BHAKTI YOGA :5-9.

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9. Atma-Nivedana :

Atma-Nivedana  is self-surrender.

The devotee offers everything to God, including his body, mind and soul.

He keeps nothing for himself.

He loses even his own self.

He has no personal and independent existence.

He has given up his self for God.

He has become part and parcel of God.

God takes care of him and God treats him as Himself.

Grief and sorrow, pleasure and pain, the devotee treats as gifts sent by God and does not attach himself to them.

He considers himself as a puppet of God and an instrument in the hands of God.


This self-surrender is Absolute Love for God exclusively.

There is nothing but God-consciousness in the devotee.

Even against his own wishes, the devotee shall become one with God and lose his individuality.

This is the law of being.

The highest truth is Absoluteness and the soul rises above through different states of consciousness until it attains Absolute Perfection when it becomes identical with God.

This is the culmination of all aspiration and love.


The nine modes of Bhakti are the ways in which a devotee attains the Supreme Ideal of life.

A devotee can take up any of these paths and reach the highest state.

The path of Bhakti is the easiest of all and is not very much against the nature of human inclinations.

It slowly and gradually takes the individual to the Supreme without frustrating his human instincts.

It is not direct assertion of God, but a progressive realization of Him.

Next : FRUITS OF BHAKTI

Swami Sivananda
To be continued  ....




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