Saturday, June 6, 2020

Prema-bhakti

... it isn't any and every kind of bhakti that enables one to realize God. One cannot realize God without prema-bhakti. Another name for prema-bhakti is raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized without love and longing. Unless one has learnt to love God, one cannot realize Him.

There is another kind of bhakti, known as vaidhi-bhakti, according to which one must repeat the name of God a fixed number of times, fast, make pilgrimages, worship God with prescribed offerings, make so many sacrifices, and so forth and so on.
By continuing such practices a long time one gradually acquires raga-bhakti. God cannot be realized until one has raga-bhakti.

One must love God. In order to realize God one must be completely free from worldliness and direct all of one's mind to Him.

- Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, P 172
  (14 December 1882)


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