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Advantages of Devotion
• The peace of the Bhakta's calm resignation is a peace that passeth all understanding, and is of incomparable value.
• The great quality of Bhakti is that it cleanses the mind, and the firmly established Bhakti for the Supreme Lord is alone sufficient to purify the mind.
• Of all renunciation, the most natural, so to say, is that of the Bhakti-Yoga. Here, there is no violence, nothing to give up, nothing to tear off, as it were, from ourselves, nothing from which we have violently to separate ourselves; the Bhakta's renunciation is easy, smooth, flowing, and as natural as the things around us.
• "Bhakti is greater than Karma, greater than Yoga, because these are intended for an object in view, while Bhakti is its own fruition, its own means and its own end."
• The one great advantage of Bhakti is that it is the easiest, and the most natural way to reach the great divine end in view;
• The path of devotion is natural and pleasant. Philosophy is taking the mountain stream back to its source by force. It is a quicker method but very hard. Philosophy says, "Check everything." Devotion says, "Give up all to the stream, have eternal self-surrender." It is a longer way, but easier and happier.
• Bhakti-Yoga does not say "give up"; it only says "Love; love the Highest"; and everything low naturally falls off from him, the object of whose love is this Highest.
• With love there is no painful reaction; love only brings a reaction of bliss; if it does not, it is not love; it is mistaking something else for love. When you have succeeded in loving your husband, your wife, your children, the whole world, the universe, in such a manner that there is no reaction of pain or jealousy, no selfish feeling, then you are in a fit state to be unattached.
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