To awaken spiritual emotion rapidly, one needs to initially make constant efforts at the level of the mind and intellect. In the last Issue, 231, we had a brief introduction to practicing the nine-fold devotion (navavidha bhakti). Today we are going to discuss some of the types of nine-fold devotion in detail.

1. Listening to praises of The Lord (shravan)

     This form of devotion includes listening to the qualities, victories and the glory of The Lord with faith. It also means listening to the Guru’s teaching (knowledge). The following is a spiritual experience pertaining to this form of nine-fold devotion.

Continual awakening of spiritual emotion during children’s satsang

    During the children’s satsang held in the New Jersey (USA) ashram on April 25, 2004, I experienced continuous awakening of spiritual emotion. The satsang focused on Sri Durgadevi’s attributes. Upon hearing each attribute, a prayer was automatically generated in me out of sheer reverence for Sri Durgadevi. Then, when the children narrated their experiences, efforts, etc., again I was in awe. Later, when a story about disciple Arjun seeing only the eye of the bird* was narrated, prayer continually occurred within me to Sri Durgadevi to grace me with such single-minded focus as Arjun’s. Cool tears** were also continually welling up.