A devotee’s question: What is a concrete sign that you are progressing in devotion? Should we look out for such signs or leave it all to Maharaj Ji and do what we can?
Sushree Gopeshwari Devi Ji’s answer: No, we should always look for the signs.
The milestone is within, as Shri Maharaj Ji always says. So, how far you are going, you yourself will be able to read that. So, number one, just like this question was, the negativities in our minds, all this competition in our minds, the jealousy, the anger, it will start to become less and less and less.
As you progress towards bhakti, number one part of the asatya buddhi, asatya means the false intellect, the egoistic intellect. There are four departments of the intellect: asatya buddhi, satya buddhi, ignorance, and ego. Satya buddhi is the right one, which leads you towards your goal of God realization. Asatya buddhi is the wrong one which leads us towards maya. So, we are all at this stage, of course, governed by our intellects, filled with ego, asatya buddhi.
So, the moment you start to progress in your bhakti in a proper manner, doing sadhana, you will start to become fearless, because fear is the first aspect of asatya buddhi. Fearlessness is the aspect of satya buddhi, and the fear that really terrifies each one of us is loss. The loss of this body, which is death, or the loss of those whom we are clinging tightly to, or the loss of the things that we are clinging tightly to.
“So, Didiji, if I continuously come to satsang every day of my life, then what will happen to my work? Then what will happen to my family? My family? my work?” It means ‘I’, the body, my, the physical relation. This feeling with all the fears attached to it will start to go weak. You will start to realize yourself to be the individual soul first, a compound of two - the mortal perishable body and the eternal soul.
नासतो विद्यते भावो नाभावो विद्यते सत: |
Nāsato vidyate bhāvo nābhāvo vidyate sataḥ.
- Gita 2.16
“Who I truly am was in existence, is in existence, and shall always remain to be in existence; it never comes to an end.”
That is the soul. It’s a very minute, subtle shakti of God. My true relationship is only with the source, with my one supreme Beloved. All these relations and families, be it parents, siblings, spouse, whatever, they'll all be gone one day. Either I'll die first, or they'll die first, or we don't die, and still it will be divorced and gone, but that relationship continues. Truth never comes to an end. It's eternal.
So with this realization, and with your strong, true sadhana to attain your goal, keeping your God and Guru always in your mind and heart, consciously feeling the presence all the time, and having a conscious awareness of God and Guru, of the Divine, you will become less and less and less fearful.
There was a time when I started just going into the elevator I'd be fear-stricken. And today I'll just press the button and go, and not wait for anyone else. So when you first do something, many times there is a fear. That fear goes very far, which we can't read (know). It's the fear of death. Fear of death is one fear which is so subtle, which we may not be able to read also, or the fear of losing something. So (with sadhana) that fear starts to become fearless. There still are fears, but it's not the fear of loss or the fear of death. There’s fear of breaking the rules and laws and principles of the Divine, of God and Guru. That you will always have when your satya buddhi starts to get awakened.
But this material kind of fear that we have like,
“Oh, I'll die one day?”
A lot of people have a lot of fear about this, or some may say, “I don't care, I want to die today.”
You do care, only you don't read it. You're so much in pain for some reason that you want to end this life, thinking that you will become free. Of course, you are going to bind yourself more strongly into this maya and into this fearful world, but the ignorant fool doesn't realize this.
So, as you practice your actual true sadhana sincerely and honestly. Then that sadhana bhakti will start to awaken your dormant Divine love seed, turning your asatya buddhi into satya buddhi, and your fears will become less. So you'll become fearless.
Secondly, there are the attachments. Because of the fear of losing there's attachment, a kind of holding on, be it with your body. Number one: it begins with your own body, yet we can't read it, and then everything or everyone related to this body we are also attached to. We are seeking that one aim of happiness thinking it will be attained from this world, because we think ourselves to be this material body, so we get attached to material worldly objects, individuals, situations.
So, asatya buddhi starts off with this fear, and then it grows stronger with this attachment now. The attachment is built because of that grip, the hold. Instead of getting the mind attached to God, now you're holding on to it (the world), gripping it here. “I'm alone. I'm very lonely.” This feeling is from the lack of your sadhana, the lack of your bhakti.
द्वा सुपर्णा सयुजा सखाया समानं वृक्षं परिषस्वजाते ।
Dvā suparṇā sayujā sakhāyā samānaṃ vṛikṣhaṃ pariṣhasvajāte.- Mundak Upanishad 3.1.1.
The Lord himself declares in the Vedas that you're never alone. He says it. We don't believe it. We don't practice sadhana bhakti, thus we don't experience (this truth), and thus we don't believe in His very presence. We want the physical presence of somebody. So we want company. We want to get married. We want to have children - all these desires, these wants. The subtle fear somewhere down inside there which is making you feel very lonely, very this, very that. Some try to drink, some try to do this, some try to do that. Ignorant fools, deluded in maya, becoming attached very badly in the wrong field will do anything and everything to get that happiness.
When your mind is attached (to God) fearlessly, then you are fearlessly living in this world, doing your sadhana, your bhakti. Fearlessly means your fears are becoming less and less and less. Your attachments of a material nature with your body, with this physical world, with this material world, will certainly become less and less and less as well. Now our minds will be attached to God, to Guru, to the Divine. This is known as bhakti, attachment of the same mind to the Divine is known as bhakti. Your bhakti will grow stronger. So instead of attachment in the material world, it will go towards the spiritual.
Third thing. As you keep progressing in your bhakti, you become more fearless, number one. You become more detached from the world and attached to God, number two. And number three is that ignorance (You can put ignorance first and attachment second as well.) that we have that ‘I am the body’. We don't realize the truth that ‘I am the soul’. The physical attachment (of the mind) comes from the ignorance of this.
So you can say fear, ignorance, attachment. And the final thing, the fourth thing of asatya buddhi, is ego. The very subtle thing - ego. We all dwell with ego. So when you do sadhana, your satya buddhi starts to get opened up and your asatya buddhi starts to disappear slowly, slowly. As your satya buddhi grows stronger and stronger, you become more fearless, you become more knowledgeable. The wisdom starts to come. The truth of who am I? Who is mine? And how do I attain that goal? And you start to get detached. And finally there’s humbleness. You become humble. Humbleness is the foundation of bhakti. Bhakti cannot begin without having a humble feeling.
