- The heart of the devotee is His dwelling place. It may be that God is manifest in all things, but He is manifest in a special sense in the heart of a devotee of God.
- Do you know how a devotee feels? ‘Oh Lord, You are the Master, I am Your servant. You are my Mother, I am Your child. And again, You are both my Mother and Father. You are the whole, I am Your part.’ The devotee doesn’t like to say, ‘I am Brahman.’
- God reveals Himself in the form the devotee loves most – gracious loving Lord of the devotee that He is. The Purana says that God assumed the form of Rama for the sake of his heroic devotee, Hanuman.
- The best devotee is the one who, after attaining the knowledge of Brahman, sees that God alone has become the universe and the twenty-four cosmic principles.
- Ganges does not flow only in one direction; it has its ebb and flow tides. The devotee laughs and weeps, sings and dances. The devotee wants to enjoy God. Sometimes he swims; sometimes he dives; other times he rises – just as a piece of ice floats up and down in water.
- As is the devotee, so is the provision made by him. The sattvic devotee provides the rice pudding, the rajasic one offers fifty dishes to the deity, while the tamasic devotee sacrifices a goat or some other animal.
- Men of knowledge see everything as an illusion. Devotees accept all the states. The man of knowledge yields milk in droplets. Some cows are very choosy when they graze, so they yield milk in dribbles. But the cows who don’t discriminate so much and eat everything give streams of milk.
- You may discuss Vedanta a thousand times with a genuine devotee and call the world a dream, but his love for God will not disappear – though he may appear to shed it a little for a while.
- A devotee says, ‘O God, You alone are the doer. You alone do everything. I am only an instrument. I do what You make me do. And all this splendour, this universe, is Yours. This house, this family, is Yours – nothing is mine. I am Your servant. I have only the right to serve You as You command.’
- There are the trigunatita devotees [who are beyond the three qualities of nature]. They are like children. Their worship consists purely of chanting His name. Yes, the name of God alone and nothing else.
- To a true devotee, the Lord provides everything without any effort on his part. The real son of a king gets a monthly allowance automatically.
- The devotees of God must have a firm and steadfast understanding – like the blacksmith’s anvil. It receives hammer blows unceasingly, but it remains unchanged. Unfriendly people may find fault with you and speak ill of you, but if you sincerely love Bhagavan, you will bear all this.
- There are three kinds of devotees: inferior, mediocre and superior. The inferior class of devotee says, ‘God is out there.’ He sees the Lord separate from His creation. The devotee of the mediocre class says, ‘The Lord is antaryami.’ He sees the Lord in the heart of all beings. The superior devotee sees that God Himself has become everything. That He alone has become the twenty-four cosmic principles. He sees that everything is filled with God, above and below.
- There are classes of devotees: superior devotees, mediocre devotees and inferior devotees. The Gita speaks of all this.
- The inferior devotee says, ‘God exists up there in the sky very far away.’ The mediocre devotee says, ‘God is present in all beings as Consciousness, as life.’ The superior devotee says, ‘God Himself has become everything. All that I see are the different forms of God. He Himself has become maya, the universe and living beings – nothing exists apart from Him.’
- The pure devotee likes to see God as Gopala. First, God becomes the magnet and the devotee the needle. In the end the devotee becomes the magnet and God the needle. In other words, God becomes small to the devotee.
- It is like the sun at dawn. One can look at it easily – it doesn’t dazzle the eyes. Instead, the eyes are satisfied. God becomes tender for the sake of His devotees. He appears before them, leaving His powers behind.
- There are three classes of devotees. The inferior class of devotee says, ‘God is out there’ – in other words, he points to heaven. The mediocre devotee says, God resides within the heart as its Inner Controller. And the highest class of devotee says, ‘God has become everything. Indeed, all I see are His various forms.’
- There are devotees who have gone beyond the three gunas. They are called trigunatita devotees. For example, Narada and others like him are nitya devotees, devoted to God eternally. Such devotees consider Krishna as the embodiment of Spirit, His Abode as Spirit, and His devotee as Spirit too. To them the Lord is eternal, His devotee is eternal and His abode is eternal too.
- Those who have realized God see that it is God who has become the universe and its living beings. He has become all. They are superior devotees.
- There are mediocre devotees. They see that God exists in everyone as the Inner Controller. The devotee of the lowest class says, ‘God exists. He dwells there, beyond, in the sky.’
- But there is some manifestation of God’s power in all devotees. It is like getting a little taste of something you have been sucking for a long time, or like extracting a little honey from a flower after much sucking.
Ishvarkoti
- Not everybody is touched by sin. The Ishvarakoti is not affected by sin. For example, an incarnation of God like Chaitanya Deva.
- Incarnations of God or those born with some of their characteristics are called Ishvarakotis. Ordinary men are called jivas, or jivakotis. The latter can attain God by practicing spiritual disciplines, but they don’t return to normal consciousness after attaining samadhi.
- The Ishvarakoti is like the son of a king. He has the keys to all seven stories of the palace – he can climb to all seven floors and come down at his will. A jivakoti is like a junior official. He can only go to a small area in the seven-storied palace – that is all.
- Ishvarakotis, such as divine incarnations, can be liberated whenever they want. But ordinary human beings cannot. Embodied beings are bound by ‘lust and greed’. They have shut the doors and windows of their houses and fastened them tightly with screws. How can they come out?