Sadhguru article: If you are aware and conscious that something bigger than you is at work right now then you are naturally a devotee. When you are aware that something bigger than you is working around you right now there is no other way, you will be a devotee.
If you look at your life experience, whenever you feel happy, no matter what the inspiration was - maybe you saw the sunrise and you were filled with joy. Maybe you listened to some music and got overjoyed. Maybe you found some success and you became happy – it has always come from within you. It doesn't rain down on you from anywhere else. So the source of happiness is within you. Whatever experiences you go through in your life, it is ultimately your creation. If you can be aware that it is yours. Only then will you choose the sweetest way of being.
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Bhakti is the way to transform one's feelings from negativity to happiness. Bhakti is a multiplied form of a love affair. If you fall in love with a man or a woman and they don't go according to your expectation, then that relationship is ultimately in trouble. That's why people chose God. It's just a straight love affair and you're not expecting an answer. Your life becomes very beautiful because your feeling has become very sweet. A person develops through that sweetness. Bhakti is not only the sweetest way to be, but it is also the highest form of intelligence.
Generally, people look down on emotion compared to intelligence. Those who think they are intelligent always try to stay away from any form of devotion. But now people are talking about emotional intelligence because emotion has the ability to be more intense than intelligence in many ways. There is a certain coolness and sharpness in the intellect but emotion can embrace just about everything. Wisdom can know the fragments of life, devotion can know the fullness of life. In terms of experience of life and realization of life as a whole, what a devotee knows will never be touched by an intellectual.
The Line Between Devotion and Illusion
People think of devotion as something that they do by developing it. Developed devotion is a terrible thing. You cannot develop devotion because the line between devotion and delusion is very fine. Whenever you are overwhelmed by something, if you see and feel something bigger than yourself, you naturally become a devotee of it. This is not developed devotion. This is the devotion that is happening automatically within you. It should be like this. If you try to develop devotion, then this devotion will never happen. It just becomes a kind of illusion or deception.
Right now, for most people, devotion is about making a deal with God: 'Oh my God, I'll put ten thousand rupees into this project; I should get ten crore rupees.' You try to make such a deal with someone else, they will reject you! But you think that the Creator is so stupid that he will get into such a deal. This is not devotion. This is cheating.
Bhakti does not mean going to a temple, mosque, or church and there is no ritual to be performed in a particular way. Maybe you don't bow down, don't perform rituals, don't sit in temple, or do any common thing that is expected of so called devotees. You may not wear clothes like them, you may not have God's name printed on your clothes, you may never have taken God's name out of your mouth, but if you are aware and conscious that something bigger than you is at work right now. If so, you are a devotee by nature. When you are aware that something bigger than you is working around you right now, there is no other way, you will be a devotee.
Bhakti is about getting the right perspective
You cannot be a devotee when you think you are everything. The reality of life is that you are just a small phenomenon here and something bigger than you is always at work. The universe is very vast. You don't know where it starts and where it ends. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies. This solar system is a tiny particle in this vast universe. If the solar system disappears tomorrow, it will not be detected in the universe. In the smallest particle of this solar system, the Earth is an even smaller particle. In the microscopic particle of this earth, your city is an even more microscopic particle. In that city, you are a grown man! This is a serious problem of perspective. It is only because there is no devotion in you.
If you can't imagine the vastness, the Hubble Telescope has brought all kinds of awesome pictures that are on the Internet. Just look at those pictures and realize how endless that is. Or go out at night, turn off all the lights and look up at the sky. You don't know where it begins or ends and here you are, a microscopic super-microscopic particle of dust on a rotating planet. You do not know where you have come from and where you will go. So it would be quite natural for you to be a devotee. Whatever you see, you will bow down in front of it. If you simply look at yourself in the context of the rest of creation, there would be no other way of being.
Bhakti is the art of keeping oneself aside. This is not the art of intelligence, but the art of carelessness. Once your personality - your petty creation - is blissfully immersed in the splendid dance of the Creator's creation, you become a devotee. And once devotion comes, the whole world opens up to you.
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