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Lesson VII: Bhakti Yoga.367
childlike attitude, and is entirely unworthy of those who are reaching the
age of spiritual maturity. The developed man, on the contrary, recognizes
the relationship of all lovers of God—regardless of their conceptions—and
sees them as fellow travelers on the same road. The way to love God is to
Love Him instead of hating some fellow man.
The worship of a personal God, whether such worship be of a God of
the savage, or the personal God of the educated man, is all a form of Gauni
Bhakti. It is only when man drops off the “personal” idea of God that he
passes into the stage of Para Bhakti, and has an understanding of God in
His higher sense. Not that God is devoid of personality—He goes beyond
personality, not contrary to it. The Absolute may be loved as one loves a
father or mother—as one loves a child—as one loves a friend—as one loves
a lover. He includes in His being all the attributes calling for such forms of
love, and responds to each demand. In fact no demand for a return of love
is necessary between Man and God. Just as man steps out into the sunshine
and opens himself to its rays, so does the man who loves God step out in the
rays of the Divine Love and receive its benefit. The very act of loving God
opens up one to the Divine Love. If one feels the need of the protecting
love of the Father, all he need do is to open himself to such love. If one
needs the tender and sympathetic love of a mother, such love comes to
him if he but opens himself to its inflow. If one would love God as one does
a child, such love is open to him in the same way, and many who have felt
the need of such a bestowal of love, but who have feared the apparent
sacrilege of thinking of God as one does of a loved child, may find that
such a giving of love will ease many a heartache and pain, and will bring to
them the comforting response that comes from the answering pressure of
the loved child. The Western religions take no account of this last form of
love, but the religious Oriental knows it, and it is no uncommon thing to hear
a Hindu woman (using the poetical language of her race) speaking of herself
as a “Mother of God.” Startling as this may seem to the Western mind, it is
but a recognition on the part of these women of the fact that God supplies