Dear Mrs. Sharma,
The Path of Guru’s grace (Gurukrupayoga) entails focusing
one’s efforts on obtaining the Guru’s grace as early
as possible by all means possible. In today’s times, since
chanting The Lord’s Name is the most suitable spiritual practice,
it is the foundation of the path of Guru’s grace. At the
same time, the chanting referred to here is that done with spiritual
emotion. The chanting done by most seekers is often mechanical
and hence, it has become essential to make conscious efforts to
develop spiritual emotion. In this regard, the following points
are noteworthy:
Presently, distressing
energy obstructions to spiritual practice
are on the rise. The Lord comes to one’s assistance only
if one harbors spiritual emotion. It is therefore that spiritual
emotion assumes great importance.
To generate spiritual emotion quickly, it is important to make
conscious efforts for it. According to the principle ‘Thinking
and emotions change according to the behavior and vice-versa’,
when one constantly makes efforts to develop spiritual emotion
through every action, thought and reasoning, it helps to generate
spiritual emotion quickly.
To develop spiritual emotion towards the
particular divine Principle or deity, whose Name one chants, first
one has to develop love
for that deity. Only then will one be able to chant the divine
Principle’s Name with quality. Worship of it’s the
divine Principle’s manifest form by performing ritualistic
worship (puja), singing hymns, etc., helps to develop love for
the divine Principle faster than does the repeating (chanting)
its Name, which is worship of its unmanifest form. That is precisely
why ritualistic worship, singing hymns amidst the ritual of moving
lit lamps (arati) before a deity, etc., prove to be beneficial
for awakening spiritual emotion in the initial stages. |
