Action - Devotion

What is Devotion (Bhakti). How should be our devotion.

Now A days, I constantly hear from my friends that "Devotion should be in the heart not in action!!!" I wonder how nicely they got this escape tag line.

Listen up my friends, Is it possible that "You still work for your company, when employer says I am very much thankful to you, heartly I welcome your dedication and I pray for god to bless you without crediting single rupee to your bank account!!!???" "No Action, Full satisfaction". Can life be actionless???

No. So as devotion, Devotion is both action and a thought. Please don't escape by rendering your own taglines. Every task has its own physical and spiritual importance in our religion. Devotion too. Often Devotion is mistaken with prayer, prayer needs devotion but by itself it is not devotion.

How should be our devotion towards god?? Who is called a supreme devotee?

I like to quote a beautiful observation from Ramayana, Hanuman's devotion towards Rama. Every other scripts refers it as pure form of devotion. His dedication was unimaginable. After war has been won by Rama in Lanka, Rama express his thanks to everyone who helped him all along. While deciding on ultimate contributor to this mission, unanimously Hanuman's name comes up. Rama without hesitating asks hanuman to ask for anything he wants!!! Anything.

Now understand the weight of that boon. The giver is lord Rama, capable of giving anything and everyting. Omnipotent. Seriously, If I would have been there in place of hanuman, might have asked for a newly built 60 X 40 house in Jayanagar Bangalore. ;-) . But it was Hanumantha, Jeevotthama. (clever than anyone else) Instead of asking Owner's property he asked for owner himself. He says,

 || ಪ್ರವರ್ಧತಾಂ  ಭಕ್ತಿರಲಂ  ಕ್ಷಣೆ ಕ್ಷಣೆ  ತ್ವಈಶ  ಮೇ  ಹ್ರಾಸವಿವರ್ಜಿತಾ  ಸದಾ ||

"I need nothing than you!!! just Put in me some more devotion towards you so that I can praise you, serve you even more, forever".

What a classy answer, actually for the service he provided to Rama he could have demanded anything, but he just begs in front of supreme and he knows because of extreme devotion towards him made all this possible, only I can ask is some more of it.

But our devotion is name sake, We get everything but behave like employer in the example. Just praise not serve.

When situation comes where we enjoy the fruitful result of our efforts, somewhere we forget how this fruitfulness is achieved and sell out our valuable efforts to cheap attractive things. Finally nothing left behind than to realize.

See, in case of hanuman there was action (of serving god, destroying demons, bringing godess sita back home) and a thought (Need nothing in return, its just for your pleasure) to impress god. Devotion is an act of impressing the supreme being with our thoughts and service.

Escaping statements can make you smarter but service make you impressive.

So Actionnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for reading... :-)