Bhakti and Surrender

I've pondered the core of true bhakti and total surrender to God. At first, I thought reaching true bhakti and surrender was super hard now. Our world brims with stuff and duties that pull us from spiritual goals.

The Idea of Bhakti

Bhakti (Devotion): Bhakti goes beyond just worship. It's a deep hearty bond with the Divine. You lose yourself in God's love, and the line between you and God blurs. In real bhakti, your self and ego melt away. You see all acts as God's will in action.

Surrender: Giving in to God means dropping your ego. You accept that all happens as God plans. This kind of surrender is tough to reach. Our egos keep butting in trying to run the show. They grab credit for wins but point fingers - even at God - when things go south.

Roadblocks to Real Devotion

1. Pride and Self-Image: Our ego puts up a big wall. It hungers for praise and approval making it tough to give in fully. The ego insists we earn all our wins, not some higher power.

2. Everyday Duties: Our lives burst with tasks - work family friends - that grab our focus and yank us from spiritual stuff. Juggling these duties with our soul's yearnings ain't easy.

3. Cluttered Thoughts: Our heads often swim with wants, worries, and hang-ups. When stuff goes south, we point fingers at the divine instead of owning up to our choices. This messy mindset blocks true love and surrender to the divine.

Looking inward, I grasped that real devotion means viewing everything as God's doing. This includes recognizing our talents and wins as blessings from above, not our own creations. When tough times hit, we shouldn't point fingers at God but embrace them as pieces of His bigger picture.

Cultivating the Proper Attitude

1. Accepting what happens in life without clinging to results matters a lot. This means doing our jobs without worrying about how things turn out, which is a big part of karma yoga.
2. Being thankful helps shrink the ego. When we see the good stuff in our lives as gifts from God, we stop focusing on what we've done and start appreciating divine blessings.
3. Doing things for others without wanting anything back lines up with karma yoga. This kind of selfless work, or seva, makes the ego smaller and brings us closer to feeling connected with God.

Mindfulness and meditation often help people see and get their ego patterns. They also make it easier to let go of stuff and feel calm inside. People who do nice things for others and help them out can sometimes stop thinking about themselves so much. This can make them feel closer to other people and to God. Reading spiritual books and thinking about what they say gives you new ideas and makes you feel inspired. Learning about great saints and devoted people shows you how to live with real devotion and how to give up control.

When you do these things, you start to understand yourself better. You begin to see how your thoughts and actions affect your life. Helping others can make you feel good and connected to something bigger than yourself. It's not just about doing good deeds, but about changing how you see the world and your place in it.

Looking at the lives of saints and devoted people can be eye-opening. You see how they dealt with problems and stayed true to their beliefs. This can give you ideas for how to handle your own life challenges. It's not about copying them , but about learning from their experiences and applying those lessons to your own situation.

Embracing real bhakti means we gotta keep working on matching our thoughts, deeds, and motives with the Divine. It's about seeing God's work in everything, quitting the habit of whining about life's rollercoaster, and keeping our eyes on the God inside us.

Getting to this level of focus and giving in takes a long time and lots of practice. It's all about getting that we're a piece of the Divine and our big goal is to win His favor. Real surrender happens when this idea sinks in and we start living by it.

Wrapping Up

Reaching true bhakti and surrender is tough but possible. You need to change from thinking about yourself to focusing on God. When you accept things feel thankful, do selfless acts, and always look inside yourself, you get closer to real bhakti. This journey makes you grow and become better. Each step you take brings you nearer to God.

This article to dedicated to Guruji, as it is because of him I’m able to write on such topic. 

The article is written by Shri Jayanth Chandramauli who can be contacted at jayanth@manblunder.com