If devotion is innate for all of us, why does it seem alien to some?
Answer Podcast
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
if devotion is innate to us, why does it seem so alien for some people? That is because of impurities. See, there can be pure white light coming from, say, a bulb.
But, if that white light is covered by a red film, then the whole soothing white light can become jarring red. The light is the same, but based on the film around it, based on the covering around it, it can become very different. So, like that, the soul is originally pure.
The soul’s consciousness is pure, and based on that pure consciousness, devotion to God is natural. But, there is covering around it. That is the covering of our conditionings.
Just like a covering around a bulb can distort the colour of the bulb, colour of light coming from the bulb. Similarly, the coverings of our conditionings, they distort the original soul’s longing for God. And that longing gets misdirected towards other things in this world.
The same people who feel devotion to God is alien, they have devotion to something or the other. They may have devotion to some sports star, some movie star, some politician, or even if they are atheists, then they are devoted to the person whom they consider to be a champion atheist. So, what happens is that devotion is always there.
But, it is misdirected. Yeah, Kamesh Krodesh, they describe that. These are the coverings, Krishna says in Bhagavad Gita 3.37, that the coverings distort the pure longing of the soul.
So, what such people need is the association of those whose heart is directed towards Krishna. And that association can sometimes work intellectually, by some philosophical understanding, or it may work experientially. When they see that people who are devoted to God, you know, how joyful they are, how satisfied they are, how selfless they are.
And then, that can transform their hearts. So, in some cases, the conditioning may be so much that the soul may appear to be the opposite of what its original nature is. That is simply a result of conditioning, the covering around it.
But, that covering is removable. And that removal is the process of purification. And that is what Bhakti Yoga offers us.
Does it answer your question? Thank you very much.