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ASPIRANT'S GUIDE
and one who has renounced all mundane desires, is the lone favorite to God.
5. After careful and wide-ranging thought, we strongly believe that devotion is the best path for spiritual uplift. If the devotion is laid at the feet of great enlightened saints it can lead to liberation
6. Devotion is a desire-yielding tree (Kalpataru), a desire-fulfilling cow (Kama-dhenu) that yields the desired reward. The poet Pritam says that one who resorts to this path, experiences no pain and sorrow whatsoever.
7. Services to other living beings, prayer to God, and meditation are all only superfluous if divine love is not blended with them. The poet says that knowledge without devotion has no significance in spiritual life. He further adds that just as the lover is with his beloved, miser is with his wealth, so a real devotee is with God the Supreme by remembering name all the time.
8. Complete affection to God leads one to heroism, the Soul (Atma), ascends progressively to his true state of pure bliss by pondering over its pure virtues. Just as the mirror in hand makes one conscious of one's face, the contemplation and meditation on God or Siddha or Jineshvara makes one conscious of one's true original form.
LIVING EXAMPLES OF SUCCESS IN THE PATH OF DEVOTION
(1) Saint Tukaram (who lived in the state of Maharashtra, India in the seventeenth century) was a great devotee of Lord Krishna. He was endowed with the spirit of devotion right from childhood. He gave the name "Vitthal" to Lord Krishna. Every day, his devotion led him on the path of progress towards the Divine. He was famous for his devotional songs which flowed automatically during his intense devotional chanting. These devotional songs became popular and recognized as "Abhanga".
When he eulogized God in devotional songs, he got completely engrossed and lost in devotion; and great words of preaching came from the innermost depths of his heart.
Rameshvara Bhatt, a renowned scholar of the Vedas and a famous sage heard of Saint Tukaram and his devotional songs,
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