Recorded at the Vedanta Society of Western Washington on January 27, 2013.
In this talk, Swami Bhaskarananda explains how the emotional life of a human being can be redirected toward spiritual growth and, ultimately, the experience of God. Drawing on the Bhagavad Gita, he describes four kinds of devotees—those who turn to God in distress, those who seek worldly help such as wealth, those who inquire out of a desire to understand, and those who have developed an intellectual faith. He then examines emotion as a basic function of the mind and focuses especially on love, showing how the same emotional energy can appear as desire, anger, jealousy, or attachment depending on its object. By analyzing common forms of love—toward family, romance, friends, possessions, pets, and status—he argues that much of what we call love is rooted in self-interest, and therefore can be refined and transformed.
Swami Bhaskarananda presents devotion as the disciplined conversion of emotion into unselfishness, which he links with peace and closeness to God. He describes practical ways of directing feeling toward the Divine, including loving service to others, chanting the holy name, worship, prayer, and seeking the guidance of a competent teacher. He also outlines several classical attitudes of devotion—serene adoration, service, friendship, parent-child love, and pure romantic love—emphasizing that symbols and forms can help concentrate feeling without confusing the symbol with God. Even strong emotions such as hostility, he notes, can be redirected when they keep the mind absorbed in the Divine. The talk concludes by affirming that when emotions become purified and unselfish, they lead the mind toward deeper peace and awareness of inherent divinity.
