WHAT IS DEVOTION?
Devotion starts with the affection that two people develop with each other. From affection, there is an excellent conjugation of mind, and then that affection increases. From the mind, it goes to the body level, where specific compatibilities are pleasing to two people. When the mind and the body cooperate, we feel we are devoted to each other. But that is not true; it is a mental concept. Your thoughts agree with mine, and your bodies find physical compatibility with the minds, which we call devotion.
No, devotion comes from a far higher level. Devotion comes from a mergence where even the body is forgotten. The mind does not play a more significant part; it only plays a role in appreciating itself and the body’s compatibility. There, we think we are devoted. However, true devotion is when two people merge with a higher sense of themselves, and the higher brain level assumes the form of devotion.
When the higher level of the mind assumes the form of devotion, the lower levels of the mind and the body contain no substance. Then you could say, “I do love. There is love in me, and that love is conjoined, enjoined and enjoyed by each other.”
Devotion has various categories. These categories, to repeat, are from body and mind. In a certain sense, you could be very devoted to a woman or a man that pleases you physically, but that is not devotion. It is an expression of banal, basic instincts, physical instincts. When two minds seem to agree on various things, it is not devotion; it is an appreciation of the two minds agreeing on so many different things and thoughts.
Absolute devotion comes when the body and the mind are ignored. You become the observer of the body and mind and appreciate what the body and mind do. The devotional self of oneself from the higher mind observes the happenings of the lower mind and the body.
Devotion does not begin on the conscious level because it is too analytical, the brain’s left hemisphere. It is not of feelings and emotions. Anyone could create feelings and emotions in you. A man operating totally on the lower level of the mind would find some emotion and feel in seeing a beautiful woman. He would even mentally undress her. That emotion is a product of the lower mind, but absolute devotion does not stem from there.
I love my woman so much, but I do not love her because she is pretty, beautiful, intelligent, and an excellent companion to me. I love her because I have urged my mind to the higher level of her mind, which is where devotion begins.
Devotion is not an act of volition. Volition is will, and in those strata of the higher level of the mind you do not will, you cannot will. Will is beyond the question of one’s self. The higher mind does not know of will, but it flows with nature and the natural laws of nature, which are forever never opposing each other. But it is always trying to find a married bliss within itself in an admixture of what is there. It flows like the river; it flows here and there, one continuous flow without interruption. That forms devotion.
Devotion has no volition. You love me, and you are devoted to me as I am devoted to you. But not because of your beautiful faces but because of that inner quality that is there, that makes me devoted to you to the extent that I would gladly give my life for every one of you. That is devotion.
But there are still higher stages than devotion. Devotion is a preparation; devotion is a path. Through our spiritual practices, we learn to become more and more devoted. To become more and more devoted, many unpatternings occur in our minds. The conscious mind and the subconscious mind, which are forever patterned, become unpatterned in a different line of thought, and that thought becomes devotional.
A holy path is a path of giving. When you are devoted to a person, as I said before, I am devoted to you. I would be prepared to give my life for you. I have found in my devotion that my life is not separate; it is not apart from your life but a part of your life. Giving my life to you, I am only merging my life into your life without any loss whatsoever. That is devotion.
We proceed on this path through our spiritual practices, where we become devoted to our wives, our husbands, our gurus, or whoever, our friends, we become devoted. A friend in need is a friend indeed. That is a fallacy. The friend, indeed, must be a friend without any condition. You are still a friend even if the friend has a need. That is devotion, where you merge yourself into the emotions and feelings of your friend, right or wrong. I love you, not because of what you are. I love you because love loves you; I do not love you.
That love within me can only recognize and see the inherent love within you, not because of what you have or have not, or how you are beautiful, pretty, ugly, whatever. That does not matter. I love because of the love within me, and anything within me, including love, must find an expression. That is devotion.
WHAT IS SURRENDER?
None of you ever surrender to anything willfully, by volition, by will. That is wrong. You have teachers here in your America that first ask you to surrender. I say, “No, do not.” Surrender is a culmination of your love and devotion. It follows after you have loved and become devoted for the sake of love. Then, you cannot help but surrender. Surrender is a culmination which comes automatically.
If anyone comes to me and says, “Guruji, I surrender myself to you,” I would say, “There is the door; go away. You do not know what you are talking about.” But have some affection and develop that into love, and when you have created that mental, spiritual compatibility, you automatically become surrendered.
It is not you that surrenders only. It is a two-way street. As much as you surrender yourself after studying your guru’s teachings, after developing love and devotion, it is not only you who surrender. Because of your love and dedication, your guru surrenders to you ten times more. For whom is a guru in any case? He is a crazy idiot. He thrives on your love. He gives love and love and loves all the time, but he thrives on how much you pick up of the love he gives you, and that makes him thrive more and more in giving more and more love because his well is never, never empty.
There is a spring in the well, and the more you draw from it, the more it sends forth water into the well, keeping it filled all the time. The guru’s love is there and takes as much as you want of it, but the well will never become empty. That is the love of the guru. The love of the chela is how much you can take of it. You bring a small bucket and pull up a tiny bit of water. Take a large bucket, and you will pick up more water. But draw the water, the well never dries up, it is infinite.
That spring there emanates from Divinity, and as Divinity is always full, His well can never remain empty. It is there. Draw, draw, draw the water. It will never make the well empty. Yet some people, like fish in the well, die of thirst, and yet all the water is there. It is not the fault of the well. It is the fault of the fish that does not want or know how to drink. Yet there comes a time when the well pulls the fish into its bosom and forces water down its pallet so that the fish will survive, overcome all its mental turmoil, live, and not die of thirst.
You start from a certain kind of affectation to affection, to devotion. From devotion, you automatically surrender, not to the guru, but to the higher power you recognize is within the guru, and the higher power surrenders to you. You give one, and that higher force returns it tenfold. That is the whole story.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1984 – 40
