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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE. king, friendship to our equals, and protection and patronage to those who are inferior to us. But we do not offer devotion to a king, patronage to a tutor, or worship to a child. Every one of these has his particular form of love, and must be loved in that very form. This is the rule of Love, tbe breach of which cannot but be fraught with evil consequences. One has only to picture to oneself the consequences of approaching a parent, tutor or king with the romantic sentiments of a Romeo to realize the absurdity of the situation and the amount of evil resulting from a disregard of this rule. The case with God is no different; He has His own appropriate form of love, and must be loved in that very form. The idea of putting the all-knowing, ever blissful Godhead on a par with every love-sick Juliet of romance is absolutely disgusting; and it does not improve matters a bit if we reverse the rôle of relationship. For, while the idea of God as a Romeo, madly in love with the human soul, cannot be deemed to present a picture of divine perfection either in knowledge, bliss or power, on the one hand, the disparity of class and incongruity of type is not done away with, on the other. It is thus clear that the true significance of love in reference to God has nothing in common with the idea of passion between the two sexes, nor can God be loved as one's child. Devotion to God really means a devotion to the attributes of divinity, which the devotee wishes to develop in his own soul, and consists in the blending of the fullest measure of love and respect for those who have evolved out those very attributes in perfection.
Thus, bhakti in its true sense means devotion to an
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