came up.  And I wish all the best to all the participants.  May the beloved Guru bless all of you to be fortunate to love your Guru unconditionally and be devoted to your Guru.  If you are devoted to your Guru, that means you are devoted to your sadhana, and you can achieve your Self-Realization smoothly and easily.  May you all be blessed. 

End of Session