One is looking into the source of the ‘I’
and merging into that source.
The other is feeling,
‘I am helpless myself,
God alone is all powerful,
and except by throwing myself completely on Him,
there is no other means of safety for me’;
and thus gradually developing the conviction
that God alone exists and the ego does not count.
Both methods lead to the same goal.
Complete surrender is another name
for jnana or liberation.
Bhakti is not different from mukti.
Bhakti is being as the Self.
One is always That.
He realizes It by the means he adopts.
What is bhakti?
To think of God.
That means only one thought prevails
to the exclusion of all other thoughts.
That thought is of God,
which is the Self,
or it is the self
surrendered unto God.
When He has taken you up,
nothing else will assail you.
The absence of thought is bhakti.
It is also mukti.
Bhakti is Jnana Mata, i.e.,
the mother of jnana.
It is asked,
why all this creation is so full of sorrow and evil.
All one can say is that it is God’s will,
which is inscrutable.
No motive, no desire,
no end to achieve can be attributed
to that infinite, all-wise
and all-powerful Being.
God is untouched by activities
which take place in His presence.
There is no meaning in attributing
responsibility and motive to the One,
before it became many.
But God’s will for the prescribed course of events
is a good solution for the vexed question of free-will.
If the mind is worried over what befalls us,
or what has been committed or omitted by us,
it is wise to give up the sense of responsibility and free-will,
by regarding ourselves as the ordained instruments
of the All-Wise and the All-Powerful,
to do and suffer as He pleases.
Then He bears all the burdens
and gives us peace.
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