Bhakti: ten days on the path of love
Ramakrishna, Sarada Devi, Shirdi Sai, Neem Karoli Baba, Andal, Bharathi and Rumi on the one thing they all agreed about.
Longing
One attains God when one feels yearning for Him. An intense restlessness is needed.
Not learning, not caste, not moral record. Ramakrishna says the qualification is yearning—an intense restlessness. Bhakti begins in wanting.
Ask yourself honestly what you long for. Do not correct the answer.
The reed
Rumi's Masnavi opens with a flute crying because it remembers the reed-bed. Longing, in this tradition, is not a problem to be solved but the sound of the path itself.
Listen to a piece of devotional music today—any tradition—and let it hurt a little.
Cry like a kitten
Be like a kitten and cry to Him with a fervent heart. The mother cat puts the kitten wherever she wants to.
The kitten does not climb; it cries, and the mother cat carries it. Ramakrishna's whole method is here: effort is the crying, not the climbing.
Say your chosen name of God, aloud, as a child calls a parent. Not politely.
Wake up, come
மார்கழித் திங்கள் மதிநிறைந்த நன்னாளால்
நீராடப் போதுவீர் போதுமினோ நேரிழையீர்
nīrāḍap pōdhuvīr pōdhuminō nērizhaiyīr
In the month of Margazhi, on this good day of the full moon—you who would bathe, come, O finely jewelled ones!
Andal, the one woman among the Alvars, wakes her friends for God. Sung every dawn of Margazhi across Tamil Nadu.
Andal wakes her friends before dawn in the month of Margazhi to go together to God. Bhakti is communal here—she does not go alone.
Invite one person to join you in a practice, however small.
Faith and patience
I waited patiently and very long on My Guru and served him. This Saburi will ferry you across the sea of this mundane existence.
Shirdi Sai Baba asked for two coins, and this is his description of the second: he waited long on his own Guru and served. Saburi is duration under service.
Do the two-coins practice on his page.
Mother of the wicked
I am the mother of the wicked, as I am the mother of the virtuous. Never fear. Whenever you are in distress, just say to yourself “I have a mother.”
Widely recorded in the Order's compilations of her teachings; this rendering is the standard one.
Sarada Devi's love is not a reward. It is offered to the wicked as to the virtuous, and it asks only to be remembered: I have a mother.
Say “I have a mother” once today when something goes wrong. See what it does.
Never out of the heart
Do what you do with another person, but never put him out of your heart.
Neem Karoli Baba's one rule for love in a difficult world. You may have to confront, refuse, even fight. You may not put the person out of your heart.
Bring back into your heart one person you had put out.
In the crow's wing
காக்கைச் சிறகினிலே நந்தலாலா — நின்றன்
கரியநிறம் தோன்றுதையே நந்தலாலாIn the crow's wing, Nandalala — / your dark colour appears, Nandalala.
Kākkaich chiṟaginilē Nandhalālā — ninṟan / kariyaniṟam thōnṟudhaiyē Nandhalālā
Bharathi sees Krishna's dark colour in the crow's wing. The beloved is not in a temple but in the most ordinary bird in Tamil Nadu. Bhakti, ripened, is a way of seeing.
Choose one ordinary thing—a crow, a cup, a face—and look for the beloved in it today.
Only for love
I prayed to the Divine Mother only for love. I offered flowers at Her Lotus Feet and said with folded hands: “O Mother, here is Thy ignorance and here is Thy knowledge; take them both and give me pure love for Thee.”
Ramakrishna offered the Mother both his ignorance and his knowledge and asked for love alone. This is the whole path's answer to the question of what to want.
Pray, in whatever form, for love and for nothing else.
The whole world your own
If you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger, my child; the whole world is your own.
Sarada Devi's last message. Bhakti that stops at God and does not reach the neighbour was, for her, unfinished. No one is a stranger. That is where love was going all along.
Make one stranger your own today. Then choose another journey, or begin this one again.