Bhakta through the mercy of the Lord, reaches a plane where pedantic and powerless reason is left far behind, and the mere intellectual groping through the dark gives place to the daylight of direct perception.He no more reasons and believes, he almost perceives. He no more argues, he senses. And is not this seeing God, and feeling God, and enjoying God, higher than everything else?

This inadequacy of books to quicken spiritual growth is the reason why, although almost every one of us can speak most wonderfully on Spiritual matters, when it comes to action and the living of a truly spiritual life, we find ourselves so awfully deficient. To quicken the spirit, the impulse, must come from another soul, Guru.

—“He who is learned in the Scriptures, sinless, unpolluted by lust, and is the greatest knower of the Brahman,” is the real Guru,spiritual teacher.The whole world reads Bibles, Vedas, and Korans; but they are all only words, syntax, etymology, philology—the dry bones of religion.

Higher and nobler than all ordinary ones, are another set of teachers, the Avatāras of Ishwara, in the world. They can transmit spirituality on with a touch, even with a mere wish. The lowest and the most degraded characters become in one second saints at their command. They are the Teachers of all teachers, the highest manifestations of God through man.

Even as in the case of the least differentiated and the most universal symbol OM, thought and sound-symbol are seen to be inseparably associated with each other, so also this law of their inseparable association applies to the many differentiated views of God and the universe: each of them therefore must have a particular word-symbol to express it.

The point to be considered is the worship of Pratikas or of things more or less satisfactory as substitutes for God, and the worship of Pratimās or images. —“Joining the mind with devotion to that which is not Brahman, taking it to be Brahman,” says Bhagavān Rāmānuja.Now, worshipping Ishwara and Him alone is Bhakti; the worship of anything else, Deva or Pitri, or any other

The thing to be considered is what we know as Ishta-Nishthā. One who aspires to be a Bhakta must know that “so many opinions are so many ways.” He must know that all the various sects of the various religions are the various manifestations of the glory of the same Lord.Not only this, the Bhakta must take care not to hate, or even to criticise,

We must always remember that external practices have value only as help to develop internal purity. The forms have value only so far as they are expressions of the life within. If they have ceased to express life, crush them out without mercy.The man who will mercilessly cheat widows and orphans, and do the vilest deeds for money is worse than any brute, even if

Religion is Renunciation: Step by step: How to leave to go the lower enjoyments of senses and not stop at the intellectual enjoyments, but reach the most finer joy – Love and Devotion to God, the Para-Bhakti Yoga state…All preparations to it is the purification of the soul.