How to Cultivate Love for God - Swami Ashokananda

If you study the natures of the many spiritual aspirants, you will find that most of them are devotees, that is to say, bhaktas, who approach God with the heart more than with the intellect or through action. The word devotee, of course, can be used to indicate a person who is devoted to any spiritual ideal and who is a follower of any path. However, it is often used by us to indicate specifically the followers of the path of devotion, or of love.

As you all know, four paths are spoken of in Vedantic books, and I think such a classification is well justified. There are people who can make spiritual progress and eventually realize the spiritual ideal, the Divine Spirit, through mental analysis and control. That path is generally called raja yoga, the kingly path. Why it is so called we do not definitely know. Some say that this path was first discovered and devised by kings. Others have said that it is so called because it is the sovereign path: Whatever other path you follow, it becomes effective only to the extent that the mind is brought under control. When the mind has become sufficiently calm and concentrated, then spiritual experiences spontaneously follow; no further effort is necessary. So raja yoga is really involved in every path and can therefore be considered the sovereign path. However, in itself, it is one of the four paths.

Another path with which you are no doubt very well acquainted is called jnana yoga, the path of knowledge, the philosophical path. There, also, analysis is called for, not exclusively of the mind but of all the reality that is presented to oneself. By such analysis, all erroneous ideas about reality are given up, and there remains only the true idea. And when this true idea has been most clearly defined, it becomes an experience. You see, when thinking, or thought, becomes very intense, it becomes tinged with emotion, and very soon it brings us to an actual experience of reality; it does not remain merely conceptual. That is the path of knowledge, the philosophical path.

(To be continued in October, 2005 issue)

© "Ascent to Spiritual Illumination" published by Advaita Ashrama, Mayavati, Champawat, Himalayas from its Publication Department, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014.Website: www.advaitaonline.com. Reprinted with permission.

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