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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
likened it to a moth's fatal attraction for light, and oriental poetry revels in depicting the sensation of ' painful delight' which the tiny insect-lover is supposed to experience in the closing inoments of its life on the burning altar of love. Many persons are misled by these charming flights of fancy, and begin to interpret their own confused sensations and mental affections and the manifestations of psychic phenomena they might come across in all sorts of fanciful ways, always bent upon finding a confirmation of their own views in each and every occurrence.
That this is not bhakti but a form of madness, is evident from the very nature of love which is an essential ingredient of devotion. As pointed out in the last chapter, love is of three kinds, according as it is (1) for the superior, (2) the equal or (3) the inferior. Of these, the first takes the form of respect for learning and age, respectful affection for the parent, reverence for the tutor, loyalty for the king and devotion or worship for the Tirthamkara (God). The second denotes equality of status, and manifests itself in the form of friendship, amity, passion and the like ; and the third assumes the form of benevolence, patronage and other similar emotions. Sexual love is a form of the second type, though one of its most complex phases, since it implies the engrafting of the idea of sexual relationship on the stock of amity and good fellowship. Love of the first type is founded on respect, of the second on mutual amity, and of the third op protection or watchfulness.
It is thus clear that bhakti belongs to the class of emotions of love of the first kind, which are distinguish
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