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Advanced Course in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism358
with Him. And the more we develop ourselves, the more we find ourselves
filled with a love of the Absolute.
Bhakti Yoga supplies the craving of the human heart for the love for, and
of, the Absolute, which craving manifests itself in what we call the “religious
instinct”—the instinct of worship. All men have this instinct, manifested in
various forms. Even those who style themselves “free-thinkers,” “agnostics,”
as well as those who deny the existence of God at all, and who accept the
intellectual conceptions of the materialists, feel this instinctive urge, and
manifest it in the love of “Nature,” or Art, or Music, little dreaming that
in so doing they are still loving and practically worshiping some of the
manifestations of the God they deny.
But when we say that Bhakti Yoga is the science of the Love of God, we
do not mean that it is a science which separates those who love and worship
some certain conceptions of Deity, from others who may love and worship
certain other conceptions of Deity. On the contrary, the true Bhakti Yogi
recognizes that the love and worship of any conception of Deity is a form
of Bhakti Yoga. To the Bhakti Yogi all men are worshipers of the Absolute—
the Center of Life—Spirit—God. Notwithstanding the crude and barbarous
conception of Deity the ignorant savage may have, the Bhakti Yogi sees that
that man is worshiping and loving the highest conception of Deity possible
to him in his undeveloped state, and that he is doing the best he can. And
consequently he sees in the savage a brother Bhakti Yogi, in the elementary
stages of knowledge. And he feels a sympathy with and an understanding of
that savage mind, and his love goes out toward that humble brother (doing
the best he knows how) and instead of denouncing him as a heathen and
an unbeliever, he calls him “brother,” and understands him. You may see,
readily, that there are no closely drawn lines among the Bhakti Yogis—no
feeling of sectarianism—for they feel that the whole race may be included
in their body, and they are ready to extend the right hand of fellowship to
all.